Yep fall is really here!! Feels more like winter to me though! lol I definitely don't like cold weather, but something about the weather getting cooler and Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up does make me excited! :)
I "checked" my own blog just now and saw that rather nasty picture of myself still at the top...and umm yeah, time for something different!
Farm life is good, most of the goats are bred for March/April kids, still have a couple I'm waiting on, and the new thing for me this fall is doing artificial insemination, sorry if that's a little weird for some of you, but hey it's livestock we're talking about here. :) It really opens up a lot of opportunities for what I can do with my breeding program, being able to use lots of different bucks and bring in some new stuff! So I'm pretty excited! Just hoping that I'm successful with it, does take some major timing and practice.
I couldn't even begin to try to tell everything that happens in my life these days, let's just say it's an adventure!! Mom pretty much keeps up with day to day stuff on her blog, so check it out for everyday happenings.
Until my next post...whenever that may be. :) (And thanks to my sis Anna for the pics!)
**Sorry my template got all messed up, so just put this up for now, don't have time to mess with it!**
Wow the last time I wrote was May?? Goodness, I AM still alive, just in case anybody missed me. :P
So a brief recap of my life since then..
June..I turned 21...does that scare anybody? Went to my first out of state show (Sedalia Missouri) actually maybe that was the end of May, and won Jr. Grand with a homebred doe kid "Shekinah's Sweet Sensation." My Rocketeer boy also won Grand and Best of Breed.
July...played music in a friend's wedding with my bro's, took a jet ski out on Lake Murray, played lots of volleyball.
August..drove to Missouri with my amazing bro Daniel for my dearest friend Danielle's bridal shower, and got to meet her handsome guy Aaron, he's pretty cool. I approved. :)
And now... got the dairy girls entered in the OKC State Fair, need to do Tulsa entries next week, and unfortunately I won't be showing any Boer's this fall, with having such a rough kidding season I really only have a few that I could take so it wasn't really going to be worth it. :( Oh well Lord willing we'll hit the Boer shows hard in the spring!!
And the end of this month (next week actually) we'll be taking a family trip up to Illinois for Danielle's wedding!! So exciting!! Will be my first wedding to be in, well second sort of I guess, first time to be a bridesmaid. :) Kinda interesting having a lot of my friends become "old married women" (as I like to tease them!) now!! It's cool though, maybe I'll join the club one of these days. :)
Well we got back from the I.N. D. G. A. Dairy goat show at about 3:00 a.m. on Sunday! Wow it was a loooonng day with the show starting at 8:00 a.m. on Saturday and ending around 11:00 p.m. Had a blast though! My yearling well almost 2 year old milker 'Blissberry FM Main Attraction' was 1st in her class in the first ring, and 2nd in the other. Shardae managed to pull off 3rd in a huge class in the second ring, she totally hates the show ring so doesn't show herself off very well.
'Shekinah's Sweet Sensation' (Jr. Kid) was 3rd in the first ring and 2nd in the other, and one of my yearlings was 3rd in her class. There was a lot of beautiful Nubians there, lots of competition!
We finally started the buck show at around 10:00 p.m. maybe? It was late! My Jr. buckling 'Shekinah's Drama Boy was first in his class and Jr. Champion in the first ring, and 1st and Res. Jr. Champion in the second ring. And my yearling buck *B Blissberry MW Rocketeer took Grand in the first ring over all the older bucks! Really cool! He was 1st in his class in the second ring.
It was a really fun day, had a blast with all of our friends, and a rather violent game of spoons! :D Thank the Lord for his blessing on my goat endeavors!
My big Boer boy 10B2B X111 went to his new home today, I'm going to miss him, but he went to a really great family.
Micah taking a nap on the job...
