Ben, as regular readers know, is an adventuresome gourmand. I am always pretty organized in my grocery expeditions, but when I spotted frozen “bone-in goat cubes” in the same case where I usually find sausage, I decided that Ben might like to try some Jamaican fare. I threw it in the shopping cart, along with some jerk seasoning, and everything needed for my regularly scheduled meal program.
When I got to the check-out lane, the guy at the cash register noted my purchases and asked if I was making Jamaican food. When I replied that it was kind of an impulse buy (as, no doubt, so many purchasers of bone-in goat cubes must admit) he recommended that I save the jerk seasoning for chicken, and make curried goat. “But it’s not like beef,” he warned. “Low and slow, or it will get tough. There’s nothing better than good goat, but bad goat…” his voice trailed off, leaving me to guess at the goat atrocities he had known.
It isn’t often I take unsolicited culinary advice from Wegman’s cashiers, but this guy seemed to really know his goat, so I did a little research when I got home, and it all checked out. We paired our goat curry with Caribbean rice and beans, and listened to Bob Marley while we cooked.
We adjusted this goat recipe to be done in the crockpot (two hours on high heat, add quartered potatoes, and 4 hours on low.) Since the produce section at Wegmans looks pretty raggedy at 7:30 on a Sunday morning, there were no fresh hot peppers available, so we used a couple shishito peppers. It is probably for the best, as I understand Scotch bonnet peppers will melt your face off.
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NOTE: If you have heard people refer to some worms as 'encysted worms' this is when they are in the 'arrested development' stage. Lying dormant in the body not causing any damage to the host until they are signaled to 'come alive' and continue development, sometimes in very in large numbers.Doing your own fecals at home is easy and you have the advantage of not having to send or take the fecal to the vet each time you wish to check your goats for worm load.
A Few Important Points:
1. The most important thing about preparing to do your own fecals is to make sure the solution you make is correct. If it is too weak, the eggs will not float to the top and you will not get a proper reading.. the egg count will be too low-if at all.
2. While this is not a pleasant topic; you can take a fecal sample from a dead goat. This is important to know if you have lost a goat and wondered if it was from coccidia or wormload. You will have to reach up inside the rectum to obtain the fecal sample, using either a gloved finger or a Popsicle stick.
3. Do not be tempted to get a microscope with high power- you don;t need it and honestly you will not be able to see what you need to see with it