Winter Weather

Cold Cold Miserable Winter Weather!

The February blizzard of 2011 set in with a fury and left few unscathed. Canyon Ridge Farms was no exception. The snow fall amounts could have been worse. The snow drifts were pretty crazy. The temperatures, almost unbearable for man and beast.

We made it through the actual storm portion of this event without incident. Chrys had to work so the girls and I held the fort down. I am thankful that my work has been closed so that I didn't have to worry about that while taking care of the farm and critters.

Yesterday morning when I went out to do the morning chores we had a doe who had kidded. She lost both babies, a doeling and a buckling, to the cold. She had gotten them both clean and dry, but I guess it was just to cold. She, Sage, wasn't due for another 20 days.

None of them were due for another 20 days! I would have thought that that would have given plenty of time, even with an early delivery, to get past this major cold snap. We had a couple of the other does that acted like they were in the early stages of labor yesterday, one even with discharge but now I think it was just her mucus plug.....guess she has more than most.

Many of the does really really struggled with the cold yesterday. Last night we stole the heaters out of the greenhouse and set them up in the barn. We then took shifts all night to make sure that none of the goats got to close to the heaters or knocked them over and started a fire. The goats were really quite cute. They would kind of form a half circle around the heaters and just stand there. Some would stay for long periods of time and others would just come over to warm up and then move over to the hay feeder to stock up on groceries again. I am relatively certain that we probably lost everything in the greenhouse last night, but I am also pretty sure that that was correct thing to do for the goats.

It is time for my shift at the barn again. I get to milk on my shift.......I wasn't planning on milking for at least 20 more days, but then we have been complaining about having to buy milk to. :)

Have a Blessed and warm day!