Itty Bitty Hooves

Why Do They Move Just When You Snap?

I swear it takes 100 pictures to get even 1 that is semi decent of these babies. They are in the best position, and I click the shutter and then…

I swear there was a goat there a second ago. ARGH

I did manage to get a few shots though, here are some pics of the kids born 3/6/08

Dolly:

Judy:

And one of Bubba (born 2-29-08) FINALLY looking at me, although it had to be from a right over him position because if I moved away, he’d turn his head away, if I sat down, he’d jump on me, lol.

I love playing with the kids though. What fun!

Horrible, Bad, Horrible Morning

I’m still kind of in shock, although hindsight being what it is, I guess I should have expected it, but I still didn’t.

My LaMancha doe had triplets on Wednesday. It was an easy delivery, she just plopped them out. All were doing great except for the third one born who was really really slow to be all the way up and active, but it was beginning to catch up. The doe however was being a horrible mom as far as letting them nurse. She would lick them, let them lay by her, but at first I had to tie her up and hold her against a wall to let them nurse for the first time, and after a couple of those, it got to where she would just stand for them if I put a collar on her and stood there holding her, but no gymnastics involved, so I thought she was getting a little better about it. I was going in every two hours day and night and holding her while they ate, and it got to where they’d see me coming and as soon as I got the collar on they dove in, lol.

All of them were doing fantastically, bouncing around like typical 2 day olds even at 4 am this morning. I let them eat, and trudged back into the house through the flurries, lol, and went back to bed, setting my alarm for 6 am. Went back out and they were ALL DEAD. They were in a 12×12 stall and it looked like a hurricane had whipped through there. The doe had to have snapped and just went bonkers on them. I was heartsick picking up those limp twisted little bodies.

This doe is going. She is a bossy, herd queen to begin with, but she’s been good in general with people, although she really took a dislike to my friend’s 10 year old daughter, but even that she just grunts and lip things like a buck in heat at her. I didn’t mind any of her antics because she had given her previous owner triplet does and she is built like a tanker, although she seems to have constant trouble with sinus —-, it doesn’t effect her, and just as I’d hoped she gave me triplet does, but what good is that if she kills them all? I should have seperated them, I see that now, but I am not doing dairy, I can’t physically milk (carpel tunnel and I can’t afford a good milk machine yet, someday, someday) and I’m happy doing the meat goat thing. A dam who not only won’t nurse her kids, but KILLS them is just not an option here.

They were such lovely little doelings too. Still makes me cry to think about it.

Rest In Peace Babies

Updated pics of kids born Feb 29th (1 week old)

These guys are just huge. I’m so impressed with the builds on them. At one week the little buckling is already getting heavy to pick up. I have to find that danged weight tape, but I read somewhere it’s not as accurate on the meat breeds as it’s made to judge the dairy weights. I really doubt I’d get him to sit still in my hanging scale, lol. The little doeling I’m keeping to show this year. I really think she’s amazing. Hoping to find a commercial breeder who wants a really great buck that will put meat on their kids as a home for the little guy (we call him Bubba). He’s not registered (he is Boer) but I just couldn’t bring myself to put a band on him. He’s gonna be massive like his daddy.

Bubba at 1 wk (Now he’s super friendly, and was under my feet the whole time I was trying to take pictures just about, but if I moved away to get a shot, he’d turn his head as if to say if you won’t play with me, I won’t look at you, lol, stinker).

Man the chest on him is just like his dad, here’s a pic of Mickey his sire (registered fullblood)

And here is my show doeling for this year (plus one of the ones born yesterday I think if she looks as good as I think she will)
Her name is going to be Country Havens Lucky Punch

Here they are together, doeling on the left, buckling on the right (yep, still won’t look at me if I won’t play with him, lol, brat)

Thanks for looking, I’m just so happy with the way things have gone so far this year. The other two batches born yesterday and the day before are doing great. I hope to get out and get the LaBoer pics later on, have to wait for DS to get home though, because I have to drive him and am waiting for his call. The cell phone doesn’t work in the big barn.

Twins This Afternoon!

We’re on a roll here, our solid red Boer doe had twins this afternoon. She was in mild labor this morning and I thought for sure she’d have them by mid-morning. But noooo, she held out until 12:30. They’re happy, and healthy DOES. This is such a girlie year for us, Mickey is really throwing them girls around, haha. He’s also stamping them with such uniform color. In all 7 only one has been a paint color, all the rest are pretty much traditional. From the two boer mamas the babies are dark red headed traditional. From the LaMancha fawn colored doe the girls are traditionally marked, but their head color is more a mix of red and fawn. It’s really pretty though. In 7 days we’ve had 7 kids born to 3 does–only one buckling.

