So the children were right, our dairy goat, Mally, had twins!  Finally on Feb. 1st, she gave birth the day after the other goat had her baby!  Newborn goats are so cute!  She had one doe and one buck who have some very nice Alpine colorings.  The momma and babies are called Cou Blanc Alpines which means that they have literally a ”white neck” – white front quarters and black hindquarters with black or gray markings on the head.

Our daughter had a nice surprise out in the pasture yesterday. 

One of our goats gave birth to a very cute little mixed nubian alpine doeling, which we weren’t expecting.  The boys found the baby and thought it belonged to Mally, the goat who we have been anxiously awaiting to give birth.  They ran inside to announce that Mally had her baby!  We were all excited and jumped up from the table to go see!

We soon discovered that the baby wasn’t Mally’s and was in fact from one of our other goats — a first time momma.  

We have a pregnant dairy goat about to give birth to one or two kids.  I’m guessing one…others in the family are guessing twins.  We are anxiously awaiting!  The children have been updating us on her progress as they have been checking on her throughout the day every day for a little while now.  The first signs are usually that they notice the pregnant goat or animal is gaining weight and has a growing belly area.  Near the final stages of pregnancy in dairy goats, the milk goat’s udder will start to swell or fill and become very large in comparison to what it was previously. 

We suspect our dairy goat is within a few days of birth.  She has a very full udder, very fat and her birth canal area is looking quite different.  The children checked her tail ligaments.  Today, she’s indicating it will be very soon. 

Here’s Mally.  She is 75% Alpine and 25% Nubian….which will give your goat airplane ears!  She’s more friendly than the most Alpines and I suspect that’s the friendly-I-think-i’m-human-nubian blood in her. 

Here’s another good dairy goat resource we enjoy reading with detailed instructions and great pictures on how to check your doe’s tail ligaments and tail head:  Fias Co Farm

In case you have been wondering where we went…we’re still here.  I amazed at how busy life is.  Fall is already here in full swing and it is absolutely amazingly gorgeous outside.  Every year, I stand in awe at the amazing painting that appears.

We have a lot of things coming up in the near future.  I have a lot to update here on the blog, but for now, here’s a brief update:

• We have a new milk cow (new to the blog..we’ve had her a couple of months actually) that is about to have a baby any day now.  Her name is May and she has been an exciting addition to the farm.  She’s got spunk and personality plus and after our rocky start with her (she ran away the first day we got her and it took 2 days to find her), we are enjoying having her around even if she does consistently challenge the fence lines!
• Our sheep herd is growing.  I love watching the sheep in the field.  They are a favorite around here.  They are easy to maintain and require little care.
• The milk barn has been undergoing some work.  The boys have been trying to make it more functional.  They are trying to remove the rigged setup of bungee cords, bailing twine and tarps and replace it with a real roof that doesn’t leak or look so make-shift hillbilly.
• Our old milk cow, Layna, is doing better than expected.  She’s well loved around here and we could all learn a thing or two from her very laid back, slow-going personality.
• We’ve lost a lot of baby animals.  We lost our baby goats that were born this summer and some kittens too.  We’ve also lost some of our bottle fed infant cows.  Our 8 year old has been very stretched in dealing with these losses, as he has been very involved in their care and feeding every day.  He announced that he was going to go out of business if things didn’t pick up soon.  Haha!  He’s a brave boy who has been taking his job seriously.  He currently is in better spirits and has been talking about maybe getting a few more baby cows!  We are attributing a lot of the newborn/baby losses to weather related issues and being out of town when we needed to be attentive to the babies.
• The fall garden is pitiful.  Nothing has been planted and the only thing the garden has to show for itself is dying okra trees and pepper plants that are still loaded with hot peppers.  I think we’ll focus on getting the plastic on the greenhouse and get  it ready for planting spring starter plants.
• We just completed a wonderful apple order.  These fall apples have been delicious.  I wish I had more apples to sell, but we are out.  Next year, we will order more.  It’s inspired me to get apple trees going around here.
• And there’s more on the horizon.  We are putting together some very exciting Webinars for those interested in family farming and agrarian living.

