When it rains…

It does indeed pour. After much anticipation we had our first Kinder kids born. Kinders are a fantastic dual purpose goat breed that are gaining in popularity because they are great milkers (higher quantity but still retain the quality of the Nigerian Dwarf milk) and have a much better dress out ratio than a strictly diary goat. This is the breed we wanted when we got started in goats but the nearest breeders are a 14 hour drive, round trip (although I have a promising lead to one closer). When we started we were less crazy than we are now, so we went with closer breeders. But back in September we brought home two sweet registered Kinder girls who had been bred to registered bucks, which meant if all went accordingly to plan we would have purebred kinder babies. At first we thought the breedings didn’t take, because we tried pregnancy tests which came out negative. Happily (never so glad to be wrong) the breeding did take and our girls did great.

Before I show you pictures that are melt-you-to-a-puddle-cute, a word on gender. Baby girl goats (doelings) are considered more valuable because they can do more (milk, make more goaties, not so stinky/aggressive/large). Baby boy goats (bucklings/wethers) are good for making more goats (bucklings), an important job they do once or twice a year, or companions/pets (wethers). We have had 12 kids born since we started this adventure an 10 have been boys, including all four Kinder kids. This probably doesn’t mean much to any non-goat folk reading this, but it’s enough to make me change our water because seriously there must be something in it. So now we are in a conundrum about which of the boys to keep (if any) and which to sell.

ChaCha kidded first and is a first time mama. She did so well I didn’t even realize she had had her boys until, once again, I look out the window and there are babies goaties.

  

Their names are Dori (silver and white one) and Nori (brown). Our naming convention is the dwarves from the Hobbit and Yes, we are anxiously awaiting an extra fat boy that we can name Bombur. Nori has wattles, which I think are adorable and he seems to have the best conformation. We will know better in a few weeks, but Dori’s coloring is beautiful. They are both doing well and are out with the rest of the big goats.

When Josie kidded, it was a whole different story. We were all out in the yard working on stuff (Well, I was in the house planting seeds) and suddenly Garyn starts yelling that she was having her babies! So I rush out and sure enough there was a baby goat head sticking right on out. Ideally, a kid comes out front hooves first, like they are diving. Head first is ok, but has a greater chance of complication. I got cleaned up in case I had to go looking for some hooves. Honestly I wasn’t sure what to do, because the baby wasn’t going anywhere. I figured I should start by pulling and if that didn’t work I’d go looking for a hoof. Luckily he came out easily and his brother did the same thing…head first but smooth sailing with a little bit of traction.

My human kids got to watch the whole thing and now Naomi’s game of choice is having her My Little Pony figures “born babies.” Weird and totally awesome all at the same time.

 

  

Josie is a great mother and Fili and Kili are growing nicely. They get to go out with everyone on Saturday. All the kids have been disbudded (I’d love to know what our neighbors thought of that noise) and we are excited to start milking the does. Cheese and yogurt here I come!

P.S. http://comfyposy.com/2014/03/08/new-favorite/ a post on how spring is treating us here on the farm!

So much happening!

Here is what happened today on the second type of garden we are experimenting with:

http://comfyposy.com/2014/01/20/they-have-returned/

Planting will happen the middle of February and we have to plant that early to beat the stupid heat that attacks us. So don’t worry Montana people…we get our comeuppance in July.

This is what is going on with the first dirt garden:

  

A whole lot of nothing. Turns out plants need sun to grow! Shocker, right? well when I positioned the garden I didn’t account for the sun moving in the winter and so this garden will be brilliant in about 2 months. As a winter garden, yeah, not so much. But it’s ok we have the little onion that could, making a valiant attempt at life and that makes me happy.

Soon we will be building another aquaponics system, using the FriendlyAquaponics 128 square foot layout. It will be a raft system to bypass our growing media problem of the first system. Our goal is to have it built and stocked (with fish and plants by the middle of March).

In other news: we are processing our first litter of rabbit kits on Saturday so a post chronicling that…um…adventure? will be coming soon. Also, I’m making soap (yay!) and possibly a shampoo replacement bar is in my future. Goat girls are due to kid the end of February-early March (well one is due in April), so when we go from our current 3 cups of milk per day to 1 gallon per day we are really going to buckle down and learn cheeses. I will make a hard cheese that my kids will eat if it kills me! Chickens continue to lay eggs and make me laugh so they are awesome and my husband reminded me that I really don’t want to raise turkeys in the spring…well at least not this year.

goat pregnancy test

I’d like to give you your Saturday night laugh at my expense. You’re welcome. The original plan was to keep Wishes. So we put her in with our buck, Buffalo, so she could be bred and have babies in the early spring. Then the plan changed to include two new goats of a different breed, so Wishes will be finding a new home. Unfortunately we were not 100% sure if she was pregnant, and that kind of matters to people looking to buy a goat. Since the internet knows everything, I thought I’d check for ways to tell if a goat is pregnant without having to do a blood draw or see a vet. Success! Score one for resourceful cattle ranchers! Ranchers realized that if you mix cow pee with bleach it will foam up if they are pregnant because the progesterone (or something) reacts with the bleach. Goats and cows and sheep are all very similar when it comes to all things baby-ing, so people reported good results with this method. I had bleach, I just needed some goat pee. Turns out Wishes is shy and goats must only need to pee once every 24 hours or so. I rigged up a washed-out bean can on the end of a stick (I’m serious) and hung out in the goat pen for probably 5 hours all together. One night I was calling it a failure and as I opened the gate to come in, she peed. On the ground. But it didn’t seep in so I scooped up the pee and now mud into the can and we got enough that it made the bleach foam. I then bleached my hand and happily moved on with my life vowing to buy tests and learn to draw blood because what I just described is ridiculous…even for me.

  

A company in Canada makes easy to use tests for cows that also work for goats and sheep. When they arrived we got to it. Milk or blood serum can be used (not pee…hallelujah) so all we needed was to draw some blood. Again, for the 8 millionth time in our farm career, it was to the internets!

First you shave a big patch on the neck on either side. I think I might buy my husband new clippers for Christmas, so these can be for the goats and he can have his very own set that isn’t shared.

Then you (or a helper…me in this case because I wanted to watch him a few times before I try it) hold the goat, feel for the jugular vein, insert the needle and draw the blood. Easy, right? Actually once he found where to go it was super easy. Our new Kinder girls were very easy to work with.

  

Some places say the blood will clot and the serum will separate on it’s own. Other places say you need to spin it in a centerfuge. Yeah, we don’t have one of those…but we do have my sons bike! Perfect! Oh and these are my new “farm” jeans thanks to a stupid fence and greedy goats poaching for animal cookies.

 

Lots of spinning later these are our conclusions:

– Totally got mixed messages on wether or not Wishes is pregnant. I think she is.

– We have a lot to learn about working with the blood once it is drawn, but we know we can get blood easily on our own for when we start testing. Yay!

– Spinning it on the bike did nothing to make the serum separate.

– Josie’s blood clotted and separated beautifully, while the other two girls’ didn’t at all…we barely got enough for the test. And no idea what we did differently or if goats are like people in that some cooperate and some don’t.

– According to the test (which might be off because our breeding dates were a bit off) none of the three is pregnant. That is sad because we were hoping that the Kinder girls were bred when we bought them. It may be a good thing though because one of them is really too young to be bred. So in November, Josie will be hanging out in Buffalo’s pen so they can shamelessly get it on when she goes into heat. ChaCha will go in there in December.

–   The mating habits of goats are almost as funny as those of rabbits. Almost.