Category Archives: dairy goat

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Babies and snow

Ewok is doing great, she’s almost ready to spend the nights in the barn with her siblings. Gluttony and Sloth are living up to their names surprisingly well. Scotch’s kids were named Cider (the boy) and Vodka (the girl) they are all growing rapidly! Tequila finally had her kids about a week ago and she turned out to be a wonderful mother, she had a larger buckling- Wrath, and a small doe with a single silver stripe on her back- HG Mercury. Wrath looks like a snowball.
Suede had her kids Saturday night, go figure had to kid on one of the coldest nights in a spell. She had triplets, two doelings and a buckling. Sadly the buckling was dead when we found them, probably froze to death is our best guess. The doelings are doing great now though, a little red and white one- Scarlet Sunrise and a buckskin- Piper’s Paradise.
Friday night and Saturday we got sleet and snow so not much else has been happening. The last nativity we were scheduled for was canceled due to ice but the Night in Bethlehem in Augusta went wonderfully.

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Summer coming to an End

County Fair ended yesterday with the yearly clean up, it seems to signal in bold that summer is almost over.  School is coming back into session in two weeks.

This year’s County Fair was interesting, to say the least.  Quite frankly I can’t remember half the days because of how busy I was.  But to cover some highlights, at least in my week,  I crocheted another goat blanket, this one a gray camouflage color for Ghost, Kennzy’s kid this year.  The blanket received Grand Champion in the open class.  My two paintings that I took for 4-H did really well  too.

Sadly only one of our (my sister’s and mine) market wethers made weight and he was just barely within weight.  You see, in 4-H you can sell your market animals on the last night of the fair, if they are within weight.  For goats the weight is 60 pounds and greater.  So out of the three, Hephalump, Loki, and Shakespeare, only Loki made weight.  At the scale house last Saturday he came to only 60 pounds.

The Kiko does did decent.  American Pi, Mocha’s kid from last year that we sold, won Champion AOB breeding does. (AOB means All other Breeds)  Caribou, Mocha’s kid from this year received Reserve.

That was Sunday night.  Monday night we got a lot of rain.  The dairy goats flooded out along with a lot of the meat goats and the show ring.  My two little girls, Charm and Ghost, were standing belly deep in water at 10 pm.  We didn’t know about the flood until Tuesday morning, the morning of the dairy show.  Barbie won Grand Champion Nigerian, and Kennzy received Reserve.  If Caramel Candy had been freshened she very well may have come away with Champion.

Later this month I’m picking up another doe from Dill’s-A-Little goat Farm.  I’m really looking forward to bringing her home.  Kidding will start in November with Edelweiss.  Then in December the new doe along with Tiki, Scotch, and Kalypso.  We are praying that this coming kidding season will go better that the last.

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Summer Projects II

 

Well that didn’t work as well as I thought.  I couldn’t get the pictures to lay out right so I figured I’d just start a new post for the other item I wanted to show.  I’ve been doing a little bit of crocheting this year and came up with a design for a  goat blanket.  I needed to fix up some goat blankets anyhow because with the dairy goats you have to completely shave them for show and sometimes it gets pretty cold over night at some of the shows.  So I played around with measurements for a while and came up with these:

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New kid & Video

Well, I’m slow to get around to this, sorry, I’ve been really busy.
My sister’s kiko- Amber- finally had her kids. A buckling and a doeling. Sadly the buckling died shortly after birth. The doeling is called Atlatl, an atlatl is a spear-like weapon from what I can gather that people would throw. It seems slightly more accurate since they use a release of sorts to hold it. If you’re confused now, trust me, you’re not alone, I don’t get it either. Oh well. She is half-sister to Blu and Pi and her color is right between. She has a blue line on her back, a roan-y red on her sides and a white face. She was born on the twelfth.

Now the video. Sadly this video was taken the day before my grandma was taken to the hospital with a heart attack. That is part of the reason I haven’t posted much recently; our lives are kind of in chaos. This is the first video of Puma with everyone else. The Nigerians are getting really hyper and the kikos are managing their long legs a lot better now. 🙂

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Good morning!

Well last night about 8:30 I went out to check on Amber, our white Kiko, she was acting like she was close to having her kid(s). Similar to when Bunny kidded though, as I went out the door I heard Barbie. So I got to again witness the birth of twin Nigerian Dwarfs. Barbie had two boys, a solid white (at least he was last night) and a black like Magpie but with more white on his forehead and none on his main body. He had a white chin, around his eyes a shadowing of white, on his ears and looked like a ruff around his neck. The black one was born first, his name is Diago, the white one is Pharaoh. Pharaoh is the smallest born on our place so far at just 2 lbs 15 oz. Diago was 3 lbs 10 oz.
I don’t have any pictures right now but I have a video I uploaded yesterday of the other four playing. My sister was taking the video and was moving a lot sorry. The blurriness clears up quickly.

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First Nigerian kids are here!

We had a beautiful day yesterday. One of the days that you leave the windows open just because it’s gorgeous. I was setting the table for dinner and heard one of the goats crying in the barn. I went out to check on it, hearing screaming is normal right now since we’re weaning Rye, but it wasn’t his voice. When I went out I found Bunny (Astartie) kidding. She had twin doelings at about 5:30 pm yesterday. Magpie is the older of the two, she weighed about 3lbs 10oz and is black with white frosted ears, a star spot on her forehead, a small white spot on her left girth, and a white bracelet just under her back left hock. She’s really loud! Miss Kitty is the younger, she weighed 3lbs 5oz and she is also black and white, but she more resembles Ace. If you look at her from the from you can’t see her eyes. She has black boots on all four legs, she’s already fluffier than Magpie, part of the reason for her name. Not to mention while Magpie was(is) screaming, Kitty just makes a subtle mewing sound. 🙂 I’ve had a wonderful couple of days, good weather and healthy kids, Praise God!
Rye and Whiskey are now a little over 3 months old. Rye was weaned about a week ago, weighing 47lbs. Whiskey is getting to stay with Scotch for another month, and when we weighed her she was 32lbs.
The play “The Groom Said ‘No!'” finished with a bang, a true comedy where it seemed everything that could go wrong in the house that everything occurred in went wrong. That means my life has infinitely cleared up and just in time too for the kids. We’re watching Barbie, Mocha, and Amber get ready to kid also.