Another New Arrival

I went down to milk this morning and found another new baby! Kind of a funny story....he was laying by the door of the barn by himself, he was red, dry as a bone, and HUGE, so my first words were "GREAT, Cry Baby's buckling has got out!" So I picked him up and noticed he was a lighter shade of red and then Birdie started taking a fit, I set him down, and he started nursing from Birdie. I stood and scratched my head for a minute because the situation just didn't want to sink in.

Needless to say, Birdie has a huge, baby boy who is half Boer and half Oberhasli. I'm guessing he weighs a good 12 pounds and since he's a single, he'll grow like a week.

Yes This Is My Bed, You Got A Problem With It?

Little Miss Chatty Kathy (Chatty) has only been on my farm for a few weeks. She's a LaMancha/Nubian cross and thinks the world revolves around her and her needs. She constantly talks (screams) when you're outside. Her motto is: If you're outside, it's time to feed me!

Well, apparently, she has to have her own special bed too. My nephew moved an aluminum tub into the barn when we first got the kittens. We kept them in it with a top over it until they got used to us before we let them out. Then they figured out they could jump and grasp the side with their tiny claws and that was it for keeping them put up. So we turned the kitties lose and they are loving barn life, but we failed to remove the tub. Therefore, Chatty assumed it was for her and now she makes it her bed every night. When I go down at 6am to milk she raises up and asks "am I having breakfast in bed this morning?" Of course my answer is always, "keep dreaming girl!" She continues to lay in the tub until I'm finished milking then she knows my next step is to feed the bottle kids. At this point, she rises, stretches, and jumps out of the tub to start her long day of grazing and lounging around. Then she starts the loud, unbearable, make you want to pull your hair out, and possibly her tongue, screaming for food. You would think she hadn't had a bite to eat since she was weaned two years ago! So, I have to relent and bow down to the queen and at her request, give all the goats a little morning grain. I'm pretty sure that if I failed to give her grain one morning that she would scream all day long and my neighbors would have me burned at the stake.

Year of the Bottle Kids

On February 15, 2011, my husband (Keith) called me at work in a panic. He was on his way to Co Op and saw that one of our Nubian does had kidded. He stopped the truck and went into the barn to find one beautiful spotted buck kid already dead, a spotted doe kid barely alive, a black and white buck kid that was laying down but doing better than the doe, and then a light tan buck kid behind the barn nearly frozen. He quickly gathered up the kids and put them in the floor board of his truck and blasted the heat in hopes of warming them up. He called and told me to get home ASAP, but I couldn't leave until my boss got back which was about 30 minutes later. Luckily, I only work 2 miles from home so it was a quick trip, well, maybe a little quicker than usual...lol. When I got home, my husband had already put the kids in the house in front of a radiator type heater we have in the kitchen and had put a heating pad on them. They looked so lifeless.




Fawna & Ranger getting warmed up


Remington warming up

We went to the barn and milked some colostrum out of their mama so I could tube feed it to them. I started with the weekest kid, Fawna (check out those spots), she didn't fight the tube at all and I really didn't expect her to make it through the night. Next, I tubed Ranger (the one who was found behind the barn), he too didn't fight and didn't stand a chance in my opinion. And lastly, I tubed, well, tried to tube Remington. He was apparently the last kid born because he was doing much better than the other two and when I tried to stick the tube down his throat he tried sucking on my finger so I decided to try a bottle on him. He took it immediately and with gusto! After feeding each kid, we covered them with blankets and the heating pad and I laid on the kitchen floor so that I could keep a close eye on them and make sure they didn't get too hot. Two hours later I tubed Fawna and Ranger again and bottle fed Remington. This time I saw some hope in the kids.



After the second feeding all three kids were standing, but still weak...

The kids got warm.had a couple of feedings, and started coming around. We didn't want to take them back to barn because they were still fragile looking and it was really cold, so we fixed them a bed in an old laundry basket. I knew that their mother wouldn't take them back but we decided to try the next day. We milked her again when we went out to do the evening feeding and got enough colostrum/milk to do the rest of the night. I slept on the couch and woke up every few hours to check on and feed the kids and the next day, just as I suspected, their mama wouldn't have anything to do with them. Thus, they became bottle babies. Normally, we don't keep bottle kids because it just costs too much to raise them and the time required is just something we don't have, so we usually give them to Keith's uncle who is very experienced in raising bottle babies of all kinds. But, these kids had me wrapped and adjustments had to be made. I slept on the couch and took care of them through the night, but they usually slept all night long so it was no big deal. Then I gave them a bottle in the morning and Keith was laid off at the time so he gave them a bottle at lunch time, and when I got home from work I took care of the rest of the feedings.