May with baby belly

I am shocked at how quickly our first year doe had her baby…a beautiful little doe!  It was amazingly fast.  Most of the children and my 16 year old niece were able to watch her give birth.  They haven’t stopped talking about it. 

We had a very busy day and are blessed to have 3 babies so far doing well. 

Warning  Graphic Farm Language:

Because things like this always happen to me when the husband has to leave to go to the city to earn our family some income…. This is how the morning has gone…

8 year old runs in the house…. frantically and out of breath …”Mom…something is really wrong with Ellie May—she’s trying to go poop but she can’t!”

He runs back out. 

Ellie May is our very pregnant Alpine Goat who is due today. 

I finish making 6 gigantic milk bottles for the bottle fed calves since the 8 year old was drafted into helping with milking the cow this week. 

He runs back in a few moments later…again frantic….”Mom, Quick…Something is really wierd with Ellie May…she has something sticking out her bottom….it’s like a leg or something.”

The house is in an uproar.  Our 10 year old daughter is on the verge of tears.

I throw the burning oatmeal off the stove, ramble off directions for watching the baby to my oldest daughter, assign tasks to the 3, 4, and 6 year old to keep them busy,  run to change my clothes in case I have to help deliver a kid, and run out side with the “How to Raise Goats” book in hand.  Sure enough, I find Ellie May up in the woods.  The second I approach, she grunts, turns around and drops a baby on the ground.  Less than a minute later, she drops a second! 

Twins!

Milk goats are a great family farm animal.  They are ideal for the children.  Milking an animal is a huge responsibility with so many rewards.  It is a great animal for a child to learn how to milk and all the responsibilities that go along with that chore.  Goats are a good –child to animal size – ratio.  A milk cow is a very large animal with many different considerations and although we did train our boys how to milk the cow, it is just much more of a parental oversight job than a milk goat is.  Or maybe it’s just that mom worries more with her boy under a 1,000+ pound animal than when he is sitting beside a 130 pound animal. 

Our milk goats are mostly Alpines…which we love.  However, after our recent experience with the Nubian milk goat, we can see why people love them as family milk goats too. Our Nubian has grown to be a family favorite.  We know other families who like the La Manchas and the Saanens. 

• One goat is not enough milk for our large family–we made due with one  milking goat, but there wasn’t much extra.  Our little Nubian is in her 1st lactation so her milk production isn’t at its peak (2 quarts was our daily high with her).  I was reading that goats actually give more milk per body weight than a cow does.  Goats produce larger amounts of milk after a few lactations compared to their first lactation.  We have heard of experienced goats giving a gallon of milk a day. 
• Goats have two quarters to milk.  Cows have 4 quarters to milk.   
• We prefer dehorned goats and cows.  Horns can be a dangerous and it is best not to have a strong animal with horns, especially around children. 
• Remember there is not a “perfect” animal.  Don’t get caught up in finding the perfect dairy goat.  There isn’t one.
• Purchase a milk goat that has been milked before or has been human “broke”.  Be leary of buying some ones brush goat that just had a baby and is in milk.  You won’t have a good experience trying to milk a wild, “just off the field”  goat. 

Before we knew anything about milking, we met someone who raised dairy goats and learned so much from her.  If you can find someone who has a dairy goat, you will gather more practical advice and tips from a human person than you will from a book many times.  Although there are some great books out there about dairy goats…there is nothing like having someone walk you through, in person, how to milk or even how to dehorn a goat. 

Trial and error are great ways to learn what not to do.  The great thing about farming is you are forced to figure it out.  

Have you ever bought something and got it home only to feel that pit feeling in your stomach that you shouldn’t have bought it?  We had that feeling not too long ago, only we were driving out of the sellers driveway after we bought their goats when the feeling hit…way before we got home.  We looked at each other…What were we thinking? 

