Howdy, happy October!

The 2010 FiddleSong Scarecrow

Ten Goat Challenge

Admittedly, I don’t have a perfect set up yet for my does. My barn design needs some work. I have four good sized stalls that have doors, and I usually allow everyone to comingle. But sometimes, there are issues with the critters. Here is a good example of this problem:
Monday evening I arrived home after a HECK-ISH day at work around 6:00. It was already getting dark, and Rick had already had his dinner, so I decided to feed my stock before eating my meal. I turned on the big yard light, and the lights came on inside the barn.

I have seven does and three kids and one wether in this barn. (Yes, I know, I can count too, and that equals eleven. I’ll get to that.) I had put a can full of grain into a bucket up by the hay barn, so the three kids could “help” me feed. I let them out of their barn and they will follow me around until they get to the bucket, then all three are wrestling each other for the grain. This usually keeps them busy for a few minutes, but this Monday HAD to be different. I was tired and cranky, my head hurt, and I was hungry so I had very little patience.
Mistake one --I tried to carry two flakes of hay at once. When I pushed open the door to the barn, Whimsy dove under my second flake of hay and escaped. Crap. OK, it’s just Whimsy, I thought, she is easy to catch. So I entered the barn, dumping my armloads of hay into the feeders.
Mistake two—never trust a sneaky kid. Those three kids have learned how to push open the barn door from the outside to follow me into the barn. MONDAY, the littlest kid, Angel, ran up and pushed open the barn door and held it open for the other goats to escape.
Mistake three—I left the sneaky kid out, while I attempted to force the does back into the barn. Every time I would catch and drag two does into the barn, SNEAKY (I am changing her name) would open the door again and let them out. I really think she thought it was funny! By the time I caught on I was tired and cranky, my head hurt, and I was hungry so I had very little patience AND exhausted—BUT I was laughing so hard that they were all gathered around me looking at me like “SEE don’t you feel better?”

That is when I looked around and saw that Cooper, the yearling wether, was the ONLY good goat in the herd. There he was calmly munching on his hay, oblivious to the antics happening just outside the barn. I started laughing again!  When I came to my senses, I propped the barn door open, walked in with the cookie jar and politely fed Cooper cookies until EVERYONE was inside the barn begging for a cookie :)

"HA! I am smarter than TEN goats!"

Buck Poor...

I am buck poor. How many bucks make you “buck poor”, you ask? Four, which are three too many.

My favorite by far, Fiddler is the father of all kids born on this farm and is such a sweet and happy little guy. He is so lovable, he likes to snuggle. He never complains, he has a soft voice, no HORNS, but his three sons are quite a different story.

Nutty is the “singer” of the group. His love songs can be heard to Calaveras County. “WAAAAA, waaaaa, waaaa, WWWWWAAAAAA, waaa!!!!! He is quite melodious and has looooong curvy horns! He has never poked me on purpose, but he sometimes forgets that his horns stick out like RV mirrors.

Chocolate Brownie is quite a hunk—he thinks. His long, silky brown coat has touches of red in it. Brownie was a bottle fed baby, so he is gentle and friendly. BIG horns.

FiddleSong Cowboy is Brownie’s full brother. He is mostly black with a brown saddle. He looks like Mariposa, his maternal grandmother, who is an award winning member of the Rosasharn herd. Cowboy is very sweet, and when he was small he would stand up on his hind legs and wiggle his lips for me to give him a kiss. I don’t let him do that anymore, he pees on his own face. BIG horns. He is a nice looking little guy.

About HORNS-We don't want them, we don't like them. The goats learn quickly to use them to get their way. But there is a learning curve to disbudding. We are learning, but have not done it right yet. On the positive side, we have mountain lions in our woods, and coyotes. So good luck trying to make a meal of one of these tough little guys! The horns also make convenient handles :)

ALL of these bucks want to be THE HERD SIRE. They don’t care what kinds of does they are. They love to eat brush, but enjoy alfalfa and a handful of “incentive” goat chow in the morning.(Incentive~moves them where I want them to be without the application of the herding broom to their respective butts.) They don’t mind having their hooves trimmed, or being wormed, or even getting their shots. They would make good weedeaters, too.
 
Need a buck?

The new hay barn

Hay Barn with Chicken Annex

OK, I have to boast about my husband again.  Rick is smart and funny AND has "EBS"~ extra-ordinary building skills. Today he completed the "hay barn with chicken annex." The windows are covered with screening, so they may be left open in warm weather, but they have shutters, that close up when it gets cool or wet. It has cool, recycled galvanized metal siding, and the chicken entrance has an engineered hardware locking mechanism that can be used from the inside or outside.

View from inside Chicken annex

This view shows the chicken door and the wooden shutter that lifts up and covers the screened window.

