The Rural Blogger

Archive for the ‘goat’ Category

Max & Tanner

Today was a big day for my young bucks.  We have started to notice the little boys are sounding and acting more like big boys.  Both are 5 months old and BOTH noticed my flirty April yesterday.  April and the boys were busy making goo-goo, lovey-dovey eyes at each other so the time has come to separate the boys from the girls.  I hate putting the bucks on a dry lot bachelor pad with baled grass hay but I dislike December and January kids more so out to the east pen they went.

Rich has been busy the past few days cleaning out the east pen, prepping it for the boys. Rich thought he could grade the lot a bit to get rid of the water that seems to pool in one area.  I guess we will see if it worked when it rains again.

We also moved the 2 Katahdin rams, Cooper & Oreo, as we prefer lambs on the ground when it’s a bit warmer as well. Once we had the older fellas moved, Goliath (bottle buck) joined the bachelor pad as well.  He’s not even 3 months old but I figured why not move everyone at the same time.  There should be no worries this way.

Annie (Tanner’s mama) and Lucy (Max’s mama) both stood at the shared fence line called for their “babies” for a while.  Tanner and Max could have cared less, as you can see from the above picture, they were too busy trying to decided who’s the bigger and badder buck! 

Come September, we will begin our breeding program.

~Carol

Daisy with her Triplets

It all started last night when Madison found my milking ewe, Daisy, delivering lamb#3 when we headed down for the last barn check of the day.  We spent some time in the barn making sure everyone was fed and then I decided the ewe lamb was a little weaker then I was comfortable with so I milked Daisy and gave the baby a bottle.  I finally got to bed at about 1 am.

I was back up at 6 am as Chas had a doctor’s appt. in St. Paul.  I needed to have everything done in the barn and be ready to go by 9:30 am.   After waking Madison and deciding that she was too ill for school today, I got ready to head out.

So off to the barn I trotted to check on Daisy and her babies.  After seeing that the trips had been fed, I checked my other penned mamas.  Everyone looked good so I watered and fed them.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a white lump laying toward the back of the barn.

New buckling

Dang, baby on the ground… not what I need this morning but OK, I best deal with it.  It was about 7 am by now.  I found Cheyanne with her new buckling kid in the darkest, dirtiest part of the barn.  WHY do they insist on kidding back there????  I got him dried off and saw that he needed to be warmed up so into Daisy’s pen the 2 went.  I put the kid in the warming barrel and headed for the house.

After tending to the tasks I needed to in the house, I made my way out to do rabbit chores and check on the babies again.  Lambs =good, penned mamas with babies  = also good.  Checked Cheyanne’s little guy, he was warm but definitely didn’t have a full tummy. So I reached under Cheyanne to check her utter only to find an utter that is no where close to being ready to feed a baby.  GREAT, what else this morning??? 

I found some frozen colostrum for the little fella in the freezer.  Back to the barn, with warm colostrum and a bottle for Taffy, I headed.  I moved some goats around to make room in the pens for laboring goats. I have a couple more due in the next few days.

After the babies were fed, up to the house I went.  10 minutes in the house and Chas has a seizure.  Good Grief!  Anything else???    Sure, why not?  You asked, so Chas has another seizure.  They were less then 30 minutes apart.    Thank goodness Chas recovered quickly.

Doeling!

After all that, can you believe I was actually ready to go by 9:30?  Well, I was!!  Chas too!!   I was rather happy to leave the farm.  The trip to the cities and back was fairly predictable.  On the way home, I received a phone call from Rich to tell me that One Horn (goat) was in labor.  She had a single doeling.

When I arrived home, I put our little buckling in the pen with One Horn with hopes she will be his mama.  So far, he is allowed to nurse if the doeling is nursing.  So he’ll still be getting a bottle just to make sure he’s getting fed.

I’m truly exhausted.  So I’m going to say good night.  See you all in the morning!

~ Carol

Cupcake's Twins

My oberhasli, Cupcake, delivered twins late yesterday afternoon.  No, that’s not Madison in the picture.  She was on the trip to a dinner theater for band.  The girl in the picture is the daughter of friend, Kristine.  Anya was my “Madison” substitute for the day.  If I have counted correctly, we are up to 16 goat kids since Feb 18.

I have had a busy last few days since I last wrote about Annie’s kids.  We’ve had baby bunnies arriving.  Here are the litters born since I last blogged.

I got all my Pickle Bread completed but the guy who was picking them up was in a car accident on his way here so all 28 loaves went into the freezer until he comes to get them.  The freezer meaning the great outdoors.  I just hope it doesn’t warm up before he gets here.

Tanner, Annie’s buckling, came down with Floppy Kid Syndrome yesterday.  So he spent the day/night in the house so I could monitar him.  I started him on Penicillin and Thiamine, which I will continue for 3 days.  I also gave him a shot of CD antitoxin.  He looked much better and went out to the barn this morning to rejoin the family.  Annie was very happy to see him again.

We had twin lambs born as well.  This is number 3-4 for Katadhin lamb.  Sugar had a ram and ewe lamb.  So we are at 2 & 2.  Oreo is not only giving our small flock nice sized lambs, he’s adding a bit of color too.