We told ourselves it was for our daughter.  We drove over an hour to purchase 3 goats.  The Craig’s List ad said “milk goat”.  When we got there it wasn’t exactly what we were expecting.  The goat was “in milk” but wasn’t actually being milked by a human…there is a huge difference and one you should always clarify prior to buying a milking animal.  And it didn’t appear that she had ever been milked. Bells and flashing warning lights should be going off in your head after you find out these important pieces of information when looking for a milk goat.  This milk goat also had horns…something we had forgotten to check out before we drove all the way over there…and something we definitely did not want. 

However, we already drove over an hour to get there.  We looked them over, ignored the bells and warning lights  and loaded them up.  All the “we should of asked this…and this and that…” questions started to flood my mind.  My husband reminded me that we could always sell them again….no worries. 

That first night was horrible.  We learned that Nubian goats are extremely loud and scream like nothing we have ever heard before.  If we were any closer to town, I am sure we would have had the police at our house that night investigating the hostage torture situation called in.   Yep, we should not have bought these goats for sure!  It was too late, the kids (our human children that is) were instantly attached to them despite our warnings that we were not keeping the babies and the momma was really iffy at this point.  Our plan was to bottle feed the babies and sell them at weaning time. 

That time came and went.  We sold the two bucklings to a nice ol’ farmer who was kind enough to show our children around his sheep farm.   We dehorned the momma goat, started milking her and since then she has grown to be one of our favorite farm animals and a great milk goat.  Like my husband said, “no worries”!  It all worked out. 

The other morning my husband and I were sitting down by the pond watching our ducks  and enjoying the fine spring day when Chesnutt spotted us….and broke the silence. 

And as she always does, she greeted us in her own unique way with a loud, “Mahh…Wahhh….Ahhahhahhh….Mahhwahhhwahh…” as she come galloping up and over the hill towards us with her dumbo ears waving in the wind.  She makes us all smile when we see and hear her coming!

Sometimes that buyer’s remorse pit feeling in your stomach surprisingly turns out to be one of the best deals you ever stumbled upon! 

Our Nubian milk goat’s horns fell off after about 3 1/2 weeks.  Here’s the story about how and why we banded the goat’s horns:  The Trouble with Goat Horns. 

Here’s a picture of her with horns.

Here’s a picture of her horns in the process of falling off.

Wow! Look at that!  No Horns!  Here’s a picture of her without horns!

And here are the horns.

After going through this process, we would highly recommend it to anyone who has a goat with horns.  However, it needs to be done fairly early.  We have two more goats with horns, but after checking them, their horns and skull are fully fused and it looks to be a bit more difficult than it was on our young Nubian.  We still might try it on them, however, we will wait because this “operation” should not be tried during warm weather.  Evidently, fly season can cause some major complications. 

Our biggest problem was that she kept getting her head and horns stuck in the fence.  After her horns were banded, they were very sore and weakened over time.  Having her head stuck in the fence and then having her knock them around trying to get untangled from the fence caused her horns to bleed some.  We put cayenne pepper around the horns to stop the bleeding.  I think you could use goldenseal sprinkled around the base of the horn to prevent infection and to dry it up as well. 

Overall, we are very pleased that banding a goats horns actually worked!

So far Chessnut still has horns… although they are loose.  The banding appears to be working as planned, with a couple minor draw backs.  First, she cut milk production by about 20%.  Which makes sense, but not something we had on the radar or we may have waited for this procedure.

Secondly, even with her weakened horns she still has a habit of sticking her head through the fence and getting stuck.  As you can image that is not a good thing.  The first time she about pulled her left horn off before it was ready.  Blood was flowing down the side of her face and it looked pretty bad.

Chessnut with a loose left horn leaning towards the center

By the time we researched what to put on it the bleeding had stopped and she seemed to be OK.  Cayenne pepper is suppose to help stop bleeding by the way.  It’s still untested here, but at least it is another trick in the animal care book if you don’t have the regular blood stop powder on hand.  This all happened back on the 18th.  She did get her other horn caught a few days ago, but it was not near as bad.

As of today, one horn is completely laid down on her head and the other is loose.  It appears the bands are working, albeit slow.  If we can keep her out of the fence we may have her all healed up before fly season!