Anna was doing the photography of all the winners...umm and people?? :D
Well I don't have time for a real long post, but thought I'd at least post some pictures!! I know I'm loooonnngggg over due, things have been busy around here. These two little girls were born this afternoon, out of my doe I got flown in from CA last year, Lakeshore Hot To Trot. I have a show coming up this weekend, Lord willing. It will be a lot of fun, I'm so excited about it! I'll be taking 9 of my Nubians to show, and probably Hot To Trot's babies will have to come along so I can take care of them...and maybe her too because I'm not sure she will have the milking routine down well enough for Hosanna to be able to handle her.
For some reason Dooley had escaped outside and he was finding the baby goats quite interesting! Oh and please note the pictures were taken by "GoatGirl" photography...and I don't totally know how to use Anna's camera so some of the pics are kinda blurry. lol :)
Well I'm finally taking the time to sit down and recap all the stories I mentioned in the post below...might be old news to some people but if you haven't heard it before hopefully you'll find it interesting! So lets rewind back to mid February about a week after Main Attraction kidded. My two girls that I didn't have the due dates for both decided to kid when I wasn't around, which is kind of nice sometimes as long as they don't have any problems, Reba had a single doe kid, Anna told me it was a buck and I totally believed her until I went up there and checked for myself! :D Nope a doe! Hosanna's doe Wenneveria kidded with a single buckling, he's a really cute little guy! Both of those were "accidentally" sired by my Nubian buck. :(
My friend Danielle and her brother Jordan drove down from IL on the weekend of the 12th to spend a few days with us, which happened to be the weekend that I had several does due. :) So sure enough Sunday night one of my Boer does (Sapphire) went into labor, this doe has had a really weird time with kidding, the first year having a stillborn, then didn't get bred the second year and this was her last chance before she went to live somewhere else. So with her track record of nothing but problems I was definitely keeping a close eye on her, her labor was pretty slow, she just wasn't getting down to business very quick, so after a couple hours I decided to give her a shot of calcium to help with muscle tone and maybe speed things up a bit. Did that and finally she started doing some hard pushing, I checked to make sure the kid was presented correctly (can avoid a lot of problems with just a quick check) and ugh 3 hooves instead of two, after feeling around a bit I realized we had two front hooves coming out correctly and then a second kid's hind leg trying to come out at the same time. So I went ahead and pushed the second kid back out of the birth canal and pulled the correctly presented one forward, a few more pushes and it was out, a beautiful little girl! Number two came out breech as expected and was a buckling, both were nice sized very strong little kiddo's. I'm so glad I gave Sapphire another chance!! :)
Monday comes around and doing chores I check on two Nubians that were due anytime and went and told Danielle, "looks like we're gonna have more babies today!" Maggie kidded a couple hours later with twins, a buck and a doe, the doe is sooo cute!! Later on that afternoon the other doe started labor, she's one of my girls I got from MN almost two years ago, this was her first time to have kids. Once she started pushing hard with no progress I was getting concerned, so I had Andrew hold her while I went in and checked, it was hard to figure out what I was feeling in there, but finally I was able to bring one leg and a head forward and the first little buckling was born. Deep breath, I was sure she would be fine now as usually once the first one is born the other ones just slide right on out. Well it didn't happen, she started pushing again and once again...nothing. Okay another check and wow...was I ever confused, I was feeling front legs, back legs, spine, but couldn't find a head anywhere, I fished for a while but then getting really concerned about my doe and the fact that I couldn't get the tangle straightened out I figured I'd better go ahead and take her in to my vet. So Andrew and I loaded her up in the van...yikes not the best thing but gotta do what you gotta do! Once we got there one of the vet assistants came out and shocked me by picking her up (she was a pretty good sized girl!) and carrying her right in through the front door. It just so happened to be a very busy time at the vet so just imagine this, a guy comes through the door carrying a huge doe who is kinda messy on the rear end and dripping birth fluid all the way down the hallway to the