Category Archives: goats

goats, horse

North Stonington Fair 2014

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It was an exhausting weekend as we kicked off the 2014 fair season with the North Stonington Fair.

Thursday, 8 rabbits reported for show duty and spent the weekend looking pretty for the masses.

Friday, Anna and the kids spent the day washing goats, washing horses, and Anna was up past midnight braiding manes.  Saturday morning, we loaded the trailer and headed to the horse show.

Amanda rode on Huey in the lead line class.

 

Jack, one of Anna’s students, also rode lead line on Devil.  Vicki rode Devil in the walk-trot classes along with her best friend, Alexis, who was on Huey.  Alexis actually beat Vicki for the walk-trot championship (in her first show ever).  It does Vicki good to get taken down a peg every now and then.  Alex has no interest in the ride around the arena classes, however, he was keen to ride in the Gymkhana classes.  He did the mounted games at the 4-H show in May with Dakota, so we let him do it again, only this time, we let him canter Dakota.  He did come close to the fastest times, but he maintained control and had fun doing it.  He even decided to add-on a 1 walk-trot-canter class for the day.

 

After the horse show, the kids put on their new Barnyard Buddies 4-H shirts to walk around a few minutes, but needed a food and drink break.  Ruth is another one of Anna’s students who came along for the day to watch Amanda, but seemed to get bitten by the show bug and is talking about getting more serious in her plans with King.

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Sunday was the goat show.  We had 11 goats with 5 kids (Alex, Vicki, Amanda, Alexis, and Selena) our herd.  Amanda got to show Sprout in Pee-Wee showmanship and the Pet class.  Another long day, but everyone had a good time and Alex is actually starting to get more into the goats.  Sawyer Farm’s Onyx won Best Jr Lamancha and Sawyer Farm’s Sequoia won best Jr Recorded Grade.

 

Throughout the afternoon, WCTY was doing karaoke next to the goat show, and the kids were constantly on stage giving it a try.  Amanda and her friend Lily spent almost all afternoon on stage.

2 weeks until the next fair!

goats, Uncategorized

Kidding season ends with a bottle baby

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This afternoon as I was working outside, I heard screaming coming from the barn.  It was Anna yelling “Rob!  Rob!  Rob!”  I assumed she found a snake sunning in the spring sunshine, but since she had just finished riding King and was in the barn with him, it could have been something more serious, so I trotted over.  She had Frosty (West View Frosted Love) coming down the aisle of the barn, with Onyx following and King in cross ties.  Maybe the goats got through the fence?

It turns out Frosty was in labor.  Frosty didn’t settle right away last fall, so we let her live with Apache for a while.  Therefore, we were not exactly sure of the breeding date.  I guess now we know it was 5 months ago from today.

So, we parked Frosty in the kidding stall, caught Oynx and put her back out with the other goats, and turned out King.  Then we went about the other projects planned for the afternoon.  Checking on Frosty later, we saw she was actually in delivery, but when we stepped into the kidding stall, we discovered the first kid was already out and on the ground.  It was a tiny little buckling that weighed in at 2.5 lbs.  That is Anna’s hand for size comparison.

20140424_171143Anna and Vicki left for dog training with Turbo.  Luckily, Frosty kids easily and didn’t need help.  She had 2 more bucklings, each weighing in a 5 lbs.

Since the runt wasn’t standing as fast as his brothers and would likely get less teat time, against my objections, Vicki and Anna decided to move him inside and make him a bottle baby.  Apparently they are of the opinion we are keeping him.  I’m not convinced, but I have a feeling I will lose on that discussion too.

So, for now, Hazelnut is living in a dog crate in the house.  Mack doesn’t seem to care.  Vicki and Amanda are excited – for now.

Final tally for kidding season: 6 goats freshened giving us 1 single, 4 twins, and 1 triplet with 8 bucklings and 4 doelings.

goats

A mental note

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This morning as I went about my chores I let Pocohontas out of the kidding stall noting that her udder looked bigger than last year and bigger than yesterday. Considering she was a week overdue I felt that was good news. I fed her, noted her ligaments were pretty loose and that udder pretty tight so I stuck her back in the kidding stall making a mental note to check on her after finishing the other chores. Since I spent Saturday tired after checking on her all night Friday-Saturday, I wasn’t getting excited. Maybe just another false alarm. So I went about my chores. An hour later as I passed by the stall I heard little goat kid squeaks in there and was surprised to find two new babies!
Poco had two bucklings and they are strong and both up and nursing shortly after birth. Amanda and I named them Chestnut (the red one) and Black Walnut (black one).
I have to say Poco is a keeper mom, she has easy deliveries and takes good care of her babies. Now back to that giant pile of laundry waiting for me from this weekend…

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dog, goats

Lamancha babies

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Last night, Anna went to bed as I stayed up working on some things (ok, I was on Facebook).  Around 11, I was ready for bed, but first went to the barn to check on West View Swan’s Saffron, one of our Lamancha does, who was in the kidding stall for the night since she was already 2 days overdue.  I discovered she was in labor.