Left horn is laying on the back of her head

One disappointing piece of information we figured out and are not sure yet if this is a difference in the breeds or in the age, but our two 1/2 Alpine’s horns are fully connected to the skull.  There is no cartilage space like we found on the Nubian.  This means those instructions about filing the bone down before putting the bands on will apply to these ladies if we decide to go that route.

We are by no means goat experts…  As I have mentioned before, with a lot of things in life, we learn by what not to do next time.  We have had our fair share of goats over the years and have learned more than we ever wanted to know about goats only to find out we didn’t know the half of it.   

We have had experience with Boer, Alpine, La Mancha, Nubian and Pure Crazy Mutt goats.

So far, the Alpines are our favorites.  They have a good disposition and give good milk.  They aren’t loud and have been easy to work with.   

We recently acquired a Nubian milk goat and quickly figured out why our friend who has a goat farm doesn’t have Nubians!  Most people like the “look” of the Nubian goat because of their cute long ears.  However, looks are deceiving.  Nubians have an annoying NEED to be friends with humans.  They are  incredibly loud and vocal. 

Our cute nubian, Chesnutt, loves people.  She follows us around and nibbles at your buttons and buckles  and anything interesting and shiny you might have on you.  She will walk right in the door of the house uninvited or try to get into the truck with you when you are trying to leave.  She quickly learned the art of milking and has been relatively easy to milk and handle. 

We have, so far, only milked the Alpines and Nubian goats.  Although goat milk does not have a lot of cream, we do like the milk a lot!  For a large family, one milk goat will not provide you will all the milk you need.  Milking a couple of goats will give you enough milk for drinking and cooking.  And if you can time it right, you can space your milking does out just so you can have year round milk.  While some are expecting, you can milk the ones who are not.  When those have their babies, you can plan to breed back the ones you had been milking. 

One of the greatest things I love about dairy goats is the fact that the children can learn how to milk and eventually can take over the job of milking all by themselves. 

I snapped this picture last spring of two of my children pushing and pulling one of our milk goats back up to the pasture where she was supposed to be. 

The trouble with a goat’s horns is that they are - goat horns!  Honestly, I always thought of them as a pretty convenient handle.  But I’m not the only one who handles the goats.  For an eight year old, who is already at a 30 pound disadvantage, a set of nice horns can be the weapon that tips the scales in the goat’s favor.

This is not a big deal when the goats are young as you can burn the buds before they start growing and that will stop the horns from developing.  However, once they are a couple years old and the horns are  6 to 8 inches long, it becomes a little bit more of a challenge.  The horns have a nice large vein that runs up the middle of the horn, which provides nutrients to the horn so it can continue to grow over their life time.  So if you try to cut them off, I understand it can get a bit messy and even fatal to the goat if you are unable to cauterize the vein quick enough.  Even then, you have the remaining horn that may grow back.

So, after some research, we found that we could turn our elastrator into a multi-use tool.  Apparently, this tool can be used for more than removing unwanted private parts from our male animals.  So understanding this is a first run at this, I’ll give you the run down of the events and then we can wait together and see if it actually works.

First you need a goat with horns… wait we covered that part.  OK, so first we needed a way to restrain the goat somewhat.  We found a nice lead rope and the hog panel seemed to do the trick.

To be honest it took a couple young men to help her remain still a couple times, but for the most part this worked fairly well.  We thought of using the milking stanchion, but decided we really didn’t want that associated with this procedure.  Who knows if she would ever get on the stand again.

Next you have to find the base of the horns.  This is usually just about a 1/4 inch below the hair line.  In a perfect world, you would have some animal shears and be able to shave the hair around the base of the horns.  But we live in a fallen world and the shaver’s battery is dead.  So we proceeded with what we had.

So far so good.  Some directions we found indicated that you would need to file around the base where the band was going to be placed.  But as this was all skin we did not see the need or the wisdom in that.  I suspect in an older goat that step may be needed.  Next the cheerio is loaded on the elastrator.

Place the band on the horn…

 …and push it down over the base of the horn so that it is on the skin below the horn.

