New Members To The Farm Family

We are welcoming new members to our farm family. Seems that I just couldn't wait until our own does started kidding. :) I LOVE baby goats!

A special "Thank You" to Russ & Marla of Maple Spring Farm.
These are absolutely drop dead gorgeous LaMancha kids!

In keeping with our original idea to name the LaMancha kids on the farm "fairy" names, well, that's just what we did. :)

First we introduce Alvin. According the web site that I was looking up fairy names on, Alvin means "Noble Friend" in fairy language. He sure is friendly now, especially if he thinks you might have a bottle for him so I have no reason to think that he will continue to be anything but friendly and he also already thinks that he is the biggest deal around so I figure he is going to be very noble as well.

Next we introduce Zanna. I have no idea what Zanna means in fairy language, but I like the name and it really seems to fit her.

Stay tuned. There just might be more LaMancha babies coming to the farm soon.

What To Do In Our "Down" Time

As many of you are aware, we are now in a bit of a "down" time. Milk production had dropped so much due to the does being at the end of their lactation as well as the cold weather so we finally made the decision to dry them off and wait for the next set of does to freshen. Friday morning was our last official milking day of 2011, however we did a partial milking on Sunday and a full milking this morning which is part of the drying off process.

So.....What ever will we do in our "down" time?

Sunday and Monday we worked on getting wood cut. We are almost to where we need to be in order to have our winter supply of wood. We heat totally with wood so it usually takes between eight and 10 ricks of wood to see us through the winter. It just depends on how bad the winter is.

Monday I (along with Daddy's help) gave all of the young girls their Christmas pedicures. They weren't really sure about all of that, but their hooves all look really nice now. :)

Tuesday we went out and delivered the last of the cheese and milk for the 2011 season. When we got home, I moved the bucks out back with Charlie Cow and then turned the young girls in with the mature does. I don't think that they really thought that they were goats and they sure didn't understand why I would make them leave their deluxe accommodations and make them live in the big barn with "those goats". I stayed out there with them for quite some time and then finally came to the house. About 10:00 last night Chrys and I went out to check on them and had to bring all of the young girls "back" into the barn and lock the gate so that they couldn't go over and stand beside their previous pasture. When I let them out this morning guess where they went? Right! They went straight back to stand by their previous pasture. :(

I moved eight does to the maternity ward (previous barn and pasture of the young girls) this morning. I gave them pedicures and also gave them their yearly vaccination that we give about 2-4 weeks prior to having babies. I don't have exact dates on this group of girls since we pasture bred them, but none of them are due before January 5th. I normally wouldn't have moved them to the maternity ward this soon, but since we have the young Livestock Guardian Dogs now and I don't trust them yet since they are still just pups, I thought it would be best to have these does in an area that the pups can't get in to.

There's not much else to tell at this point. I have a list as long as my arm of things to get done during this "down" time. We'll see if it all gets completed or not. :)

Below are a couple of pictures of the young girls today, standing beside their old pasture and begging to return "home". These girls are all 6-8 months old and there are 20 of them.

Here is a photo of some of the does munching on hay inside the big barn.

Poor Charlie Cow

Poor Girl Charlie Cow (yes that's her name). We moved the does that were in the back pasture up to the big barn this morning. Charlie Cow has cried and cried ever since. She has never ever been without goats. As a matter of fact, I'm not sure that she knows that she is of the bovine species. Poor thing. She thinks that she is goat too.

Most of the day she has stood at the fence and cried for her goat friends. A few times she would go off and graze or go get a little hay. When I would go out there she would come to the fence and just want to be petted. I finally felt sorry enough for her to give her a little "extra" grain at feeding time.

Next week, after we get some hoof trimming done on the teenagers we will move them back there with Charlie Cow and I am sure that she will be happy again......although they may not be. They are used to staying at the Ritz. LOL