operating table! :D Everybody was stepping back like wow this is a little different!! He barely made it to the table with her, lol with out dropping her that is and the vet came in and got started, I must say we drew quite the crowd! I was helping hold her as well as about 3 other vet assistants and we had a whole group of people in the doorway watching, was pretty interesting! The vet went in, and after feeling around for a bit made the comment "wow I'm not surprised you couldn't get this figured out" it took him a while but finally he pulled out another one breech...ahh now I know why I couldn't find a head! It was ANOTHER buckling, he went in again to check and sure enough there was a third one in there, also breech which both breech and tangled together was why I couldn't get things sorted out on my own, and this time it was a doe! We got home just barely in time to get the kids fed and for me to jump in the shower before Mom's big valentines party she had. Quite the day. I was a bit concerned about the second buckling as he was having some issues with his rear legs from the hard pull and couldn't stand. But he seemed to be doing okay at their last feeding that evening. The next morning when I go out there he was definitely not okay, laying on his side with his head curled over and he was so cold, I was just about sure he wasn't going to make it. :( I hurried inside with him and Andrew and I got to work trying to get him warmed up, we filled up the sink with very warm water, put the kid in a trash bag with just his head sticking out to keep him dry and into the water he went. It wasn't looking too good for a while, he was so cold his temperature wouldn't even register on my thermometer, and once I finally did get him warm enough for it to read it was still way low like 95 *F when normal goat temp should be 101*F-103*F. We worked on him for about an hour and a half and before you knew it the little guy was standing up on his own! Wow! His temperature went right back up to 102, and he took a bottle. I couldn't believe it! We kept him inside for a couple of days and splinted his back legs so he could walk. Once he was stronger a couple days later we took him back outside and took the splints off and that little guy was walking around just fine! He's such a cute little thing you would never know that he went through all of that now.
Sooo that's all the goat adventures, and now for my injuries from Elijah's mad momma cows. :D Usually whenever they have their calves he'll put the mom and her baby in an area of the barn for a few days so they can bond and especially if it's really cold outside. Problem is it greatly complicates my goat chores because I'm like climbing all around temporary fences he puts up and it blocks the stall where my alfalfa hay is. When the first cow calved he had her in the barn and one day I was up there and noticed the big heavy duty panel he had across the "barn aisle" keeping her from coming into my milking area was about to fall down, so not wanting that to happen I decided to pick up one end of the panel from the other side and try to move it to where it was more secure, so I pick it up and start pushing it when suddenly the cow jumps and butts the panel from the other side smashing it into my head, OUCH! Very painful...so I decided it was probably not a good idea to mess with that anymore. :)
Adventure number 2, second cow calves and we're in the same scenario, but this time I was crawling over about 5 fences to get to my alfalfa hay and them climbing back over all of them with an arm load of hay, doing my best to stay totally on the other side of the fence from the cow. Well right at the very end I had one place that I put one leg over on the cows side of the fence right before I get to safety. So I put my leg over and *smash* the cow starts ramming my leg with her head, I lost my balance and my body fell back over the fence (not on the cows side thankfully!) but my leg stayed hooked up on the fence with the cow still smashing it. Not a good situation to be in. Finally she backed off and I extracted myself from the dangling position I was in, and just stood there for a while with a lot of pain shooting through my leg. Wow..I can't believe I did that! Once the pain subsided a bit I limped through the rest of my chores and headed back to the house. But wow did I ever have some major bruises that are only just now about gone. I was just thankful nothing was broken, definitely could have been worse!
Sooo is farm life interesting or what?? :D Now I'm waiting on my pretty Shardae to kid, she is totally huge, so I'm guessing triplets again, sure would be nice if she has some girls in there! :)
I don't have really many new pictures...need to get Anna to take some, but the one at the top is Maggie's lil kid, she's so cute!