I headed back in and woke Anna to tell her I was getting more warm clothes and heading back out to the barn since Saffron was in labor.  She thought I should get a couple of hours of rest first and then go out around 1.  I didn’t think so.  As she drifted off to sleep, I headed back to the barn.  When I arrived, the first kid was already on the ground.  She was a long legged doeling that looks a lot like her sire, Blue-Ridge Apache and weighed in at 6.6lbs.  Her brother followed not too long after and weighed in at 6.9lbs, and has the look of his mother.  Both started with wobbly legs, but by this afternoon, they were getting around a little better, so we took them out for some quick photos.

Introducing Sawyer Farm’s Sassafras (dark colored doe) and Sawyer Farm’s Birch (light colored buck).

Turbo, our Sheltie, was watching over the photo shoot.  After we finished, he went back in the barn and hopped up on a bale of hay to take a break.

goats, horse

Snowy trails

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Last night, we got another 5″ or so of fresh snow dumped on the farm.  After clearing the driveway (again), clearing paths to/from the barn (again), breaking ice (again), and finishing morning chores, we came in for coffee.  We were originally scheduled to trailer ponies to a pony club games practice, but it was cancelled. So, Anna and I decided to call the next door neighbor for some babysitting after lunch.  We saddled up King and Calli and headed out for a trail ride.  There was over a foot of snow on the trails.  Mack got to come along, but Turbo stayed home.  We did encounter fresh snow mobile tracks, but no actual machines and no people.  We got to work on Calli and crossing icy water.  We will need to continue to build this skill.  We spent an hour on the trails, and even though we only walked, I think the horses got a pretty good workout trudging through the winter wonder land.

Lucy also got to venture out into the snow with her kids, Red Maple and Oak.

goats

Kidding season has begun!

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Cedarfields Lucy kicked off our goat kidding season this afternoon.   Vicki was diligently checking in her all day and came in for a brief time at lunch. She informed us Lucy was very close.    Sure enough, when Vicki got back out, she rushed in to tell us Lucy was kidding and feet were showing.   We went out and after a while, decided to help things along.   This was Lucy’s first and she needed a little help.   A healthy 6.8lb buckling came first and was quickly followed by a 5.3lb doeling.

We only name girls starting out, and this year our naming theme is trees.

Lucy’s doeling is Sawyer Farm’s Red Maple!

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chicken, goats, horse, rabbit

Countryside Organics feed

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Imagine you walk out to feed your chickens and spill some of the chicken feed on the ground in an area where the chickens can’t get to it.  If you came back a few weeks later, what would you expect to find?  Well, if it was commercial feed, you would probably find a pile of moldy feed.  What you wouldn’t find, is sprouts.  Just like the potatoes you bought in the grocery store – when was the last time you had to remove a sprout?  More and more chemicals are being used on the foods we eat, and on the foods we feed our animals.  Soy is cheap and has become a MAJOR component in animal feeds.  One REALLY big problem with that is almost all of the soy grown in the US today is GMO soy.

For quite a while, this topic has concerned us.  The problem is, commercial feed is cheap, and organic, GMO free, soy free feed is NOT cheap.   However, we have decided the time has come to shift our farm to a product line that is GMO free, Soy free, and organic.  We have chosen Countryside Organics because they offer feed varieties for all the animal types we currently have on the farm (and are considering in the future).  The down side is cost.  Our rabbit feed will be more than 2x as expensive.  The chicken and goat feed will be about 80% more.  However, in gathering info, another farm told us that their goats consumed about 3o% less feed and produced more milk on the Countryside product.

Since we know others in the area may also be interested in some of the products, we are starting a co-op.   There are no resellers nearby, so we will be buying a full pallet at a time and having it shipped from VA (that’s not cheap).  By coordinating a co-op, we won’t really save any money, but it allows us to order more frequently and not have to worry about exactly figuring out the next 3 months of feed needs.

If you are interested in joining our farm in the co-op, let us know.  The first order will be going on Monday, 8/12.

goats

New buck pens

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Last weekend I was able to get one project knocked off the list. I spent Friday after work building the shelters, Saturday afternoon they for painted and started fencing. Sunday was the completion of the fencing and the boys moved into their new pens around 8:45 when I was done. We are now ready for breeding season, and the bucks are too (they already smell).

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And the momma hen with her chicks:

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