Blessing's story is a short one. She comes from the same breeder as Sue and is a purebred Saanen. She is a half sister of Sue out of the same Buck and is approximately the same age. She however, unlike Sue was bred last spring and spent the summer on the mountain with her kids. She was not milked however. This year will be her second freshning but first milking. The breeder is looking to sell her since she is slightly skittish after being on the mountain (even though she was calm and tame before going up) and also she was accidently bred. The bucks apparently broke out of their pen and since the Boer buck is the dominant one the breeder is fairly sure that she's been bred to him. There is still a chance however that he was otherwise occupied and that it was Blessing's father that bred her.
Since I am enjoying Sue so much and want to expand my Saanen herd I have agreed to buy her and will pick her up as soon as the goat's new barn is finished (Hopefully by next week). She will have an unknown due date in late Jan/ early feb. So we will have kids and milk earlier than expected but I will be able to start training her before I am occupied with my own baby (in theory). The kids will of course be sold. Saanens (even grade without papers) and Saanen crosses can often be sold as pack animals since they are one of the strongest goat breeds. Hopefully the kids will get homes as pack animals or pets. If not they will probably end up going to the meat plant later next year. I have already had some interest in my Saanen kids this year from the guy who bought Buddy.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Rachel
Well it's been an interesting time with the goats this fall.
Since the hailstorm we had here in july our feed supplies have been short this year. So all the does got packed up and shipped to the mother-in-laws house. The problem is that at her house there is no fences strong enough to keep the goats in. Well if horses can be picketed why can't goats? Earlier in the summer we had taken them up there for a few weeks as well and had used a dog trolley, and some dog cables and stakes to picket them out. The cables were set up at enough distance apart to allow them to touch noses and be near each other without allowing them to become tangled. This time when we brought them down the MIL wanted them put in the corral to eat the brown weeds. Unlike the first there were no trees to cable them to. I only had one stake still (the other had been bent beyond repair) so I staked Sue out on the north side of the corral. I then pounded a steel T-post in as a temporary solution and chained Ellie to it. I then clipped Rachels and Fantines cables to the fence on the south side of the corral. We did this for several days. Every night I would go and "collect" them and put them in the barn there for the night.
Some background on Ellie...she is a fraidy cat through and through. She was raised and spent her first two years on one farm. Supposedly she went to shows and was shown some. The day I brought her home she cried the entire way here, then freaked and jumped/climbed the four foot fence that she had been in to get loose. Everytime she goes anywhere that is "new" she freaks. This includes being put from the garden where the goats were staying this spring into their pasture here (a distance of less than 100 yards). She spent the entire week after that "move" bellering and pacing. So needless to say she didn't take the "move" to MIL's easily.
The first few days that they were staked out Ellie was wrapped around the fence post every night. If she had paced the other way she would have unwound herself. I got tired of unwinding her day after day since it was obvious she wasn't getting much to eat that way. So I decided to switch her and Rachel one day. After all, Rachel was clipped to the fence and Ellie couldn't wrap herself around a straight fence. Unfortunately I neglected to check the lengths of the tie out lines in the short space of the corral and the distance I had chained Rachels and Ellies lines was a good deal closer than a nose reach. I came to put them away that night and found Ellie's and Rachel's cables wrapped around Rachel. Sadly, she didn't make it.
After taking care of Rachel I did some major thinking. First: If Fantine, Sue, and Blessing (story later) turn out to be good milkers (this is their first freshning for all) Ellie will be sold this year.
Second: I love Sue's calm disposition and adaptability much better (even though it comes with a mischevious curiousity) then the Nubians worried attitudes (although friendly and less aloof). Fantine will stay (as she appears to be somewhat adaptable to new pastures and continues eating calmly) and I will probably always own one/two Nubian/s but the focus of my herd is shifting to Saanens.
In other news: Ellie has been prancing around here for the last month and a half with her tail wagging and acting excited while Sue has continured eating calmly. I discovered that without a buck here it is difficult for me to tell when they are in heat. So I got a "buck rag" rubbed with buck scent since that supposedly works to help tell when they are in heat. Ellies response: "Neat toy! I'll take it and run every time!" Sue's response:"hmm a rag in a jar...so what..?"
Day after day it was the same story. So...when we had a snowstorm on the 10th and Ellie started really waving her tail and even Sue's tail was being held up I decided I might as well try it and loaded them up.