Lather, Rinse, Repeat.  That’s it.  Just repeat the process for the other horn.  We placed another band above each of the primary bands to keep them from slipping up.  After all, how often do you get to use your handy elasticator.

Supposedly the only thing we need to add to this recipe is some time; from 2 to 4 weeks.  I found that large time window a little concerning and I suspect it will not go that smoothly but we’ll let you know.

There probably is one last relevant piece of information that you should know in case you wish to try this at home.  The goat won’t like it too much at first.  Especially a Nubian as they tend to talk too much anyway. 

Have you ever heard a Nubian complain before?  It took her about an hour to quit trying to rub the bands off on the barn wall and yelling at us from time to time about what we did to her.  Since then she has been fine and seems to go about eating and being milked twice a day with no thought about it. 

She will still yell at us when she wants something.  For instance if we are late milking her or feeding her.  If we are out in the yard not paying attention to her or trying to do pretty much anything else other than what she wants!  Seriously, click the video one more time, now pretend it is 5 o’clock in the morning and your bedroom window is facing the milk barn!  Ahh, farm life!

The screaming and crying has calmed down.  The new goats have settled into their new home for now.  The baby that is being bottle fed is staying on the porch for now–he likes to look through the glass door and windows at us.  He is starting to eat, so we are cutting back on the bottle.  Since it has been arctic like around here lately, we have allowed the baby goat to stay on the porch mostly because we are trying not to venture too far from warmth. 

We found it quite entertaining to watch the goat get off the porch only to have our great, big Pyrenees herd him back up on the porch every time he would leave.  We love the Pyrenees.  If only he wasn’t scared of the sheep he is supposed to be guarding. 

The momma Nubian goat has turned out to be rather tame.  The boys have been milking her once a day so that we can have that milk to give to the brown baby Nubian.  We think she will turn out to be a fine milk goat. 

I could paint you a romanticized picture of farm life, but then I would feel guilty for leading you astray.  While farm life has it’s moments of sheer, picture perfect perfection, it is usually only  a brief frame in time before you see reality.  Now don’t get me wrong, I love farm life.  Real farm life, however, has a version of reality not painted in the picture perfect romanticized version. 

There are the cow patties.  There’s lots of mud.  And then there are the flies, the ticks, the poison ivy…the snakes.  The constant capturing of various escapee animals.  The hot weather.  The frigid cold weather.  And let’s not forget some of my personal favorites which have led to more sanctification opportunities in my life over the last year:  the turkey poop on the back steps that gets tracked through the house on the boys boots and of course, let’s not forget the dogs dragging home bloody deer parts to the porch steps to chew on. 

I’m just being realistic. 

Take the new baby goats for example.  We just dropped off 4 of our Alpine goats to be bred.  The very next day, we  bring home 3 Nubian goats my daughter bought.  What were we thinking?  I am not quite sure. 

The momma goat rejected one of the babies and refuses to feed it.  So it is bottle fed.  3 times a day.  Sounds cute and sweet and the first couple of times it is.  The girls oohh and awwhh over how cute he is and they love the fact that he thinks they are his mommy.  He follows them everywhere and when they come inside he misses them. 

I won’t mention the night we had listening to all the racket coming from these sweet looking goats. 

It is a good thing our neighbor down the road was born and raised in the country or he might have already called the police to come investigate. 

Nubian goats scream.  They don’t maaa or baaaa.  They scream like someone is being tortured and is finally dying. 

However, I keep telling myself, “It isn’t about me.”    It’s about giving our children opportunities, work and responsibilities.  Giving a 9 year old the responsibility of bottle feeding a little baby animal is good for her.  It’s good for her to remember the times in which she is supposed to go out in the cold and feed him.  It’s good for her to see something thrive under her care.  It’s good for her to practice because come summer time, she will be bottle feeding several of our Alpine babies. 

While we are not keeping all of the Nubians long term, they have given us yet another opportunity to learn farm life in the raw for a little while and have reminded us that those cute floppy ears and sweet looking face quickly fades behind the  reality of the sound of goats yelling and crying at 3 am.  Such is farm life. 

