Monday, March 30, 2009

The Kids Play Day


Today has been such a nice warm day (YAY!!) so Anna and I let the Mom's and babies outside for some fun. :) It's hilarious watching them go bouncing all over the place!! And thankfully this time Anna had her camera...so we got LOTS of pictures!! Here you go Melinda, enjoy!! :P We also got Reba's kids tattooed, and 2 of the Nubian kids disbudded while we were out there. Not so fun but necessary.

Run, Run, RUN!!!




Here's "Fat Doe" with her little family. :) She has a hard time keeping them all together.


Reba's buck kid, with one of the triplets

One of Poco's boys...


Another one of the triplets


Dirt is so good to eat!! :P


Reba's kiddos


And here's one of the little Nubians that was born on Thursday...that's a whole nother' story though!! :)



Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Staying busy...

I'm sure staying busy lately!! :) One of my Nubian's "Madeline" kidded Monday afternoon with a single buckling. I had bred her to my Boer buck for meat kids, since I really don't like milking her as she has very small teats. So she's just raising her own kid for meat this year. I actually totally missed the birth, she wasn't due until Thursday so I wasn't expecting her to kid for a couple of days. Monday afternoon I noticed that she wasn't out in the pen with the other goats so I checked in the shed, and sure enough there she was with her big ole kid!! :) He was already up and nursing, probably had been born about 45 minutes prior to me finding him.

Everybody else is doing great!! Reba's kids are getting so big already, I need to get some updated pictures of them, they are looking so nice! It's so funny seeing all the kids run and play, I have a blast just watching them.

Oh and guess what?? Remember me telling ya'll back in the fall that I was reserving another Nubian doe kid from Lakeshore Farms in CA? Well she was born a few days ago!! Actually the mom had twin doelings, so I'll even get to pick!! I'm super excited!! Lord willing she should be flown in, in about 3 weeks or so.

I'm sorry I keep forgetting to answer Heather's question from a few posts back. Yes I bottle raise my dairy kids so I can milk the mom. And also to help prevent CAE which is a disease that is rather prevalent in dairy goats.

Show season is coming up as well!! My first show is coming up really soon...so guess what I did today? :) Filled out registrations and worked on tattooing a couple of bucks. Ya'll might remember me doing a tattooing post a really long time ago, but for my "new blog readers" I thought I'd share some pics. :) Tattooing is basically to identify the goat, his/her tattoo's have to match up with what is on their registration papers. In one ear you put the letter for the year that the goat was born, and it's birth number, then in the other ear I put my herd prefix.


First I clean up the ear real good with some rubbing alcohol.

Then I get the tattoo pliers set in the right place...the gloves are just to keep the ink off myself.

All set, Andrew helps hold the goat still..

Squeeze!! OUCH!

Next I apply the ink and work it into the holes really well.

Same procedure on the other ear...then we're done!!



Saturday, March 21, 2009

Pictures! And another set of Twins.

Got some pictures of the triplets today...and then this morning another one of the Boer does kidded with twin bucks. They are so HUGE!! I just can't believe how big they are, almost as big as Reba's week old kids! The mom did great though despite having such big boys. :)




Here's the first little boy

Next is little sister her head is so dark it's almost black

And then the last boy! He's so cute, and marked just like his Dad. :)


Next are the twins born today...



Friday, March 20, 2009

TRIPLETS!!

Well yesterday was quite the day to say the least. :) Checked on the does in the morning and found my biggest Boer doe was bagged up tight and having some slight contractions, I checked her frequently and then a few hours later moved her into the kidding stall. She was having really regular contractions and then around 3:00 she started pushing, she pushed some and was kind of up and down for a while. Time was passing and I was beginning to get worried that she was doing some pretty hard pushing with out presenting anything. So I lubed up and went in...apparently the kid was trying to come out chest first, head was back as well as both front legs, I managed to get one front leg worked into position but could not for the life of me get the head around. After trying for quite some time with no success I got on the phone with my vet and decided to take her in. Only problem was....I had no way to get her there. Thankfully we have amazing neighbors and they were up for a goat emergency we managed to get her in the back of their trooper and we headed to the vet. Thanks so much David and Kate!! :)

~ Just born ~

My friend Crissa was on her way out to visit, so I called her and she met me at the vet. We unloaded my doe and the vet got to work, it took him probably a full 15 minutes to get things straighten out and deliver the first kid, and it was alive!! Number 2 came out pretty easily, and then he checked to see if there was anymore and sure enough little number 3 popped out. 2 boys and a girl. I was thrilled that everybody was alive and well!! Back at the house Crissa and I got the little ones to nurse and then had a lot of fun playing around with the other kids and talking goats. :) They are all doing well, although it took them a bit longer to get going being pretty wore out from the difficult birth, and having some leg issues, but today they've all been up and walking.

I'll try to get some fluffy pictures tomorrow of the little cuties!!

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Twins!