"Say goodbye to the big blue tarp,"  he said. He worked so hard on that little building! Tomorrow I will put the nesting box and perches in, so the flock can move in :)

Yesterday was vet day for Sheila and Tilly. I got up early, brushed them both well (I should have brushed their teeth :/ ) borrowed a couple of goat collars from Whimsy and Hummingbird, loaded them up and took them into Jackson. This was their first visit to our new vet, so I wasn't sure how easy it was going to be. The last time we visited the old vet, they were scared to death. 

They are farm dogs, you know, they don't know what town manners are.

They were both perfect dog angels, I couldn't believe it! They liked the vet, they ignored the other dogs, were friendly to the people, didn't pull me or have to be dragged. They behaved themselves. The vet is a young man and they liked him. He gave them treats before they got their shots. A cute moment was when Sheila was finished getting her exam and it was Tilly's turn.  She stood right in front of her and gave her a little lick of reassurance.  AWWWW! I was SO proud. (I would have paid extra for that.) After the visit, we went through the McDonald's drive through and got a large order of fries. We all enjoyed them on our way home!

Tilly loves the cushions! Before she relaxes, she has to "Scruff Around" to get comfortable.

"Good, GOOD dogs!"

Finding the Balance

Houdini

It would be interesting to take a poll to see how many of those small 'farmers' out there have to hold down a full time job to pay the mortgage. I do. I am a creative and hard working 50+ year old woman. My job pays well and includes excellent benefits. I work 40-45 hours a week. Add another 8 hours for commute time, semi-weekly trips to The Feed Barn, before or after work, or on weekends if the weather is not cooperative. I get up around 6 am. I have one cup of coffee, feed the cats, prepare formula and feed my kids, milk a doe or two, feed them, and send them to their appropriate places for the day. Loose the chickens after their night of confinement. SOMETIMES I have time for a ½ hour of exercise before my shower and preparations for work. Breakfast? I take that to the office to eat. I arrive home around 6 pm. That leaves just enough time in the evenings to prepare a healthy meal for Rick and me, clean up (maybe), and head to the barn. I have to bottle feed kids, milk one or two does, give the does hay and fresh water and separate them for the night. The bucks need to be brought in from the wooded hill, separated, given hay and fresh water, and locked up in their barn for the night. I have a "herding broom."  It is an old corn broom with a sturdy handle that is used very effectively as a tool to herd goats. They don't like the broom, so on occasion, they try to eat the straw at the end. It is about half eaten now, but it still works :) I also have to round up the chickens, making sure they are all accounted for. Bribery helps, here. If I am lucky (and organized) it is now around 7:30 pm. Just enough time to feed Lucy the Pig, the three dogs, the barn cats, and oh no, do some watering! Our summers are hot and dry here, so watering is essential. We intend to install an automatic watering system to help us with this chore, but it is pretty far down the list of “Things To Do.” Sometimes I am watering until darkness falls. GOD FORBID we should have an illness or injury to address. Weekends are for catch up chores~ weeding the veggie garden, cleaning the barn, CLEANING THE HOUSE, trimming hooves~we do those when time allows.


So how do I find balance in this chaos? How do I find time to prune the roses, say nothing about smelling them? I have learned to love my routine. I enjoy relaxing while holding formula bottles for two hungry kids. Their hungry cries of greeting “MAAAA!” make me smile instead of aggravating me. Goats are sociable creatures, not too demanding, and will tolerate some deviation from their routine. When I am busy at work, I can’t think about the farm. As soon as I am in my truck, I stop thinking about work, it’s all about the farm then. When I am rounding up those crazy chickens for the night, it is certainly comical, and I laugh while chasing down Houdini the Rooster. He is the Rooster. In his chicken mind, he should wait until all the hens have returned to their hen house before he enters. However, he is not able to count, so he doesn’t know that the last barred rock has already entered, or that Red Hen was the first to arrive. So when I have counted beaks, it is TIME for him to come in. He requires persuading. I think he enjoys the ritual as much as I do.  He is a sweet rooster, and never gives me any trouble, never flogs me or acts aggressively in any way.  He has three inch spurs.

"Don't make me get the broom..."

Whimsy milk...

"GRRRR!"

Milking a doe can be a huge commitment of time and energy. I have been letting Zipporah nurse her doeling, since I am spending quite a bit of time feeding her other two kids for her, but it is time to begin weaning them. I am going to start weaning Friday, and will be milking Zipporah. But Whimsy’s story is a little different.

