Milk - it does a body good!!!

Well, the time has come to start getting milk from our girls. That has been pretty exciting, and we now are getting around 1/2 gallon of milk each day.

Something odd is going on with the girls' udders, however. Each of them seems to have one high performing side, and one under-performing side. It seems possible that if they were both working at full capacity we would be getting 1 gallon of milk each day.

The udders also appear uneven, which is a warning sign of mastitis - a bacterial infection of the udder and teats. So we used our mastitis test on them today, and it seemed to come back negative. Which was a good thing, except it left us without an explanation for the unevenness. (Lily had tested positive earlier in this cycle, but it was good to see she tested negative today.)

We are going to treat them with garlic balls. Which is to say raw garlic (which reportedly has the capacity to fight infection) mixed with molasses (which reportedly has the capacity to get goats to eat raw garlic) and ground oats (along with molasses helps hold the whole thing together).

We already did that some with Lilly, which presumably is part of her improved status.

Also, we counted up our eggs for the past month (ours plus Paul and Terra's so we don't have to try to keep them separate). Our count steadily increased, and for the last two weeks we gathered 181 eggs per week. That's an average of over 2 dozen per day.

So those are the goings on here, we're also applying for a building permit to build a barn over at this place, and Paul made another garden bed over here yesterday.

Jeff

Brief update

So here is some of the latest info. Now sitting here in The Haven (we're trying really hard not to call it "The Trailer" these days) I can hear the braying of goats outside. We have completed our first pasture, and two of Terra and Paul's goats are now living here and beginning the process of clearing our land for us.

Also, for anyone who cares Hoppy's triplets now have names. The boys names are (drum roll please) Big Boy and Andre, while the girl is Alanis. Their father was also a musician (Pete Townsend) in case you were wondering. (Just to make sure we avoid libel/slander their father is a goat named Pete Townsend, not the guitarist for the popular rock band The Who).

Jeff

ps. to learn more about Terra and Paul's place you can visit their website at:

http://www.full-life-farm.com

Baby Goats Galore!

Over the past week and a half, 8 baby goats were born, which brings the Davis and Feather/Currie combined herd up to 14 goats. Lily had twin girls last Tuesday: a chocolatey brown one named Cocoa and a white one named Sugar. They both have long floppy Nubian ears like their mother and wattles like their father, Pete Townsend, who is an Alpine goat.

Hoppy delivered triplets 2 days later: two boys and a girl. We haven't decided what to name them yet. Peter, Paul, and Mary is one of our ideas for names. Please, feel free to give us suggestions! One of Hoppy's boys is dark brown and weighed 2 lbs more than his siblings at birth. The other boy is medium brown with a cream-colored face. The girl is dark brown and polka dotted with black spots all over and a big white spot on her head, which is just adorable.

Hoppy wasn't cleaning her babies very well, so we had poopy butt issues just like last year. I guess Hoppy just isn't a butt-licker. So, Terra, Ellen, and I decided to shave their backsides (with Jeff's razor - don't tell him, though). Luckily, the kids were very tolerant of this process. And no more poopy butts to clean!
This morning, Zella also gave birth to triplets: 2 girls and a boy. The boy is white and the girls are brown. One of the girls has weak hind legs, which is probably the result of a selenium deficiency. We live in a selenium-deficient area, so all the kids have been given a supplement. Hopefully, the weak kid will get stronger soon.

We have started putting up fences at The Haven, and we are working on plans for a barn, so we can have more space for our expanding herd. We are fencing out a section in front of the house first, so we can clear more land there for gardening. Also, we can't wait to be able to look out our windows and watch baby goats frolicking. Someday, we will have a front porch, where we can sit and watch our animals. :-)

-Annie