Tiannan Woods Ranch: Goat milk with a side of Bento
Think goat herding. Its scrubby bucolic landscape and bleating voices seem far removed from the glow of a monitor and the whirr of a hard drive. But for Wendy and Billy Lee, owners of Tiannan Woods goat ranch in Tennessee, the two worlds are intertwined. “There’s a lot to keep track of on a ranch and I wouldn’t be able to do it all without my Mac and Bento,” says Wendy Lee. “I use Bento to keep track of the goats in my herd, who their parents are, what they look like, all their registration information. It’s a great solution and works much better than any other database application I’ve tried.”
From Milk to Meat
It all started with a common milk allergy. ”My daughter is allergic to cow’s milk, so my husband and I purchased a few goats for their milk,“ says Wendy Lee. Fortunately, the family already occupied 25 acres of rolling ranch land in Philadelphia, Tennessee, so the goats felt right at home. Milk flowed and the family enjoyed ranching so much they decided to turn it into a full-blown business. Neither had ranching in their blood. Wendy Lee worked as a graphic designer and although she studied science and biology in college, didn’t have extensive experience with livestock. Still, the couple purchased a buck and began, well, making more goats.
”We realized that we have a large population in Tennessee that eats goats,“ says Wendy Lee. ”They want goat meat, but it’s not available commercially yet. So they have to go to small farmers. We saw a niche and decided to fill it. We kept our milk goats, but we decided to breed more goats for meat.“
Tiannan Woods ranch was born and the Lees’ herd grew. Today they have a productive herd of about 18 milk and meat goats. And with that herd comes some serious record keeping. ”We’re required to register our breeding animals and at least number every kid that gets born. You also need to keep track of weights and condition and other details,“ says Wendy Lee. ”You end up with a lot of information that needs to be stored and sorted.“
Choosing a platform and application to organize all that information was pretty straightforward. ”I’m a trained graphic designer and I’m very familiar with the Mac,“ says Wendy Lee. ”When my husband got me an iMac for Christmas, it came with a trial of Bento. I decided to give it a try and really fell in love it it. It turned out to be the perfect solution for us.“
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