Unfortunately, we didn’t get any pictures of the actual disbudding process.  With milking our goats and small children handling the goats, we prefer having them (the goats) with out horns, so we decided to have our friend come over and show us how to disbud our week old baby Alpine goat.  It included putting the baby into a little box with only her head sticking out and heating up something like an iron rod so that the horn buds could be burned off.  She ended up looking quite strange for a while…

I took my first sip of our goat’s milk not too long ago— very cautiously.  We have heard bad stories about how horrible goat’s milk is…it’s goaty, tastes gamey, you won’t like it…

However, I was pleasantly surprised that the goat’s milk we have been getting was far from the stories we have been told!  Maybe the taste of milk differs drastically between breeds or maybe all the bad goat milk comes from animals that eat all the brush and wild onions?  All I know is our goat milk is absolutely delicious and we are enjoying having an additional supply of milk.  At a later date, I would love to draw up a comparison between milking goats and milking a cow.  There are many things we have learned about milking cows and goats.  Many differences, but both provide great raw milk for the family. 

Having fresh milk has been one of the most rewarding farm experiences over this last year.  We started last year with milking our cow, Bonnie.   We also have several dairy goats.  One of the business ideas my daughter is pursuing is raising milk goats and selling them to other families who would like to have their own supply of fresh milk.  So far, she is just starting her hand at it, but is loving working with these milk goats. 

With baby goats, comes milking mommas.   Our 9 year old daughter has plunged into milking duties and is loving it.  She and Mally (one of our alpine mommas) are great friends.  In fact, Mally can’t stand to be away from the children when she sees them outside.  She makes all kinds of noise and tries to open the gate so she can come be near them. 

Except for a few bumps in the road – kicked over milk pails, stepping and putting her hind feet in the milk bucket, escaping and sitting down when trying to lead her back to the pasture –She has been a wonderful goat for a 9 year old to learn how to handle and milk.  We have been very pleased as she is providing some very rich and delicious milk that we have been enjoying very much.  We never would have imagined goat milk could be so good!

The only problem is that when Mally does get out of the pasture and makes her way to the house, returning her to the pasture can be quite a chore! 

Miss Docie is the newest goat baby here on the farm.  We were so excited that she was a girl!  This means that we will have the opportunity to raise her up and train her to be a fine milking goat!  This week, we will learn how to disbud her so she will not grow horns.  It is another one of those “operations” one must learn when living on a farm, however, not near as disgusting as those pig operations!

We have been spending lots of time with Miss Docie.  The children have enjoyed playing with her and she provides lots of entertainment for them. 

So now that we have both sheep and goats we have the proverbial discussions among the “owners” of said animals as to which one is better to have.

We arrived home from a wonderful fellowship time at Church and started to settle in for the evening.  Dad and the children ran out to do the chores quickly before supper.  At supper, one of the children brought up the fact that they didn’t see our expecting milk goat when the cow was being milked.  In fact, no one had seen her at all since we had been home. 

After supper, my husband goes out to the pasture in the pouring down rain to locate the missing goat.  (..Who we later found out went through two fences to the back woods.)  We awaited anxiously as he searched the pasture.  It was taking too long and my daughter was starting to worry that something was wrong. 

The 10 year old offers his insight on the situation, “Well, maybe she died in goat birth?”    He seems to have a way with words and offering blunt opinions at just the right time

It was taking a long time.  It was now nearing 10:30 pm and I yelled out the back door to see if he needed any help.  He hollered back in the distance that we could come up and see…  to see what, we had an idea but weren’t for sure… but we hurried to get our boots and coats on and ran out the back door and up the hill…..in the dark…in the rain.

We arrived seeing a beautiful little, newborn alpine doeling.  The children were so elated and I was in disbelief as I didn’t even really believe the momma was even pregnant.  However, she was and kidded exactly when the breeder told us she would. 

We relocated the momma and baby to a covered area for the night and returned back to the house with a happy crew awaiting daylight to show the rest of their siblings the newborn kid in the morning.