Here are the kids in their still slightly damp, and wobbly selves.

More New Babies!

Well kidding season is off to a really great start now. Our second doe to deliver gave us three—yeah triplets–beautiful girls. Savvy my LaMancha doe had her babies this morning at 6 am. They’re LaMancha/Boer cross. She was a real trooper, didn’t need my help at all (or want it LOL–she’s one of my friendliest does but definately had a ‘don’t touch me’ attitude) she never even laid down, not once. Just dropped each of them on their little heads as she squatted and dumped. Here are some pics taken right after their birth. I should probably wait to take pics until they’re all dry and all but I never can. LOL One thing’s for sure, Savvy has plenty of milk. She’s a great milker anyway, although I’m not doing that this year, but she was giving a gallon and a half last year. I took a cupful off of her this morning and syringed the kids because they were having a dickens of a time getting at those huge teats that were so low. Finally after giving them their little ‘boost’ they got in and figured out how to get low enough to grab onto those huge teats.

Here they are:

2 of the doelings, the other had walked over to mom and out of the shot just when I snapped

A close up to show the itty bitty elf ears. LOL

All three and mom.

Trying to get up close to show off their cute little heads.

New Pics of the New Babies

I’m just so thrilled with these two. They are doing great this morning, and first-time mom is being a great mom. Can’t ask for more than that. I still had a hard time getting a good pic of the little doeling, either she was eating, or moving around too much and making blurring pics. It’s just dark enough in there that I needed to use the night setting on my camera instead of the action one. If I could have gotten decent light on the pictures and used the action one I could have had some nicer doeling pics.

Buck–we’re calling him Bubba for now.

The best pic of the doeling I could get–eating of course (come to think of it, considering how mom was during labor, maybe she just is taking after momma and never gonna stop eating). We were going to call her ‘Leap of Faith’ since she was born on leap day, but I was joking around with my son and said boy, what a knock out, and he said yeah, it was a lucky punch. I thought that was perfect, since leap day is also supposed to be lucky, her name is gonna be ‘Lucky Punch’ (I think anyway, lol).

The two of them-Bubba was trying to get his sister to let him have at the bar, she was being a pig, and he hasn’t figured out there are two spigots yet, haha.

Finally Babies!

The first babies of the year are here. After several weeks of watching and waiting and not knowing exactly when any were due because we pasture bred, the first goat kids of the year finally arrived this afternoon. They made their entrance as eventful as possible too. The first one, a big buckling was stuck and first-time mom was having a heck of a time pushing him out so I helped pull, and boy pull hard! He finally came out and I thought well, he must have been a single because he’s so big, but no, out popped another foot. This time, a little girl, but only ONE foot. She was out of position and not coming out. I had to get down on my belly in the hay and go in after her. After a few minutes of being up to my elbow inside a goat trying to find the other front foot, I finally got a hold of it and was able to bring it up and into the right position. Then she got stuck! This was a biggun too!

Both are doing great and are happily eating. The pictures below were taking the moment they hit the ground, and on my camera phone so they’re not the best quality, but I was just so thrilled. Mom is a half Boer and Spanish cross, and dad is a fullblood Boer. The babies are perfectly Boer marked! I’m just thrilled. Being as big as they are I’m anxious to see how they grow. The little doe might just be a keeper. Hey, being born on leap day has to be lucky right?

Peace Between Goats and Fence Shortlived

It was just yesterday I was saying how wonderfully peaceful it has been without escapes, and stuck goats for the past few days. Wouldn’t you know it, it seems like I put the hex on my screnity. This morning Blondie was once again stuck in the fence bawling for me to come rescue her.

Now goats are well-known for their tendancy to put any fence to the test, and mine are certainly no exception, but it is Blondie who just can’t seem to get the idea clear in her mind that horns and small openings do not mix.

When I hear a goat bawling over being stuck I can almost to perfection name the goat–Blondie.

So it was this morning. The kind of cool thing about this morning is I got to test a theory I came up with awhile ago. Our buck Mickey is in with his herd of ladies of which Blondie is one, now. He’s a happy camper, but even though he’s not overtly aggressive he is pushy, and he does have one massively impressive set of horns that hook in an incredibly effective way that seems to always get you right behind the leg when he rubs up against you which is really all he wants to do.

He’s not mean, but his horns, and his weight make him dangerous to be around.

