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.

Today's haul

Six, count 'em, six rainbow trout hauled in by me and my boy while his Daddy kept bait on the line. It's only the second time Devon has ever been fishing and he did great, catching three of them himself.

Name-change coming...

As soon as I get word back from ADGA (American Dairy Goat Association) and AGS (American Goat Society), I will be changing the name of this blog. I have a few herdnames that I've picked out, so we'll see which one gets the thumbs-up.

I read through a couple of my old posts and remember writing that I didn't particularly want or need registered goats. I guess I'll explain why I ended up going with registered instead of grade or mixed-breed. The basic reason was milk production. The two breeds I was considering were LaMacha and Nigerian Dwarf. Reality is we have under an acre and a half, so the smaller option was the better one. The problem...lots of folks breed Nigerians just for pets. If you can't be sure how well a doe's dam milked, then you cannot begin to guess how well she will milk. Lots of grade and mixed-breed standard goats milk well, but I didn't want to take a chance with a grade Nigerian. I would really love to have a mini-Mancha one day though...

Damping Off Prevention

Damping-off: 2 Me: 16

The casualties: 1 giant grey-stripe sunflower seedling, 1 borage seedling.

But the battle's not over yet. I had to do some research tonight on 'natural' prevention and have three methods I'm going to try.

1. Lightly sprinkle cinnamon on soil, only needs to be done once. Done.
2. Water with chamomile tea at 2x normal drinking strenth. Brewing now.
3. One cup hydrogen peroxide to one gallon of water. Tomorrow's project.

If I have to, I may give in and buy something made to prevent damping off. I would rather not spray my little seedlings with chemicals but if it means no seedlings at all...

The Bread Trials

Bread is another area that continues to show me up. I have never baked one of those mouth-wateringly fluffy loaves that so many others seem to have no problems producing. I carefully weigh and take temperatures each time...but still, no success. It's disheartening to put all day into making something that no one wants to eat in the end, so I gave up for a while. Now that we have pounds and pounds of wheat, I decided to give it another shot...and had another flop. This particular loaf was more like a wheat brick. At least the hens enjoy eating my mistakes.

Sprouts

The seedlings are coming up nicely now and seem to be doing ok - though the damping-off fungus is just itching to raise it's ugly head. I have to leave the cover off the tray, and water next to the seedlings or the ugly white hairs start creeping over them. So far, I believe I may have lost one borage seedling. It has yet to poke through the soil, and white hairs are criss-crossing over the soil where we planted it. The other borage seedlings have all sprouted, along with a few sunflowers, one of the nasturtiums, and a few more tomatoes. They are currently in a very sunny window, but we're going to rig up a real light for them this weekend. Hopefully my other seeds will get here soon, I'm really looking forward to starting the strawberries!