Two hours down to Cheyenne to the Mega-milkers herd for breeding and we get there and of course they show no response to the buck whatsoever. Talking with the herd owner Karen revealed though that rather than hauling them back and forth 20 times whenever I thought they might be in heat I could leave them there. Karen would board them for $1 a day plus feed and would walk the buck by them every day until they came into heat then would put them in with the man of my choice ;). Karen called me yesterday with news...Sue was in heat and being bred. YEAH! One down...due date March 20th, Saanen kids here we come! Today I get another call, Ellie came into heat and was in with "Touch". Fantastic! My two older does are both due a day apart! Now I just get to head down and pick them up and watch for signs of heat in about 18 days. I'm slightly dissapointed since neither was bred to the buck's I originally was hoping to have them bred too but at least they are both bred to good bucks that should produce wonderful kids. Ellie's "man" was out on breeding loan today and Sue's "man" died of old age this summer.
That just leaves Fantine to breed. Since she was born in April she won't be ready until at least next month. Wish me luck trying to figure out when she's in heat.
Since the hailstorm we had here in july our feed supplies have been short this year. So all the does got packed up and shipped to the mother-in-laws house. The problem is that at her house there is no fences strong enough to keep the goats in. Well if horses can be picketed why can't goats? Earlier in the summer we had taken them up there for a few weeks as well and had used a dog trolley, and some dog cables and stakes to picket them out. The cables were set up at enough distance apart to allow them to touch noses and be near each other without allowing them to become tangled. This time when we brought them down the MIL wanted them put in the corral to eat the brown weeds. Unlike the first there were no trees to cable them to. I only had one stake still (the other had been bent beyond repair) so I staked Sue out on the north side of the corral. I then pounded a steel T-post in as a temporary solution and chained Ellie to it. I then clipped Rachels and Fantines cables to the fence on the south side of the corral. We did this for several days. Every night I would go and "collect" them and put them in the barn there for the night.
Some background on Ellie...she is a fraidy cat through and through. She was raised and spent her first two years on one farm. Supposedly she went to shows and was shown some. The day I brought her home she cried the entire way here, then freaked and jumped/climbed the four foot fence that she had been in to get loose. Everytime she goes anywhere that is "new" she freaks. This includes being put from the garden where the goats were staying this spring into their pasture here (a distance of less than 100 yards). She spent the entire week after that "move" bellering and pacing. So needless to say she didn't take the "move" to MIL's easily.
The first few days that they were staked out Ellie was wrapped around the fence post every night. If she had paced the other way she would have unwound herself. I got tired of unwinding her day after day since it was obvious she wasn't getting much to eat that way. So I decided to switch her and Rachel one day. After all, Rachel was clipped to the fence and Ellie couldn't wrap herself around a straight fence. Unfortunately I neglected to check the lengths of the tie out lines in the short space of the corral and the distance I had chained Rachels and Ellies lines was a good deal closer than a nose reach. I came to put them away that night and found Ellie's and Rachel's cables wrapped around Rachel. Sadly, she didn't make it.
After taking care of Rachel I did some major thinking. First: If Fantine, Sue, and Blessing (story later) turn out to be good milkers (this is their first freshning for all) Ellie will be sold this year.
Second: I love Sue's calm disposition and adaptability much better (even though it comes with a mischevious curiousity) then the Nubians worried attitudes (although friendly and less aloof). Fantine will stay (as she appears to be somewhat adaptable to new pastures and continues eating calmly) and I will probably always own one/two Nubian/s but the focus of my herd is shifting to Saanens.
In other news: Ellie has been prancing around here for the last month and a half with her tail wagging and acting excited while Sue has continured eating calmly. I discovered that without a buck here it is difficult for me to tell when they are in heat. So I got a "buck rag" rubbed with buck scent since that supposedly works to help tell when they are in heat. Ellies response: "Neat toy! I'll take it and run every time!" Sue's response:"hmm a rag in a jar...so what..?"
Day after day it was the same story. So...when we had a snowstorm on the 10th and Ellie started really waving her tail and even Sue's tail was being held up I decided I might as well try it and loaded them up.