Isn't this little guy just adorable?? :) Wow I've been super busy lately, the kid count is up to 11, and yes I've got some stories about birthing adventures. :) Plus narrow escapes from mad mama cows...and normal farm life I guess. :D But for now I'll just leave you all hanging and hopefully get more pictures of the kiddo's soon and maybe have some time to sit down and do a long post. :)
Well Main Attraction finally decided to have those babies!! She started having contractions around supper time last night and kidded at about midnight, so pretty much right on her due date. :) Everything went pretty well, I was getting a bit concerned as she kept pushing and I wasn't seeing anything so I had Caleb come up (because everybody else was in bed except for my faithful little helper Hosie) to help hold her as I was beginning to wonder if the kid was presented correctly. But by the time he came up she was really getting down to business and finally out came a big ole buck kid. Number 2 followed shortly after and was also a buckling. Bummer! I was so hoping to have a doeling out of her and also had somebody that deposited on one...but oh well not much I can do about it I guess. They sure are cute little guys though, even though they are boys. :D LOL and Main Attractions udder is looking very nice. Praise the Lord for healthy babies!
But not a goat yet... :) One of Elijah's cows had a little heifer yesterday, she is sooo adorable!! We had just been making guesses the day before on which would go first, my goat or Elijah's cow...and most everybody thought it would be baby goats first, but we were wrong! :D Only 3 more days until Main Attraction is due though, so it should be soon.
Meanwhile we were able to get the new "baby barn" all framed up, now just to put the metal on and then build a pen around it, will be very nice!
Wow with all the snow melting it is quite the mud mess outside, it was pretty interesting driving the 4 wheeler through it taking hay out to the goats this morning...fun though and reminded me of just how much I love farm life...despite the mud. :)
It's been a great day so far, algebra with Micah this morning, goat chores, lunch, more goat chores, then started some bread, got a cup of coffee and....decided to do a blog post. :) We had a really fun busy weekend, Saturday was a friends wedding, Hosanna's birthday, and also remembering Joel throughout the busy day. Sunday was little Lilian's baby shower, she is so cute we just love having a little baby around to love on! And then we finished up Sunday evening with Anna and I going up and spending the night with the Burnett girls for one last time in OKC as they moved out of the rooms they had in the training center there on Monday morning. Needless to say we had a lot of fun!!
Only 10 more days until my first doe is due, Main Attraction, she's one of the baby's I had flown in from MN almost 2 years ago and also my Grand Champion girl this fall at the Tulsa State Fair. So I'm super excited about seeing her kids and hopefully she'll have a nice udder too. I'm trying to get everything prepared, have been picking up a few items I keep on hand during kidding season, and trying to remember if I'm forgetting anything. :) And we're also planning on building a new baby pen (for the Nubian babies) down here close to the house to make feeding them much easier and quicker. I'm excited about that, will definitely cut down on my trips up to the barn. Hopefully we will be able to get that up by the end of this week.
So here's what the kidding schedule is looking like this year, on paper that is because you just never know whats really going to happen! :D I've sold off a few of my girls, as I'm really trying hard to be able to come out better this year and actually make a profit, so I only have 14 bred this year, which is a few less than last year if I remember correctly.
Shardae (Nubian) March 10th Fat Doe (Boer) March 25th
April-
Alyssa (Boer) April 4th Destiny (Boer) April 11th Gauger (Boer) April 17th Christiana (Boer) April 18th
May-
Hot To Trot (Nubian) May 8th Sonata (Nubian) May 22nd
And then 2 Boer girls Reba, and Wenneveria that I'm afraid the Nubian buck got in with are due probably sometime in February. I was disappointed about Reba because she usually has some of my nicest Boer kids....but oh well. :( I also have 5 younger Boer does but I decided not to breed them to kid as yearlings this time, I thought about breeding them to kid in the fall but I may just wait and have them kid early next year, we shall see.
Anna took some pictures of Rancho and Daisy this afternoon, I'm not sure what Rancho was digging for but it looks like he was having fun!! Him and Daisy are big buddies now, Daisy is such a sweet little dog, my little buddy when I'm out doing chores. :) And remember the cute little white eared baby? That's her getting so big! And the one on the right in the top pic is my little preemie kid, she's huge now!
Well I need to get my bread finished up, have to get 10 loaves made for a wedding reception this weekend...hope everybody has a great week!
