2017 Winter Kid Crop!

I have wanted a blue eyed Nigerian Dwarf milker for a long time.  Silly, I know.   I have some really great milkers and animals on my property.  I am grateful.  None of my blue eyed goats, have ever made the cut as easy to hand milk.  They always give a wonderful amount of milk, by the grace of God and because of their excellent genetics but being able to comfortably hand milk a goat, is very high on my priority list.  I want the milking experience, for me, to be enjoyable, as well as for the goat.  I want to be able to go out to the barn, milk quickly and then spend time with my animals and family.

Carmel Pie is a first freshener this year.

Carmel Pies grandmother was Abundance (a blue eyed milker that didn't make the cut).  Carmel Pies mother was Jubilee (a blue eyed milker that didn't make the cut either.)  Every year, I bred these blue eyed does to wonderful bucks, hoping these bucks genetics would improve on their teat length and diameter.  So...Carmel Pies first freshening was really exciting for me.  She did a great job carrying and delivering her babies.  She delivered on the 23rd and had a beautiful, big, black and white buck and a tiny, white, speckled, doe with blue eyes. 

Doe and Buck.

Doe.

It has been years since I have let a goat keep her babies and nurse them.  It has been nice to watch them all together.

Kinsley and the doeling.

Carmel Pie is giving a wonderful amount of milk for a first freshener but her teat size is not comfortable to milk on.  Even though I know they will lengthen some through regular  milking, it will not be enough to hold up to my strict standards.  I not only like easy to hand milk does for me and the genetics for it, in my herd but my customers, who buy goats from me, usually hand milk and would like that in the offspring they purchase from me.

I have decided to give up on improving this blue eyed line for hand milking and sell Carmel Pie.   Since I will be selling Carmel Pie and her babies, I decided to let her keep her babies (not take them away and bottle feed them) and sell them as a package deal.  I will miss her as she is very sweet and stunning with her ice blue eyes.

I will be purchasing a blue eyed Nigerian Dwarf doe, already in milk in the future.

The other goat that was pregnant was Calfy. 

She delivered January 24th. She gave me triplets, two beautiful bucks and a doeling. 

The little brown doe and white buckling.

The other buckling.

They are healthy and are 3/4 Nigerian Dwarf.  Joseph is their dad.  Calfy is doing well and milking up a storm.  I pulled the babies and they are nursing (bottle feeding) well.  I will be dehorning all the babies tomorrow and then selling them.  I have a waiting list of people wanting goats so they should be gone quickly.

I bred Panda to Joseph last week, when I saw she was in heat.  Pandas mother, Milky Whey, came into heat a week later.  She is in with Joseph now.  We should have babies from those breeding in five months.  Very exciting.

In another area of news on the farm, with the help of God and some of my children, we built my five year old son the chicken coop he had been wanting for his bantam chickens. 

We had a two week warm spell here in North Georgia, so I worked on it every spare moment, trying to get it done before the weather turned cold again.

I built it so a five year old could care for chickens with minimal adult help.   There are three different compartments to keep breeds separate.

Each area had two next boxes, a roosting bar and a feeder.

I found how to make these small feeders on the internet.

My dad had the brilliant idea of putting self closing foundation vents on it for ventilation.  I wont need to be going out to open and close air vents all the time.  :)

My son is very excited and happy with his new coop.  Praise God it did come out very well.  :)

Philippians 4:19  But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

Blessings and Happy Farming,

susan  

Unusual Winter

We have had some very unusual weather this winter.  It has not only been unusually rainy but quite a bit colder as well.  We also have had three substantial snowfalls.  In a normal winter we might see a few snow flakes a few times or get a dusting of snow. 

The end of January we got this.

Since it had been several years since we have had snow like this, I gave the children off from home schooling and let them just play in it.  Here where we live in Georgia a snow like this will usually be gone by the next day or two.  It was a dryish snow and not packy enough for a snowman but the kids had fun out in it throwing it at each other and playing around.

Then Tuesday of this past week we got this snow fall of about four or five inches.

It was a wetter snow and the kids made this little guy.

Even though there was not a huge amount the children had a good time and had fun.

Some of it melted on Wednesday but that night we got sleet and then five or six inches of snow more, so woke up Thursday to this! 

