Hometown: Lebanon, Mo.
Family: Sons, Joshua McCabe (16) and Levi Jackson (11); mother, Lisa Judy-Walker; grandfather David Judy; and significant other, Daniel Chapin
In Town: Jess is the circulation manager for the Laclede County Record in Lebanon, Mo.
“I manage all of the newspapers coming in and going out,” she said. “I also manage all of the subscriptions and dealer racks, where people pick up the paper at a location in town.”
In the Country: Jess and her family live on a small farm near Lebanon, Mo.
“I started with two goats, then someone had to get rid of two, and I have a hard time saying no, especially when it comes to animals,” she explained. The buck is a Myotonic or fainting goat, and the three does are dairy and meat crosses.
“We really didn’t want to start with dairy goats,” Jess said. “We we want meat to stock the freezer and to sell other (goat) kids for meat.”
Jess plans to breed her does for late-March kidding to avoid cold-weather.
Jess and Daniel recently extended their pasture and may add other small animals.
“We have just under 3 acres, so we want to keep things as small as possible,” she said. “We would like to get a couple of pigs and maybe some miniature cows, just enough to keep our family fed.”
Jess tries to follow a grass-fed methodology, but does offer some grain. “When they are pregnant or are milking, we will give them more feed, but we want to keep things as cheap as possible; they have a lot to eat right now since we just expanded the pasture.”
Goat production is new to Jess and her family, but she is no stranger to agriculture.
“I was heavily involved in FFA in high school,” she explained. “I raised and showed two steers, and I also had a Beefmaster and a Charolais heifer I showed in breeding classes, so I’ve been dipping my toes in agriculture.”
She said her time in high school agriculture classes taught her how to do many things, such as banding buck kids and giving vaccines, but she and Daniel did a lot of research before getting into goat production.
“We talked about it for three or four months before we even got the goats,” Jess said. “He said he wanted to be prepared for anything. I went down the rabbit hole and learned as much as possible, but you can never learn too much about goats. After I learn what I can, I dump it on him, and he’s like, OK; he’s my partner in crime.”