Two hours down to Cheyenne to the Mega-milkers herd for breeding and we get there and of course they show no response to the buck whatsoever. Talking with the herd owner Karen revealed though that rather than hauling them back and forth 20 times whenever I thought they might be in heat I could leave them there. Karen would board them for $1 a day plus feed and would walk the buck by them every day until they came into heat then would put them in with the man of my choice ;). Karen called me yesterday with news...Sue was in heat and being bred. YEAH! One down...due date March 20th, Saanen kids here we come! Today I get another call, Ellie came into heat and was in with "Touch". Fantastic! My two older does are both due a day apart! Now I just get to head down and pick them up and watch for signs of heat in about 18 days. I'm slightly dissapointed since neither was bred to the buck's I originally was hoping to have them bred too but at least they are both bred to good bucks that should produce wonderful kids. Ellie's "man" was out on breeding loan today and Sue's "man" died of old age this summer.
That just leaves Fantine to breed. Since she was born in April she won't be ready until at least next month. Wish me luck trying to figure out when she's in heat.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Computers stink!
Sorry for my long absence. I used to be able to go through and use my firefox screen and visit everything that I normally visited quickly and easily and Skipper would remember all the usernames and passwords for me. Well....for some reason my firefox has taken a dump and Im stuck with internet explorer. It knows none of my sites, I have no bookmarks anymore, and none of my passwords or usernames. It has been a daily challenge to try and remember them all. Hopefully I can get it fixed and up and running again soon. In the meantime I dont know how much I'll be able to make it on here. Everything takes me twice as long to look at because exploder is soooo slow on this computer and I have to type in usernames and passwords as well.
I apologize in advance for not reading your blogs as much as I should. It isn't that I don't love ya or want to know what's going on in your lives.
I apologize in advance for not reading your blogs as much as I should. It isn't that I don't love ya or want to know what's going on in your lives.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Apples, Apples, more free stuff
Sorry I've been "away". My hubby found a post on craigslist one night about a week ago for free aluminum cans here. So I took the truck and headed to the given address the next day. We filled the truck full of aluminum cans and took it to the junkyard to cash in. :) Lilly made $23 free dollars for her savings account.
In the process of loading the cans into the truck it was mentioned that the mans sister was moving and they are cleaning out the house to sell it. I had noticed the crabapple tree out front loaded with apples so bad that the branches touched the ground. I asked what would happen to all the apples. I got told he had no idea but they had to go and I was welcome to them.
Since then I've gone several more times to their house, picked for two hours on that tree (got halfway around it and quit) we now have about 12 gallons of crabapples here being processed in various ways (post later). I also got told to take some wire home, some plexiglass, the entire back porch (we disassebled it last night will haul it home tom.), and misc. other things.
They had a garage sale last weekend that I got a sneak peek at and came home with a pressure canner ($5!) and 2 boxes of jars ($1), Bags and bags of potting soil ($.25 ea), a toy chest and a lawnmower! The garage sale last weekend was to sell the stuff in the lady's garage. When I went to get the cans it was floor to ceiling boxes in the garage. They cleaned the house this last week and are having another sale this weekend.
In the process of loading the cans into the truck it was mentioned that the mans sister was moving and they are cleaning out the house to sell it. I had noticed the crabapple tree out front loaded with apples so bad that the branches touched the ground. I asked what would happen to all the apples. I got told he had no idea but they had to go and I was welcome to them.
Since then I've gone several more times to their house, picked for two hours on that tree (got halfway around it and quit) we now have about 12 gallons of crabapples here being processed in various ways (post later). I also got told to take some wire home, some plexiglass, the entire back porch (we disassebled it last night will haul it home tom.), and misc. other things.
They had a garage sale last weekend that I got a sneak peek at and came home with a pressure canner ($5!) and 2 boxes of jars ($1), Bags and bags of potting soil ($.25 ea), a toy chest and a lawnmower! The garage sale last weekend was to sell the stuff in the lady's garage. When I went to get the cans it was floor to ceiling boxes in the garage. They cleaned the house this last week and are having another sale this weekend.
Friday, August 21, 2009
The start of an obsession and happy endings
What happens when a gal with a big love of animals visits a dairy and discovers that a cute little goat kid will be killed and sent to a zoo for feed just because he was born the wrong sex? She decides that since she wanted to start a dairy herd of her own anyways the little buck can come home with her and be the start of her herd. (Yes she knows she can't save them all and that something has to be done with little bucks)
His first months at "home"
Standing in front of his house
This being my first goat I had no idea what I was getting myself into. For starters I quickly learned why they say to always get goats in pairs. All day he cried when I wasn't with him. I also quickly went on a search for general goat knowledge and discovered that for a small dairy herd like I intended that a buck was simply overdoing it a bit. The cost of feeding a buck is higher, you have to have separate places to put him away from the does if you want to know the due date, and to top it all off they reek! After discovering this my little buck quickly got wethered (fixed). The search began for a new job for him. In the meantime the search also continued for a companion for him. Early on in the search for a companion I discovered that he'd been born at the wrong time of the year. Being an October baby meant that there were no other kids to be found and that the only adults for sale tended to be expensive.
