winter flurry

This time of year, it's hard to keep a constant offering of liquid water. I take fresh water out 2-3 times a day, depending on how fast it freezes over.


Chickens eat their crumbles.


Snowy Juniper.

Farmer Ed's Boer kids

I heard from a friend that Farmer Ed, the fella that I buy my alfalfa hay from, has 28 new kids that were born within the last two weeks. He keeps Boer/Saanen mix goats. Mostly Boer in them. He sells them at auction. My friend invited us to go with her and her daughter to visit with and handle the goats. Farmer Ed wants his goats to be friendly, so he likes people to come and spend some time with the kids. We were more than happy to go cuddle with these newborns!

This thermometer was hung just outside the door to the barn. If you look closely, at the bottom it says: "dead stock and animal removal". This is the kind of thing that I would have had displayed in my college residence back in the day. I thought it a strange sort of thing to have up on your livestock barn. Seems to portray a hopeless attitude about what you're doing. I have to confess that the thought to steal this little gem crossed my mind - but I'm too old to do such things anymore.

After walking into the barn the first thing I see is this shocking sight. Ironic.

I later learned that one of these babies was born directly into a bucket of water in it's mother's kidding pen.

Two dead goat kids laying in a wheelbarrow. It was bizarre - I kept expecting to see them breathing, or twitch in reaction to a dream, or change their sleepy position. But they didn't move at all. They were eerily still. As my boys observed them and asked if they were dead, they showed almost no reaction at all when I confirmed their suspicions. They just walked on toward the live babies in the fenced loafing area. Dead babies forgotten, once inside the fence they each immediately picked up the first baby they could get their hands on. I think they held every baby in there at least once.

The boys got to see first-hand the beauty of kids nursing from their mothers. They found this sight to be amazing and it never seemed to lose it's magic to them. The goat kids were pretty active and vocal and as a whole seemed to be pretty healthy. There was one kid, who was the smallest of the bunch, who was obviously not doing well. Later Farmer Ed said he didn't expect her to make it. She wouldn't nurse from her mother, wouldn't take a bottle, and he and his wife had been tube feeding her. Her back legs and rump were covered with runny poop and she just stood there, not showing the same vigor and energy as the other babies. That baby really bothered the boys who kept asking if she was going to be alright. I hope she will be.

On our way out, Farmer Ed arrived home from church. He says that he's got a secret stash of that good alfalfa hay left over that he'll sell me! I am so glad - I've been buying my hay from Agway. It's mediocre. I'd like my goats to have nice hay, especially in this cold weather - and with my pregnant girl.

Despite the harsh realities of life on the farm, it was a nice visit and good to see how another goat farmer does his thing.

Today's Snapshots

Juniper is still trying to push me around; despite my persistent redirection. Doesn't seem to be working.

This is what us country folk do with our used Christmas trees... throw 'em out in the yard and let the animals eat them. I love that.

The Seven Valleys J.D.s.

"Warriors ... come out to playeeeyaaay!"

Photo Update: Ginger at 8 weeks

(hopefully) Bred doe, Ginger at nearly 8 weeks along.

ivy treats

As you can see, we have lots of ivy growing on the front of our home. When John closed our storm windows for the season, he trimmed the ivy that was growing in front of them. It looks neat and tidy for now. It won't take long for it to grow back over once again. After John's trim, I picked up all those cuttings and took them to the goats. They LOVE ivy! You can see on the house, on the parts of the plant closest to the ground, it grows sparsely; that's because when we take the goats out to browse, this is one of their favorite spots to stop and munch. They eat it up the wall as far as they can reach.

Going to town on the ivy cuttings.

On the Farm Today

Clover really wants to give the boy a kiss; she just can't get close enough.


Juniper tries to have as much physical contact as possible - even if I am on the other side of the fence. I am hoping that this is intended as something like a hug - and not a hoof sandwich.


Sadie gets a better view of it all from up on the fence. She prefers to be higher up than the goats.

The cold air is moving in to the valley. Our run of spring-like weather has come to an end. Now we must hunker down and prepare for the unpleasantness of freezing temperatures. The barn floor has built up a nice deep straw bed. I've got to drag out the bucket de-icer and find a place to plug it in. The barn does get cold enough to freeze up the water buckets. John is now closing the storm windows in the house. We just topped off the oil tank. We have lots of hot chocolate, teas, and microwave popcorn. We also bought our first generator recently. I think that we are ready for winter. I hope we get some snow soon!

How Can it be Spring? It hasn't even been winter yet!

snowdrops

The chickens think that I'm going to give them some treats as I snap pictures of the snowdrops.

You can see the flower buds on this hyacinth.

Dusk in the Foggy Valley

Hoof-Trimming Day

Please excuse my flashing; it was not intended.

