Category: goats (Page 5 of 9)

I know it’s been a bit since our last post, but it’s been extraordinarily busy around here, with seasonal chores to attend to; and so, thanks for your patience!

Back in November, it was time to start the goat mating process once again (with a 150-day gestation period, this usually puts the kidding to after freezing temperatures). We have two bucks, and we separate our older does with our buck Shatner:

And the next generation does with Rocky (posing with my brother Kevin when he was visiting back in April):

And lo, after 5 months, by God’s graces, many kids were born! Here are a few pictures of the lot of them. Nine does gave birth to 17 in all — 9 bucklings and 8 doelings, although we sadly lost two of the bucklings in the first few days:

Here’s a kid relaxing with a chicken in one of the sheds:

Besides the losing of the two bucklings, this goat season was also interesting in a couple of other ways. First, we lost our Nubian nanny Betsy during the winter, although not from the cold because it wasn’t cold when she died. She had had a lump on her throat for several years that sort of just sat there; but it did seem to change a couple of weeks before she died — got spongier; so maybe something happened with that. Here is Betsy and her kids from last year:

And secondly, our nanny Minnie, who was our first born on the land from Winnie, died two days after giving birth from what appeared to be complications in the birth. Here is Minnie from last year with her kids as well:

It was quite sad to lose them both, but we always pray we have the proper attitude toward the things the Lord has provided to us for our use.

Here is where Betsy and Minnie were first introduced back in 2008.

And so, with Minnie dieing, we had two orphans on our hands again (here is where we had orphans the first time). That’s Pearl (in honor of Minnie — think Hee Haw) in the back, and Tiger (because he sort of has tiger-looking colors) in front:

This is Sue and Kev feeding them:

Kev also helped me move goat sheds back when we separated nannies from Shatner and Rocky:

The Lord had graciously granted a very nice gentleman to be interested in buying our entire kid herd last year, and he was interested again this year, and here we are prepping the area to load them up:

And finally, here is the kids of 2014 video. It’s a little long, but it includes introducing each of them and their sires to you, bottle feeding the orphans, letting them eat (including the smaller amount of wheat we ended up receiving this year) and roam around our inner field and barn area, and when we said goodbye to them after getting them loaded in the trailer:

As always, we are very grateful to God for granting the kid crop of this year; the health and safety He granted for them; the trials He brings in order to glorify Himself and we pray mold us in His image; and now for the provisions of the very healthy milk, which is really why we keep goats in the first place.

— David

After putting our does and bucks together in November, so they kid in the spring, the time came, and the Lord graciously granted quite the little kid herd for 2013! And so, we thought we’d introduce you to the group.

Here are our two bucks, Rocky (left) and Shatner (right):

And here are some sights and sounds of the offspring…

In this video, I introduce you around, including how we named some of them:

And I’ll try to name them in each of the pictures, from left to right.

This is Moe I think, I think Albert (there are 3 or 4 that look like him), Vinnie and Choco on the milking stand, either Shirley or Larry under it, Alice, Rosie on top of the front of the milking stand, and Mario and Stoney:

And here’s a little video Sue caught of some of them a-frolicking in the evening:

Here are Winnie I think, and Annie (our two does), Choco, Penny, not sure the two black ones in the back — maybe Finn and Becky, from top to bottom — Louie, Daphne, Velma, and Nicki, and our doe Minnie with Donny (black) and Clyde behind her:

And this is Clyde and Penny:

Marie, with Stoney and Mario:

Over to the left, Nellie with Velma and Daphne; Huey, Louie, Winnie our doe, and Dewey; Rosie in front; and our doe, Adeline, right:

Our doe Annie; Choco, our doe Pammy, and Vinnie behind her; Rosie (in black); our doe Gracie, with Penny and Nicki; Nellie again, with Daphne and Velma; Winnie again with her three; and Alice way over to the right:

Here’s a closer shot of some from the last pic:

And another close up:

Our doe Betsy, with Finn (left) and Becky (right):

And this is our doe Minnie, with Donny (left) and Clyde (right):

Thanks for taking the tour! In the end, the Lord granted 21 kids — 13 bucks and 8 does. We are very grateful to God for His graces and mercies in granting these provisions this year; for their safe deliveries (both mother and kids), especially after last year’s difficulties; and the health and safety He’s granted to them all thus far.

Soon, Lord willing, we’ll be able to get back to having goat milk, which we really look forward to!

— David

Back in November, it was breeding time for the goats! We had decided in the past to basically in-breed only every other generation, and so we have two pure Nubian billy goats we use for that.