Reading on his breed, Saanens, I discovered that they had been long prized as pack animals since that breed tends to be one of the strongest goat breeds. Points for "buddy"! The training began. He learned to come when called, walk on a leash, and to accept being touched all over. As the months went on reality hit and it was discovered that despite his training and the time spent with him then he was still miserable. No companion could be found. So I decided the best thing for him would be to find him a good home with goats elsewhere.
I posted him on a site I'd found about packgoats and within a week a very excited man in Montana contacted me. His goat had lost his companion due to old age recently and he'd been searching in vain for another pack goat. After many emails and phone calls it was arranged that a business friend of his would pick Buddy up in Casper, pay us, and transport him to Cody. Then Bill (his new owner) would pick him up from there and transport him home. His journey began anew with me saying goodbye.
You always wonder what happens to animals you have to part with and if they truly do have a good home. I'm thrilled to say that I know Buddy does. He's grown into a very handsome goat and gets to hang out with his friend all day and go on trips into the mountains and on regular hikes. I couldn't have wished for a happier ending for my beginning of an obsession.
This is a trip they took just this month (Buddy will be 1 in October)
His first months at "home"
Standing in front of his house
This being my first goat I had no idea what I was getting myself into. For starters I quickly learned why they say to always get goats in pairs. All day he cried when I wasn't with him. I also quickly went on a search for general goat knowledge and discovered that for a small dairy herd like I intended that a buck was simply overdoing it a bit. The cost of feeding a buck is higher, you have to have separate places to put him away from the does if you want to know the due date, and to top it all off they reek! After discovering this my little buck quickly got wethered (fixed). The search began for a new job for him. In the meantime the search also continued for a companion for him. Early on in the search for a companion I discovered that he'd been born at the wrong time of the year. Being an October baby meant that there were no other kids to be found and that the only adults for sale tended to be expensive.
Reading on his breed, Saanens, I discovered that they had been long prized as pack animals since that breed tends to be one of the strongest goat breeds. Points for "buddy"! The training began. He learned to come when called, walk on a leash, and to accept being touched all over. As the months went on reality hit and it was discovered that despite his training and the time spent with him then he was still miserable. No companion could be found. So I decided the best thing for him would be to find him a good home with goats elsewhere.
I posted him on a site I'd found about packgoats and within a week a very excited man in Montana contacted me. His goat had lost his companion due to old age recently and he'd been searching in vain for another pack goat. After many emails and phone calls it was arranged that a business friend of his would pick Buddy up in Casper, pay us, and transport him to Cody. Then Bill (his new owner) would pick him up from there and transport him home. His journey began anew with me saying goodbye.
You always wonder what happens to animals you have to part with and if they truly do have a good home. I'm thrilled to say that I know Buddy does. He's grown into a very handsome goat and gets to hang out with his friend all day and go on trips into the mountains and on regular hikes. I couldn't have wished for a happier ending for my beginning of an obsession.
This is a trip they took just this month (Buddy will be 1 in October)
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Things I love about my daughter #13
She makes me laugh behind my hands when I know I should be scolding her.
Permanent marker *sigh* I'll bet this outfit is ruined.
Permanent marker *sigh* I'll bet this outfit is ruined.
Friday, August 14, 2009
The holiday baby...
I'm getting a valentines present! I'm getting a valentines present!
Here's the official announcement! I'm pregnant! Yahooo!! Okay I waited awhile to tell you all but I've been a tad busy with other things.
So....
Is it a boy or girl???? What should we name it?? I'm so very excited!
This cute little bar that tells about the baby will be hanging out at the bottom of my blog for those that are interested!
Here's the official announcement! I'm pregnant! Yahooo!! Okay I waited awhile to tell you all but I've been a tad busy with other things.
So....
Is it a boy or girl???? What should we name it?? I'm so very excited!
This cute little bar that tells about the baby will be hanging out at the bottom of my blog for those that are interested!
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