You've Got To Be Kidding

Siobhán and Alan from Dottie and Dora spoke to Discover Duhallow about their venture, their products, and of course, their goats!

Who are Dottie and Dora?

Dottie and Dora, is a small artisan food production business based in Donoughmore, operated by Siobhán Ring and Alan Twomey. We are essentially a micro dairy goat farm which manufactures and sells the dairy produce from our goats; to date, these include pasteurised milk, soft cheeses (in three flavours), as well as our goat milk soap (in two varieties, one of which also uses our honey). We launched our products locally in July of this year. To our knowledge, there is no one in the Duhallow area offering fresh pasteurised dairy products from the farm, for either goats or cows.

Why goats?

Why not! We always loved goats, they’re so intelligent, inquisitive, and downright cheeky. They’re also a really nice animal to work with. From a business perspective they require lower investment per unit relative to their bovine counterparts, they need a small land base, and they’re quite efficient (i.e., they produce their own weight in milk solids). They’re also not that common (only ~9,000

in Ireland) and we do love a challenge. And challenges there are plenty; unlike with other farming enterprises such as milking cows, you can’t just sell to the local co-op. If you’re milking goats in Cork, you pretty much have to do everything yourself from milking the goats, to meeting Department regulation, to marketing, to delivering orders etc.

What was the inspiration?

We both grew up in farming families, and always loved animals. We both studied agriculture in college and pursued a career in the agriculture sector. But we’ve always wanted to work directly with animals and to make a living from farming ourselves. About 10 years ago, we purchased two pet goats, and we never looked back. Last year, we purchased 12 kids of a milking breed, which Siobhán and her mother Joan hand reared from just a few days old. Those kids are now fully grown and producing milk on our farm.

Goats are not for the faint hearted though, they’ll absolutely test you. If you want your fencing boundaries checked, they’ll certainly test it for you!

What does a day in your life look like?

We typically get up around 5.30am. Alan usually goes straight to the milking parlour, while Siobhán tends to get going in the manufacturing room. The goats are milked, and put out to graze fresh grass. The milk is transported to our manufacturing room, where it is firstly filtered to remove impurities. We then pasteurise the milk and depending on orders for the day, we’ll either bottle the milk or begin the cheese making process. All of this is done before 8 am, when we head off to our day jobs. At least two mornings a week, we take the orders with us to some of the shops we supply. In the evening time, we head back into the manufacturing room, we’ve more work to do along the cheese making process (cut the curds, or packaging).

We also organise our deliveries for the week, do our local delivery route on a Thursday evening and catch up on the various jobs needed to be done around the farm. In between all that, we make sure we have chat with our amazing goats as they are the most important part. It’s a long day, every day, but we love it!

Do you name the goats?

Of course, our goats are part of the family so they’re all named. The name of our business originates from our first two female goats, Dottie and Dora. Some of their names include:

• Blue: when she was purchased she was a sick little kid and had a blue mark. She really came a pure pet as she was individually bottle fed for about 3 weeks a few times a day before she got going, and now she one of the strongest girls in the herd.

• Líne: as gaeilge for line – as a kid she was snow white with a single black striped line down her vertebrae, so we looked for a name to represent this. She’s completely unrecognisable today though; she’s now multicoloured!

• Gretal: more commonly known as our ‘Unicorn’ because she has one single horn on her head.

• Rebel: as you guessed was a very rebellious kid, hence the name.

• Belle: She has such a pretty face, so we took inspiration from the French word ‘Belle’ meaning beautiful.

What recipes do you recommend with any of the products?

It’s probably best to tell you how our customers enjoy our products; they tell us they enjoy our milk with cereal, a cup of tea or a coffee. While for our cheese products, we’ve heard people like to mix of cheese with some pasta, top it on a sandwich, pop it on a pizza, mash it in with some spuds or give it a drizzle of honey and eat wit some crackers. We have the mention the amazing things Yumm Café in Kanturk have done with our products though; not only do they offer our goat milk for their coffees but they’ve also created a French toast with our Goats cheese, it looks divine. We haven’t tried it yet, but we’ve heard plenty of positive feedback.

How is the soap made?

We use the traditional cold process method of soap making. After weighing all our ingredients, we melt our oils (coconut oil, shea butter and cocoa butter), and allow them to cool. The cooled melted oils are combined with our liquid oils (olive, sweet almond and castor oil). In a separate jug, we prepare the lye solution with our frozen goat milk; this is the part that triggers the chemical reaction which turns the oils into soap via a process called saponification. The lye mixture is added to the oils and gently stick blended until the mixture forms a consistency like cake batter. Our mixture is then poured into soap moulds and allowed to rest in a cool place overnight. The soaps are removed from the moulds, stamped and allowed ‘cure’ for six weeks before we pack the soap and sell. We sell that in the local shops as well on our website www. dottieanddora.ie. While it might seem relatively simple, accuracy in measurement, temperature, and technique are critical to ensure we end up with a quality soap bar. We intentionally don’t use any artificial fragrances, synthetic dyes, sulfates, or parabens because as an eczema sufferer, Siobhán understands how all these unnecessary additions cause skin irritation.

What were the learning curves for you?

Where do we start on our learning curves, the phrase every day is a school day has certainly been true for the year. There are periods where you think you are just getting on top of all the challenges, there is a whole new set around the corner. Every step has been new to from cheese making to marketing and the skills we had in cattle are not as transferable to goats as we thought. There is very little known about national goats! So lot of research, talk to as many experts as we can and trial and error has solve lot of our issues to date. Obviously, we have to thank our families and friends, who –although they think we are mad –have been very helpful.

What are your goals for the coming year?

Our main goal is to continue to produce quality products from our goat milk and expand our offering locally.

At present, our products are available to buy in both shops in Donoughmore (Jamesies and Peg’s), at the Quay Co-op (Sullivan’s Quay, Cork), at the Cheese Shop (Tralee); you can also taste our produce as part of Yumm Café range (in Kanturk).

Find Dottie and Dora online on

Facebook: @dottie.and.dora

Instagram: @dottie.and.dora

Website: www.dottieanddora.ie