It was breathtakingly beautiful for the Deep South to see and believe it or not was nearly all gone by the end of the day!  I never remember us having this much snow at one time since we have lived here on the farm for the last 15 years.  The ice that we got before the snow came this time made the snow stick to the trees, fences and electric wires.  Many people lost power from this storm.  We had it go out for only two hours in the morning. 

As far as farm life right now???  I gave away my two full sized milkers to a friend.  So I am actually not milking at all right now.  I don't ever remember having such a break in milking.  The children miss the fresh goats milk terribly but I have enjoyed the break from milking.  I have not had to go out twice a day in this weather to milk but must admit I am missing making cheese and foods from the cheese for my family.  Our first goats possible due date is the end of this month.

When Milky Whey came into heat last fall, I put her in with Sergent Pepper box.  If she settled her due date is around Feb 24th.  But she came back into a light heat a few weeks later.  I knew I would be needing milk and she would be my first of the year to freshen, so I put her in with an experienced buck, Joseph.  So if she did not settle the first time she will be the first to kid in March.  I also bred Amelia...this will be her first freshening and her sister Mini Bell, this will be her first freshening as well.  They are my experiment goats, the offspring of my full sized La manchas and a Nigerian Dwarf buck.  Hoping to have a happy medium in amount of feed they consume and amount of milk they give.  I am very excited.

I am getting the urge to have chicks in the barn and start my gardens.  So I guess spring is around the corner!

Blessings and Happy Farming!
susan

Freestanding Goat Hayrack

Happy New Years to all my farming friends! 

Today, I thought I would share one of my hay rack plans for anyone looking to put one out in a field for their goats. (polled or hornless goats) It was very inexpensive to  make because we had everything to make it laying around the farm here. 

When ever we do a project we take the good left-over scraps and put them on a pile in the shed.  We affectionately call that pile, Papa Depo's.  When ever we do a project we always look in the shed to see what we  have available before going to Home Depo to buy anything.  :)

Again, make this at your own risk and it is based on the plans for my hay saving hay rack for goats.

Two years ago I wanted to have a hay rack out in one of my buck fields for my goats.  I wanted it to be hay saving like the ones I invented for in the barn but yet keep the hay dry and be easy to fill. 

What I came up with was this.  Not to pretty but very functional and again it was the right price as we had all we needed to build it laying around the farm.  So it was just labor and we built it in less than a day.

The outside part of it is one of those cages that huge water tanks come in.  I had a bunch laying around here that I use for extra quick pens for baby animals.  Here are two I have laying in a field so you can see what I am talking about.

My dad and William helped me build this one.  I took the water tank cage and cut a goat sized hole into what I wanted to be the front.  (I used a saw zaw (recipricating saw) with a demolition blade)

Then cut a hog panel (that their heads fit thru the squares) to fit down the back third and secured it with zip ties and wire. 

Then I bent the hog panel below the neck high square, at an angle to go behind that, to hold the hay slanting toward the back like in my origional design and cut a board to fit over it so the hay would not fall thru.

 

Then we took some thin tin we had laying around here and secured it to the outside by puting small boards on the inside to screw thru the tin into.  So the cage was sandwiched inbetween the tin on the out side and thin board strips on the inside. (I used 2x2's)

I then build a hinged lid for the top and put some siding on it to keep some rain off it.  It turned out very well. 

Then this fall I needed another one of these before winter hit.  I needed the one we had built for some baby bucklings and a new one for a field for my full grown bucks. 

Our faithful dog, Yellow, watching us do our project and guarding the goats.

He is such a huge lug.  We love him dearly.

I did not have the time to make one like we did before.  So Carolyn and I built this one in a few hours. 

It is the same design we just put a tarp around the outside for the outer skin instead of tin.  I can change that and put something more long lasting on it once the weather is warmer before next winter.  On this one I did not have a scrap piece of hog panel that their heads fit thru nicely so had to cut two holes the right size. 

These are cheap and easy to  make.  I made both of these totally from scraps we had laying around here.  Even the siding we used for the roofs to help protect the plywood from rain was just laying around here.

 
Hope this helps give some ideas to anyone thinking on this subject. 

Blessings and Happy farming!
susan

Four ND Goats to Kid Soon!