I’ve thought and thought about how to keep him from coming up on me and a few months ago I discovered that he, like most goats, hates water. More precisely, when I was filling a water tank in the goat pens and he came up, I sprayed some water in the direction of his face and he backed off.

Hum… I thought. Really cool but rather limiting. It’s only going to be effective so long as I’m within reach of the hose. That doesn’t help much when walking across the pasture.

The next time I went to WalMart I picked up a package of water guns. The little toy guns kids play with. I hoped that the spray from the gun would be a deterent for Mickey, but wasn’t really convinced on their effectiveness. We’re talking the difference between a full-force spray from a water hose, and a teeny little stream of water from a water pistol.

This morning armed with my little water gun I stepped into the field and began to make my way across to where Blondie was held captive by the nasty old fence, and sure enough, here came Mickey trotting through the grass towards me.

I aimed the gun when he was a few feet away and squirted him right between the eyes. He stopped and stood there while I continued to spray him and I started to think that this was a serious miscalculation. The spray was so thin and weak that it didn’t seem to have a real effect other than giving him cause to contemplate and wonder what I was doing.

… then…

he backed away.

Whew. Several times he came back over as I worked to free my stupid goat from the fence. Each time I stopped what I was doing and resumed my gunslinger stance playing target practice with a 350 pound goat.

Each time he gave up and walked away to mess with his girls.

I have found my solution. I don’t kid myself into thinking the water gun will be all the effective against him if I were carrying something REALLY interesting like… food. But just to walk around the pasture without worrying about being knocked over, or stuck with horns… it is terrific.

All’s quiet on the Goaty front

It’s been a quiet day so far in the goat pastures. It didn’t start out like it was going to be. While I was getting ready to go out and feed Bob was getting his things together for work and I heard the door open and close. I looked out the window to see him trudging across the back yard toward the goat pasture in his uniform and proceed to release a stuck goat from the fence. Blondie–what a predictable goat. Of all the horned goats who could possibly get stuck in the fence, and do occassionally, she is the worst. You think she’d learn that putting her head through the fence means getting stuck, but no. She’s obviously not one of the brighter bulbs in the pasture. That’s probably the reason she hasn’t figured out we are not here to hurt her. Of the six boer/cross goats we got this spring who were practically wild and untouched, she is the most standoffish still. In fact one of them, Specs has become quite the little in your face nusience (but it’s an enjoyable nusience). Even Cherry who is the next most stubborn when it comes to human acceptance isn’t as bad as Blondie. Heck for that reason alone you’d think she’d stay out of the fence. Being stuck means being … ew… touched by people to get free. LOL Hopefully she’ll learn soon.

The Great Escape

I had the whole herd of goats out in the one acre back yard this morning. The fencing at the back of that area is marginal but I don’t usually have too much trouble with it. Usually if someone does escape the area it’s one of the smallest, and they are dairy kids and very easy to catch. The worst time was when all four of those got out and I couldn’t figure out where to get them back in from the same place so I had to reach over the fence and lift them over. While they’re smaller than all the rest, they’re still getting pretty big to hoist over a fence.

Well today, I had another escape, it was only two, but this time it wasn’t the dairy kids, it was two of the seven month old boer cross kids and let me tell you those girls are not ‘hoistable’. Worse yet, they’re not particularly catchable at all. Luckily one of them is fairly friendly. You still can’t grab onto her but she will come when called. Even more lucky is that they’re both food-aholics so totally bribeable. I got a bucket of grain and shook it. They both ran to the area of fence that they’d gotten through at.

Now here’s the rub. A goat will manage to get over a low fence, through a weak spot, or under a loose bottom, but they will NOT go back over/under/through the same area no matter what. So Bob had to hold down the fence as far to the ground as it would go (which was pretty far, — the reason for the escape in the first place) and I held the bucket just out of reach. Specs, the easier one to at least pet and who will come to you was the first one over the fence to get at the bucket. Cherry– not at all people trusting was a bit more difficult, but she finally gave into temptation and greed as she saw Specs chomping away on the grain just out of her reach.

So we managed to get them back in the yard, and put all the goats back in their goat pasture. They have plenty to graze on in there, but I had wanted them to trim down the yard a bit. They’d had it really well ‘mown’ and I let it grow back up. Before I can put them back in there though I’m going to have to really examine that back fence for more trouble spots. I can’t have the ‘wild ones’ getting out. I’m really lucky it wasn’t Blonde who had gotten out. She’s worse than Cherry when it comes to trust.