Yesterday was a busy day for me, I knew Sassy was getting close as she was 1 day over her due date and her udder was filling pretty steadily. However she wasn't having any contractions or anything that morning. I was busy out in the pasture picking up sticks and rocks from when we did a bunch of bull dozing. Elijah is disking up a pretty big area to seed with Bermuda grass so we were just cleaning the area up. Around 11:30 Mom called me back down to the house to fix lunch, on my way I stopped in to take a quick peek at Sassy and she was standing in the barn, making some soft noises and then when I looked closer I realized she had a small string of goo, and then she had a pretty hard contraction!! I dashed down to the house and grabbed some towels and did a few other preps and then back out to the barn and she was pushing! LOL she does this to me everytime I think, catches me pretty unprepared. :) About 5 minutes later we had a beautiful little girl, I handed her off to Hosie and then just minutes later another girl was born. I was happy! They're my Lakeshore bucks first kids, just out of one of my grade does, but they're sure looking nice!!


So now it's back to milking and bottle feeding for me. :) I've had a good long break and it's great to milk again. I got up at 3:00 last night to feed the girls, not so fun getting up at night but I just do night feedings for a couple of days so it's not too bad.


Aren't they cute?? :)

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Babies are here!!






Well Reba girl did it...1 day early! :) She started labor yesterday evening at about 6:00, I got her in the kidding pen in the barn around 7:30 and then about 9:00 she started pushing. The first kid started coming out breech, I grabbed the back legs but it slipped out super quick, it was extremely tiny and dead. :( I was pretty surprised, and was rather worried that they would all be dead, but a few minutes later she pushed out a big healthy boy! He was really active right from the start, and I had him nursing just a little while after he was born. And then kid number 3 came...a beautiful girl!! Yay!! I was so happy, they are all doing well and are SO cute! The pictures aren't the best, but they weren't cooperating too well. :)

Sassy is due tomorrow...she doesn't look very close though so I wouldn't be surprised if she went a day or two late. We'll see. :)

Monday, March 9, 2009

The New Bull




The bull is here!! The sale was on Friday and we headed out early with our neighbors David and Katelyn. Once we got there we spent some time looking at the bulls, and then the sale started at 10:00. The first bull that sold went for $103,000!! And that was only half interest in the thing...kind of crazy! :D Most of them sold for around $3000-$4000 and we were able to get ours even a bit lower than that, which was great! Loading him into the trailer was pretty crazy, he jumped into there like a cannon ball and the whole truck and trailer was shaking! He was not happy with being shut up in such a small area, but once we got home and let him out into the pasture he calmed down. :) So far he's doing really good, no broken down fences yet! :P



It's only SIX days until Reba is due!! Poor girl she is SO huge and miserable. I can't wait!! I've been busy getting kidding stalls cleaned out, and of course checking and checking on the goats just in case she decides to go a few days early. :) Which probably won't happen, but you know, I just have to check. :)

Sooooo....hopefully the next post will be BABIES!! :)




Not sure what Duffy was doing here, but I found him sitting by the table on top of the wheat bucket...had to get a picture!!

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Random...



Well, I think it's about time for another blog post. :) I guess I just haven't had enough adventures lately to post about! Today was really busy for me, I went on a feed run to Stillwater and also picked up some supplies for our chicks that we'll be getting pretty soon. Got home around lunch and the I spent quite a while working on the construction page of the website as it's been quite neglected lately. After that was violin lessons with a little girl from church, and then Dad and I went to Edmond to get a new phone for Dad, and we were going to buy a coffee pot as ours is kind of worn out. It gets used like TONS. But the one we were going to get ended up being to tall to fit in our coffee station, (it was an industrial one) so we'll have to keep looking a different one.

Most likely I'll have some stories to tell here pretty soon, we're planning on buying a bull soon at the Express Ranches Bull sale. It should be a lot of fun, it's a pretty major sale, they are selling like 500 bulls! Hopefully we'll be able to keep the thing in our fences....I'm a bit worried that he's gonna be breaking in on my goats or something. :D Elijah just put up a new fence in the pasture the bull will be staying in though....so hopefully there won't be any problems.

So what is this stuff in my hand??


Well, we had a small pond out in the pasture that Elijah dug a while back, and he decided to make it bigger the other day when he had a bobcat rented. Well when he broke the dam letting the water into the new area it uncovered HUNDREDS of tadpoles! They were like everywhere! Hosie got a few of them and they lived in our room for a few days in a jar....you should have seen the look on Mom's face when she saw them sitting on our dresser!! :D

Here's a "grown" version, not quite as gross. :)


"Gauger" the mom to the two kids I lost is slowly recovering, I was really worried I was going to lose her too, but she seems to be coming around. She's still not 100% but she's improving every day so I'm very grateful for that! The next one "Reba" is due in just 12 days...I can't wait! Got all my kidding supplies in early this week, so I'm ready for babies now. :)

Well this is kind of random...maybe I'll have some "bull adventures" to post soon. Don't worry we won't be riding him though. :D