Milking

In short, it was quite the rodeo. Last night, Daisy wouldn't let down her milk so I trimmed her hooves and put her up. The kids spent the night in a wire dog crate in the goat house so they couldn't nurse. At 7:30 am, I went to get Daisy, cleaned her udder, showed her the chow and got to work but she definitely wasn't making it easy, yeesh. I also realized she has tiny orifices so even though I had good rhythm and relatively good technique, it took absolutely forever. I did get enough milk in the jar to realize her milk doesn't taste very good - it tastes like grass. She has been showing signs of copper deficiency so I finally dosed her today. For those that are nervous about dosing (like me!), peanut butter is the way to go. Easy-peasy, with no angry goat involved - hopefully that will take care of the off-taste. Daisy's got a week to settle into her life as a dairy animal. If not, I may have to figure something else out.

Fallen behind again

But this time I have a really good excuse. I put in for leave the last week of April (kid's spring break), and was planning to get my new fruit trees mulched and veggies in the garden. To make a long story short, my plans went out the window that Monday and my younger sister and her two kids are staying here for a while. Most of my seedlings have died from neglect (e-gads, I had to buy veggie plants from a store again!), but all my trees are in the ground, including a couple new citrus trees and an avocado. And, Daisy kidded!

Crazy girl decided to have her kids while I was at home scarfing a sandwich before heading out to pick the human kiddos from school. I decided, what the heck, I'll check on Daisy while I'm here. She was in the goat house and laid down to push as I peeked in the door. I ran inside to change into farm clothes, and got back as the first kid was coming out. It was a large buckling, perfect birth but I could tell there was another kid in there. When she laid down to push the second time, it was easy to see this kid was completely breech, butt first. The cord broke before she was completely out and the bag was really tough to break - pretty scary. As all this was happening I was trying to call somebody, anybody to pick up my kids, but no such luck. When I was sure she was done, I ran to the school, dropped the kids off at the babysitter and came back home to clean up before going back to work - it was a hectic afternoon. So, we have one buck, one doe, both very healthy and Daisy is being a great mom. These pictures were taken the day they were born.

Buck:

Doe:

I plan to milk Daisy out for the first time this evening, separate the kids, and start milking in earnest tomorrow morning.