We ended up moving them outside when they were three days old. We put them in our goat trailer that is completely enclosed except for the front. We hung a red heat lamp for them and put a heavy tarp over the front to keep them good and warm. They didn't seem to mind it all as long as the bottles kept showing up. Unfortunately, Ranger started showing signs of Joint Ill/Navel Ill when he was two days old. I started treated with Nuflor on him, but he died at four days old. It broke my heart to lose that little guy after all he had been through, but I was comforted by the thought that at least he wasn't in pain anymore.

Fawna and Remington continued to grow like weeds and get more and more spoiled everyday and I was thrilled with their progress. I thought two kids were hard enough to bottle feed along with everything else I have to do daily, but then I added a third bottle kid! A friend of Keith's had a Nubian doe with triplets and she wasn't producing enough milk to take care of them, so he called and asked if I'd take one of them. Like there was any doubt I was going to go look at this kid and not bring it home with me....lol. Anyway, I added a third bottle kid and she did just fine with the other two. There was only a week difference in their birthing so they just thought she was a long lost sister I guess. She had never had a bottle but I guess she was hungry because all I had to do was gently pry her mouth open, stick the bottle in, and as soon as she tasted the milk she guzzled four ounces of milk in about four seconds!



Now, you must be thinking, she's got to be crazy to take in another kid to feed, but hold that thought....

At two and a half months old, they were almost ready to wean, eating grain and hay, drinking water, and doing amazing, and I did the unthinkable......I added a fourth bottle kid!!! Am I out of my mind? Na....well, maybe a little. I purchased a six week old LaMancha buckling that I knew was a bottle kid. I don't regret it one bit either. He is the sweetest, most precious goat I have ever been around. And since he was born on April Fool's Day, my best friend Lynn came up with the perfect name, meet Jester.



I can say it has definitely been an experience and a lot of work, but I'd do it again in a heartbeat! All four kids are doing great. I have started giving them only eight ounces of milk twice a day as they turned three months old this week, so I will be weaning them very soon. Of course Jester will have to continue on the bottle for a few more weeks and I'm sure the other kids are not going to be happy, but they'll get over it eventually. Oh, and in case you are wondering, I didn't have to spend a fortune raising these bottle kids. I was lucky enough to have a LaMancha whose kids I had just sold. She has been giving me a little over a gallon of milk per day since March.

Here are the kids at two and a half months old.....

In Training

Two weeks ago I brought three kittens home. A customer came into the store where I work and he said he was going to take them to the animal shelter, but I said "no way!" I have volunteered for our local shelter and know first hand that if an animal is brought in as an owner surrender and the shelter is full then the animal is immediately euthanized!

I love all animals, but I'm more of a dog person than cat person so I wasn't sure how this was going to work out. I made the kittens a little pen in the barn in hopes that they would like the place and want to stick around and hopefully become good "mousers." I give them fresh goat milk every morning and goat milk and kitten chow in the evenings and apparently that has done the trick. They love the barn and are now out of their pen and so far are sticking around. They are, of course, into everything, but kittens are curious creatures, so what can you expect.

The goats seem to like, or at least tolerate the kittens and even the dogs are okay with them, so now they just need to learn how to kill mice. I've never been around a barn that didn't have mice unless there was a good cat around, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

As for names.....we have Sox, Midnite, and Stripes (or Cuddles as my niece calls him/her). The funny thing is I have been around just about every kind of animal known to man all my life, but still, at 33 years old, I cannot tell the sex of a cat until it reaches maturity, hence the names which are gender friendly. They will be making a trip to my vet soon for a little surgery, so I guess he will tell me whether I'm paying for a spay or a neuter....lol.

I've heard the grass is greener on the other side but.....

I've heard the grass is always greener on the other side, but this is a whole other story.

Meet Coco, she is a three month old Oberhasli who, since the day she was born, has been ruling the roost of my dairy goat pasture. She really thinks it's all about her, no matter what "it" might happen to be.