I know I keep mentioning that I have our first ever Nigerian Dwarf Goats bred.  In my head I keep thinking that they start kidding June 1^st.  That's the first ones due date.  In my head that is a long way off.  As I have so much to get done before June hits.  But......I  was out in the barn yesterday and looking over each goat a bit.  I do this frequently and noticed that all four of the bred Nigerian goats birthing ligaments are loosening up a bit.  Yikes!  Already?  And they all have little udders for the first time.  But their little udders are getting quite large all of a sudden.  So I looked on the calendar and was just shocked.  We are getting close and I am not near ready!!!!!

So I spent the day getting ready.  Just in case.  The first thing that I needed to do is modify my milk station.  It is built perfectly for full sized goats.  I tried putting a Nigerian up in it and they were a tad to short to eat at the feed pan and could easily pull their heads out of the head gate.  It was either build a new smaller version for the Nigerian Dwarfs and have that taking up room in our barn.  Or modify the big one.  So I chose to modify our current stanchion. 

First, I built a riser (stepping stool of types to bring their heads up to the feeder.  I took 2x4s and cut them to make a frame.  Cut a piece of plywood to be the top support piece.  

Painted it.  And will put the same rubber mat on it as is on the current stand for ease of cleaning and make it non-slip.  I will be able to put it on the stanchion when I want to milk a Nigerian and remove it to milk my larger gals.

The other thing to modify was the neck stanchion piece.   It was perfect for the big goats but even closed on the tightest setting the Nigerians could pull their heads out.  I just needed it an inch narrower.  

So I took a scrap piece of 1 x 5 and drilled a hole in the bottom going all the way thru the existing stationary place on the stanchion.  Put a bolt through it so it acts as a moving lever.  Then did the same at the top to secure it when I need it for smaller goats and then swing it back out of the way for the larger goats.  As I will still be milking both sizes at times. (it is swung back out of the way and secured in the above picture.  Notice the hole by it to move it over and secure it when milking a Nigerian Dwarf)

It was a fun and simple project that the Lord helped me figure out and do.  I still just have to put the non-slip rubber matting on it.  But all in all it is workable now.  

Blessings and happy farming, 
susan

Pollen, Pollen Everywhere!

It was another beautiful day here in the North Georgia mountains yesterday.  The Lord helped us get so much done.  I am grateful. He helped me get all this weeded.  As I worked I could see the yellow haze in the air of yellow pollen.  After being out in it for just a short time my skin was gritty with it.

                I weeded around the blueberry bushes we planted last year. 

The kids cleaned out the chicken coop and put clean fluff in there for the chickens.  They also took several loads of weeds (chickweed and henbit) and branches down to the compost pile for me. As they worked they were all covered with yellow pollen.

I have an old water troth that was leaking I am going to plant some things in and some half barrels.  The kids didn’t finish, but started filling them with soil from an old compost heap. 

While they did that, I weeded and trimmed all the ornamental beds.  Also trimmed and picked up branches.  We lost a few blueberry bushes I planted last year and a young cherry tree this winter. I plan on replanting.

On Wednesday evening I planted one of the beds we raised up in the last post with four Triple Crown Blackberry bushes and in front of those, two kinds of strawberries.  One is an ever-bearing variety and the other a June bearing variety. 

The pollen is very thick in the air and yellow gritty like a fine layer of dirt all over everything.  I can’t hang out the laundry because of it.  The ponies nostrils are yellow with it.  It is hanging yellow and hazy in the air.  The pool cover is covered with it.  It has even worked its way into the house.  On the furniture and floors.  If one of the kids puts on socks the bottoms get yellow from the fine layer of pollen on the floors!   I was so glad to get so much done yesterday as the forecast was for rain today.  It is raining as I type this.  Hopefully this rain will wash all the pollen out of the trees and air and give us all some relief.  I know many people that are suffering from allergies from all the pollen.  Praise God none of us have that trouble so much.

I guess because it is raining today, it forces me to stay inside and get to cleaning my very neglected house.  I have put off my normal cleaning and keeping it tidy because the days have been so lovely this week.  I just could not stay inside.  We were all outside from early morning till evening.   It has felt soooo good because we had to stay inside so much this winter with lots of cold and rainy days.  So it feels wonderful to get outside and get dirty again!  God is so good.

May God richly bless you as you live, learn and grow in Him, 

susan