And so, without further ado, allow me to introduce you around the herd!

Our billy Shatner…

…was mated with the following does, producing the following offspring:

Winnie (center), and her new buck Obie (we call him Obie from O.B., standing for “over bite,” because he has pretty pronounced one):

If you are interested, here is a video of Obie’s birth, which Sue was able to capture. It’s a little graphic, for obvious reasons; but if you’ve never seen something like this, it is quite fascinating:

Betsy, and her new bucks Bo and Luke (think early ’80s TV show featuring a car named the “General Lee”):

Hannah, and her new does Rigby and Pippi (because their ears look like pig tails):

Pammy, with her new does PJ (for Pammy Jr., as she looks like her mother; and Sandy, like a white, sandy beach):

Lucy, with her new buck Lester (from William Shatner’s daughter Leslie, since he looks a lot like his sire Shatner):

And then, our billy Rocky…

…was mated with the following does, producing the following offspring:

Marie, with her new buck and doe RJ (front) and Raquel (RJ for Rocky Jr., since he looks like his sire; and Raquel, since she does as well):

Nellie, with her new buck Melvin (from his coat looking velvety smooth, and Mel Torme being called the “Velvet Fog”):

Gracie, with her new buck Albert (Princess Grace’s son is Prince Albert):

*

Gracie had another kid, whom she sadly rejected. And so, we sort of “adopted” (and I mean that loosely, not like adopting a pet today), and named him Junior:

And here Junior and Albert are together. They do often hang out, so my guess is that they have a sense for each other:

And finally, Tapioca, with her new doe and buck Annie and Spot (Tapi is the goat to the far right in the second scene of the birthing video above). Tapi had a very rough delivery — she was a little older and this was her first kidding, although we’re not sure if that played into it. Whatever the reason, she had one teat squirting blood and water, and that whole side of her udder was purple (looking extremely bruised), and she wouldn’t really get up much at all and walk around and eventually stopped drinking water. It was very hot outside, and she had flies eating the skin of her udder, ears, snout, arms, etc. — I tried spraying eucalyptus essential oils on her udder, as I read that might help keep them away, and because we had some; but it didn’t work. We had a dilemma with that too — being as hot as it was, we made some shade over her, but it was too hot for the flies as well; so, her being in the sun was better to keep the flies away but had her in direct sunlight, and putting her under the shade brought the flies back in. Sadly, in the end, we decided it was best to euthanize her; and so, we had two more orphans on our hands — the doe we decided to call Annie (for Little Orphan Annie) and the buck Spot (because he looks like a dalmatian):

Here is a video tour of the new herd:

And here is feeding time with the orphans:

As I mention in the tour video, the Lord showed His graces with the orphans in allowing other kids to be born on the same day, so we could “steal” some colostrum from the other mothers to get some into the orphans, as the colostrum has things in it, which apparently are adapted to the local area, to help the immune systems of newborns. We have had to use some milk replacer to feed the orphans, but now that the kids are over a month old, we’re able to use mostly milk from the other mothers.

Both orphan experiences, for different reasons, were somewhat difficult; but we thank the Lord for His help through them, and for the health of the orphans and all of the new kids.

We are very grateful to God for the increase in the herd, for the colostrum He granted for the orphans, for the increase in healthy goat milk; and we pray for help in proper management and for provisions for the herd.

— David

So, a little over five months ago, Sue saw Minnie, one of our does, with her hind-end backed up against the fence, and one of our bucks, Shatner, her sire, trying to perform his male duty. From a distance, it looked like he was able to accomplish his task — through the fence; but after Sue told me, I just couldn’t see how that was physically possible. But over the past couple of months, we saw Minnie looking pregnant; and I believe I felt one of the kids through her side.

Well, about a week and a half ago, I was looking over at the goats from our orchard and saw a black and white goat laying next to Minnie. I thought, “Wow, Minnie and Adeline (our black and white doe that is in the same pen with her) are sure cozying up.” But then I realized that the goat next to Minnie had long, floppy ears, whereas Adeline has the tiny LaMancha ears.

I ran up there, and sure enough, Minnie had given birth…to twins — a male and female.

Introducing Ralphie and Alice. Here’s Ralphie:

And here’s Alice:

And them together:

And here is a video of them a few days old:

Although the inbreeding situation wasn’t what we had planned, we are thankful to the Lord for the new provisions, and that they appear to be healthy, and for the safe and healthy delivery for both Minnie and new kids.

— David