My husband Keith recently put a roll of hay in the pasture, it was left over from the winter and needed to be used up so we could get ready for the fresh hay so we just left it in the middle of the field. The goats can nibble on it as they please, but this time of year they seem to prefer the greener roughage. Anyway, Coco chose to use this roll of hay as her ladder to reach the nice, juicy, green leaves of a tree. I only had my cell phone with me and couldn't get a real good picture, but I think you can tell what she's trying to do. She was hilarious, she would stretch her neck as far as she could then fall off, hop right back on, stand up on her hind legs, and fall off again. This continued for about 30 minutes until she realized I was laughing at her at which point she demanded that I pet her and give her grain which I obediently did to please her.

My goats are just a tad bit spoiled and Coco is the most spoiled as you can well imagine.

New Arrivals 5/10/11

Woke up this morning to a new set of twins!!! These kids belong to Cry Baby (named because she cries constantly).


She blessed us with a beautiful doe that we have named Serenity (paint) and a very friendly solid red buck that we haven't named yet.

Registered Goat at Grade Price

The price of goats is higher than it's been in a long time and anybody who has been in the goat business through the good times and the bad, is loving it. I'm selling grade goats for the price I used to get out of registered goats.....so it's a good time to be in the goat business!

But here's my problem....if a goat is born on my property and can be registered, I normally don't register it unless I plan on keeping it. I give buyers the option of buying the goat at a grade price or buying the goat at a higher price with an application to register. I normally never have a problem doing things this way, but recently I've had two incidences. The first one went pretty smooth though, a man bought a solid red buck from me as a grade goat. He gave me the grade price that I asked and all was well. Then he called me the very next day and asked me what I would charge if he decided later on to register the goat. I told him it would be $100 because I priced the goat $100 cheaper sold as a grade. He said okay and I didn't hear back from him until later in the year when he had a question about deworming products.

The second incidence however didn't go as smoothly....a man that we consider a friend begged us, literally begged us for a red buck that was born this year. We didn't want to sell him because we lost his sire due to old age and we wanted to keep him as a replacement. We did have two other good replacement bucks, but this one had some really good characteristics so we wanted to keep him. But the man was up here every week offering us everything under the sun for this buck. We finally relented and sold the buck. The man didn't want papers, he had no registered goats so therefore he had no need for a registered buck which were his exact words. Anyway, two weeks ago, he contacted Keith and wanted to know what we would charge him to register the goat. I firmly stated that it would be $100 plus the application fee because he wanted me to do the complete registration since he's not a member of any of the Boer Goat Associations. Anyway, he got mad, but I can't help it. It seemed like a trick to me because he wanted the goat as a grade goat, paid the grade price, and now wants papers but doesn't want to pay for a registered goat. I'm sorry, but this ain't my first rodeo and I'm not falling for any tricks. I've decided to sell goats as grade or registered and if someone buys a grade goat, then it's always going to be a grade, I will no longer offer papers on the goat once it's sold.

People may not agree with my decision on this, but because of those two incidents, I have no other choice.

The Goats Are Trying to Kill Me

I've owned goats for 13 years now and can't imagine my life without them, but I SWEAR they are conspiring to kill me now...lol. I work 9am to 5pm and my husband just started working 2nd shift. He leaves the house at 1:30pm and doesn't get home until after midnight, so needless to say, things are a little tougher now. Keith (my husband) feeds all his hunting dogs and the chickens before he leaves, but that leaves the horses and goats for me to take care of, which includes giving them their daily grain, hay, bottle feeding three Nubian kids, and milking one LaMancha. I'm normally outside until 7:30 or 8:00 every evening, and I'm not complaining, albeit, the goats are trying to kill me.

There's something different going on every day.....one day I thought one of the Boer does was in labor so I put her in the barn. I came home from work at lunch to check on her and she looked at me as if to say "what are you looking at, you're the idiot that put me in here and I'm not ready!" I left her up for three days and then finally turned her back out. And then I've got an Oberhasli doe that looks like she may burst at any moment if she doesn't kid soon, but she refuses to set foot in the barn and she's not friendly, so there's no catching her. Next, one little paint doe just wouldn't stay up, I had to put her up about 10 times one evening and absolutely could not figure out how she was getting out. I finally moved her to a different lot and at least solved that problem. Then we move on to the "getting my head stuck" phase. The same two does like to stick their head through the fence everyday to munch where we all know "the grass is greener because it's on the other side" and then they want to push in the opposite direction as me when I'm trying to unhang them. I have literally sat down and cried because I was so frustrated with them.

But then I imagine how things would be without goats and it just doesn't seem feasible, so if they don't kill me then I'll hang in there lol.

I hope to keep posting as much as possible so read as often as you can.