Today I accepted that fact that I could not put off the hoof trimming any longer. Ginger started looking like she was wearing fancy slippers. I hate trimming her hooves, because she hates it and refuses to just let me do it without a fight! She alone took three different sessions and a total of about 45 minutes. She won't hold still and is continuously pushing forward and backward with her 120-lb. brawny self. She also pushes, pulls, and kicks her hoof out of my hand. Then I'm in the middle of all of this holding a terribly sharp pair of trimmers in my hand. I'm scared that one of us is going to be stabbed with them. John had to come out and help me so I could actually finish the job this time. Just about every other time I've done it alone, I gave up before all hooves were done; which is why her feet are in such gnarly shape.

One thing I noticed for the first time was that every time I picked up on of Ginger's hind legs, it sounded crunchy inside her joint. Like dozens of tiny dry twigs snapping and breaking. It sounded awful! It can't be good. I'll have to peruse my many goat books to see what horrible condition she has. None of the other goats had this problem - so that's one good thing.


Clover was a doll during the trimming. Juniper was okay; Tulip was not pleasant and faught me the whole time. Luckily, she is still pretty small. I'll have to trim her more often in hopes that she can get more used to the process.


Thank you, Farmhand John, for your help today! Thanks, Asa, for taking the pictures.

Me with Juniper (oh, and Ginger's bottom)

Dominance Issues

Ginger (Saanen) and Clover (Toggenburg). Ginger is the herd Queen. You can see Tulip (Nubian) tethered to the fence. Asa was with me in the field, and Tulip was butting him. I had to keep her chained while we were in there.

My two youngest goats, the Nubians, are showing signs of behavior issues. This past Christmas, our friends came to visit. Their little one, who is 2 years old, went into the goat yard with a group of people to visit with, and pet the goats. She has always loved our goats - and is always kind and gentle with them. Twice, Tulip pushed/butted the little one onto the ground. It didn't take much to knock her down, she's pretty small. It was a solid butting nontheless. The first time Tulip did this, I figured she was simply playing and I thought nothing of it. She did it a second time the next day, and Tulip seemed to focus just on the little girl. I thought Tulip was feeling the need to dominate this little one, and thought it was best to keep her out of the goat yard.

Juniper eating hay while Tulip remaines tied to the fence.

Then, just a few days ago, we had another visitor. This was a stranger, and was a child of about 11 years old. He is the same size as my older son, almost five feet tall. Besides myself and the boy, there were also four other children in the yard of various ages. This boy was one of the tallest in there. Juniper starts butting him - and not gently either. She gave him a good, hard push, then stood looking at him, her head down, making something close to a growling sound. Then she butted him again, with all of her strength it seemed. She was only focused on this one boy. She didn't attempt to butt any of the other children. I got him and the others out of there immediately. I have told everyone in my family that children are no longer allowed in the goat's yard. Now, when Asa goes in there, Tulip tries to butt him.

Here, Juniper is pushing against me. She doesn't butt at all - just a strong, slow PUSH.

All the while, Juniper (Tulip's sister) has been pushing on me whenever I'm in their yard - when she's not eating hay or grain. All the boys in our family have always played this butting game with the goats, who have never been anything but gentle while playing. But, now I see that that has to end. I have read in books that butting should never be encouraged in goats, and I see that there is a good reason for this. Good thing that my goats don't have horns! I am worried that as Tulip grows larger that she could really hurt someone; these goats will grow to be 120 to 150 pounds. Now, when Juniper pushes against me with her head, I gently move her head off of me. I hope that eventually, this will end her behavior.

We had our first burnpile fire of the season last weekend. I love my fires! While John and Sassa worked on the hen house, the boys and I worked on burning everything from the yard that we could get our hands on. We also cut down and burned some yew bushes (which are poisonous to the goats), still lots more to get rid of in our yard. We burned right where we plan to put our vegetable garden this summer. I can’t wait for that time to come around.

Lost and Found

For some time now, one of our hens has been leaving the flock each night for a destination unknown to any of us. Each morning, she rejoins the group and spends the day foraging with them – but seems to prefer her solitude during the night. But where exactly does she go? It’s been a mystery that I’ve tried to solve several times, but get too bored or run out of free time to follow her long enough to know where it is that she goes. Alas, I finally stumbled upon her hiding place, and it was right under our noses the whole time. While fetching the mail today, I peeked under the front porch, which I do most times that I am walking past it in hopes of discovering some sign that this is where that hen might go. Well, today I finally saw a whole clutch of eggs that gave away the hen’s secret nest. I’ve looked in that particular spot many times, but it’s the deepest and darkest area with the least amount of height under our porch, so I was never able to see very well in there. For some reason, today I bent over a bit more than usual and poked my head in a bit farther, and hey! there’s a bunch of eggs in there!! Twenty nine eggs to be exact. I removed every last one of them (oh, my poor legs!), and the chickens tried their best to eat one of the eggs that I accidentally cracked open. Now, we will be able to gather one more egg each day; I plan to put a nestbox in that spot to help keep the egg poop-free, and make it easier for me to spot the egg. Victory!