Whimsy delivered her two kids in spring of 2009. Her daughter, Peanut, is 18 months old now. Normally a doe will wean her own kids naturally and dry off. Not Whimsy, she has to be unique. Special, you might say. An overachiever. Peanut is TWICE her size and extremely chubby, because Whimsy is still feeding her. I did not realize she was still carrying milk until I noticed that Peanut seemed to be on the OBESE side. Whimsy seemed too scrawny to me, and just didn’t look very healthy. Whimsy has always been on the thin side and tends to have chronic skin problems. She also has a pretty thick coat, which hides some problems. A few weeks ago, while I had her on the milk stand trimming her little hooves, I gave her a good examination. “What is this”, I say to her, “Whimsy, you still have milk?” AH HA! Then the obese daughter makes TOTAL sense. I treated her skin with some of my herbal eucalyptus oil, and it worked like a charm. I separated Whimsy from her daughter and started milking her, to try to dry her off. Whimsy HATES being milked. She detests it. It is inappropriate touching, and she KICKS! I have a sign on my office wall that says “I am more patient than a goat is stubborn.” I have to be to milk this little tiger. I thought, "OK, the more I milk her, the more she will get used to it, the less she will kick, struggle, try to climb out of her milk stand, put her foot in the milk bucket"….NO. I can’t get her to accept milking. I have other does that do not object to milking, and I KNOW I am gentle, not hurting her.

Here’s the terrible part: Whimsy has the creamiest, most delicious milk! For a tiny doe, she puts out a quart a day IF you can get her to stand still for it. I will not give up!

“I am more patient than a goat is stubborn.”

Birthday gifts

May 29th, 2010. Inspirations Zipporah presented me with three fine new kids~

The first one is a sweet doeling who looks just like Mama~

The second is the white buckling, and the third is a tiny black doeling with a white angel on her brow~

This is their story~

This weekend I spend some quality time in the barn. On Saturday morning, I noticed my doe Zipporah was more talkative than usual and seemed to want to follow me around. I knew she was getting close to kidding, so I decided I had better keep a close eye on her. I passed the morning cleaning up her stall, so that we would have a clean, comfy place to have her babies. It was a big job, but I had plenty of clean fresh straw to lay down when it was finally clean. The sun was bright and warm, and I checked on her every half hour during the day, while I weeded and puttered in the garden.

The trick to watching a doe who is getting ready to kid, is to be able to check on her without her realizing it. It isn't too hard to fool a goat, you just have to pretend you are doing something else. The reason for this insincere behavior is simple: some does can and WILL postpone their delivery until you are not watching. Since Zip's first kidding resulted in a dead kid, I needed to be on hand this time in case she had trouble. (I am still relatively new to this business of raising dairy goats. I don't like to leave too much to chance.)

By 9 pm, I was certain Zip was going to deliver during the night ahead, so I began to assemble my goat labor supplies. I put on my warmest grubs, got my flashlight, put my hair up, put my book in one pocket, a bottle of water in another, got my goat delivery bucket and headed to the barn. With our nice clean straw and the other does locked away, we settled down to wait. It was just me, waiting for a treasured animal to give birth. I was willing to do anything to help her, and she trusted me.

She started to push. She got up and down countless times and paced back and forth. At about 10:30, something shifted and we got down to business! When the first kid started coming, Zip began to scream! THAT was a little unnerving. The kid was very large and the right leg was folded back, making the shoulders awkward to pass through the birth canal. The left leg and head were coming through, so I had something to grasp. With a little pulling from me, the big kid was finally delivered, and Zip's screams turned to little bleats of delight. Goats love their kids, too. Talk, talk, lick, lick, lick, she cleaned and encouraged that baby. The kid seemed healthy and vigorous, and looked just like Zip. I grabbed the first towel and began wiping her down. After about a minute, Zip said "unh" and another kid popped right out! Zip didn't seem to notice and kept cleaning her first kid, so I grabbed towel number two and started cleaning up the second kid. BOY! I was going to name him "Slimy." I noticed right away that he was a buckling, and he looked just like his daddy. Mostly white with black accents, he was about half the size of kid one. I hadn't had time to look at the sex of the first kid, so just as I was turning it over to peek, "Splat!" out popped kid three! WOW! Now I was hopping! I put the buckling under Zip's nose, so she could finish cleaning him. I had to sure kid three was breathing. It was a perfect tiny doeling, coal black with marshmallow swirls. She was very small and weak, so I had to really work with her to make sure she was OK. Kid two seemed to be fine, although he too, was much smaller than kid one. I looked over and kid one was already standing up looking for her first meal!

I took the tiny doeling into the house to blow her dry and warm her up. I warmed some colostrum from the freezer, put it in a tiny baby bottle, and fed her a few teaspoons of the warm liquid. Then I took her back to bond with her mother. She seemed to be perking up and getting stronger, so I knew I could head in and get some sleep. It was 2 am. and I was thrilled--Jenna would have been proud!

My herd is growing:)