Changing goals and speed

[babsbag]

I keep my goats guessing as to when the feed is coming. Depends on how late I was up the night before as that determines my wake up time. But this is winter, it all changes come summer and baby goats.

Your baby girl is adorable. Wish my kids would give me a grandchild.

 

[AClark]

I'm waiting on the fresh grass for sure. My neighbor said my pasture gets way out of hand in the summer, and he's glad he won't be the one mowing it and that I got some "lawn mowers" to help with it.

Now we're looking at getting a tiller for our garden area, and DH is working out a plan for a chicken coop.

 

[AClark]

Gardening hasn't gotten done yet. I'm just going to put that out there. All for a lack of daylight hours.

DH and I are worn to the bone, but in a happy content way. Yesterday, I caught Trav and Dixie. Trav has an old injury to a front hoof that makes his hoof grow a little wonky, so I got on trimming that. My mom sent me a pair of GE Forge hoof nippers (yeah the $250 pair...that she has 4 other pairs of) and I went to town. His hoof looks normal, but he is an ass about being trimmed. I also did Dixies front feet, went to the feed store, and we finally got my truck back up and running (oil cooler this time! What a job!).
It's nice to be tired like that. Now I go to bed with a purpose instead of "I guess I need sleep."

I also got tired of "let's be friends" with the goat that wouldn't let me catch her, so I mugged her and trimmed all 4 of her hooves as well. They were all sorts of bad, and I was going for the gentle approach of catching her, without success.

 

[CntryBoy777]

Glad ya are able to find your new "Normal" there....after such situations that are behind ya now. I know it has gotta feel good to ya both, and that translates to Good for the whole Family....and the animals as well.

 

[Baymule]

A brand new garden takes a lot of work to get going. This will be our 3rd year garden and I am looking forward to a good garden this year. I hope you have good soil as a base. Having horses for their manure is a help too. Our first year here, I almost felt like following the horses around with a basket to catch the poop! LOL With all that you have going on, any kind of garden you plant will be a bonus.

 

[greybeard]

A brand new garden takes a lot of work to get going. This will be our 3rd year garden and I am looking forward to a good garden this year. I hope you have good soil as a base. Having horses for their manure is a help too. Our first year here, I almost felt like following the horses around with a basket to catch the poop! LOL With all that you have going on, any kind of garden you plant will be a bonus.

Baymule--that reminds me of how my father used to do his small garden. He would go around the pasture with 5 gal buckets, and collect older horse poop. He tilled the garden, then dug a 12" deep trench where each row would go and filled them 1/2 full of poop, then raked the soil in over that.
He had the best garden around--made tomatoes like crazy.
If a garden has poor soil, it can be made good, but takes lots more work. The biggest problems with gardens are drainage related. Too porous and you can't keep moisture in the top soil. Too poor drainage and it stays muddy and root rot is a problem.The latter is what I encounter with mine every year--too much white chalky clay-- both in the topsoil and in a boundary layer further down.

We mentioned red iron ore clay recently. Thought I'd just throw this in as a FYI. Many people think the presence of red clay means there will be usable iron ore further down. Not so most of the time. The iron ore was, millennials ago, on top of what is now red clay. The large iron particles simply rusted away to a very fine powder long ago and dissolved into the clay, turning it red and making it sticky as heck when it rains.

 

[AClark]

My soil is pretty dark, and it looks like it'll be good. Has to be better than the sand I had in Texas for planting in. I have some of that red clay in a pile in the pasture as well if I need to add in something to retain more moisture. I'm planting on a bit of a slope so that may or may not need to happen - I'm not sure how much rain we get here but I think it's a fair amount, so I picked the sloped area so it can drain down into the pasture if it gets flooded out.
Funny you mentioned that @greybeard I was definitely considering walking around and collecting horse manure for the garden, the old dry falling apart stuff, not fresh horse apples. Aside from burning plants, I did just deworm the horses and I don't want those chemicals in the garden. Unfortunately, deworming is a necessary evil and as much as I don't like using chemicals, you kind of have to for parasite control. I already had the kids rake out underneath the rabbit cages, which had some straw bedding for the goats to lay in as well so there's a mixture there.

My plan there was to till the space I plan to plant, then dump all the manure collection in it, and till it again to mix everything in. I really need to get on getting things started inside, I waited because the growing season is different here and normally I'd have started indoors around the 1st of January, but with a later last frost date here, I'm waiting a bit. I do need to get my butt in gear this week though.

I'm planning out a large garden this year. I have plenty of good neighbors to share with if I get over-run, and no lack of manure around here. I'm actually thinking about starting a compost pile since the manure production here is high with 3 goats, 3 horses, and 8 rabbits.

Speaking of the rabbits. It sucked, but I lost both litters around the first of the month. Mama's didn't pull enough fur and they got chilled - it was down in the 40's or so. I attempted to warm them up but didn't have any luck, I got home from the hospital with our baby and she had them the next morning. They were warm in the morning but by noon they were chilled bad. I lost 14 kits out of 2 does, and the 3rd doe didn't get pregnant at all. I rebred them, but the one doe just isn't having it and I'm not certain she's going to have a litter again. She had a litter back in September, no problems, but she wasn't cooperative for the buck this time. I still have 3 does from the previous litters that are all coming up on breeding age, so if she won't go for it, I may breed her daughter or one of the other does. I was planning on having some rabbit meat for the freezer in April, but I guess I'll have to wait. The uncooperative doe needs to realize that if she refuses consistently, she's going to end up at Camp Kenmore herself.
I'm debating selling off a trio (my spare buck and 2 of the Sept does), or trading for another buck, but we'll see. The new litters are due March 4th, and I'll see what I get out of that. Hopefully the weather cooperates more, or I'm bringing them in this time.

Right now, I have 109 quail eggs in the incubator, they are due to hatch in a week. I didn't have luck with the shipped chicken eggs, but I don't think that was the sellers fault. We had a big snow storm come in the day they were supposed to get here and they got left at the post office since we didn't get mail delivered that day. None of them hatched. I cracked a couple of them at 25 days and most of them had partial formation but never got past a few days. So something was wrong. I have a digital thermometer and hydrometer in there now so hoping for better luck!
We plan on processing most of the quail, and leaving enough for eggs (to eat and hatch out for more quail).

 

[CntryBoy777]

Something that might save ya some work, is to make your compost area on one end of your garden....this fall, disc or till it under....let it winter, then plant on it next year, and put your compost on the opposite end next year. If ya need some to freshen the ground....just pull it from the bottom. We do something similar, but it is across the edge of the garden for run off control and to trap the acorns from being washed into the garden here.

 

[Baymule]

@greybeard our soil is pure white sand. I am glad that we didn't wind up with the red iron ore clay--we have a pure white horse and I didn't want him to turn that rusty red color. I'll gladly deal with the sand! There is red dirt right across the road from us.

@AClark are your rabbit cages hanging wire cages in a barn or shed? if so, for the next litters in cold weather, put one of those aluminum drop lights over the nest box, on top of the wire with an incandescent light bulb. The light bulb will keep the kits toasty warm. I always made my nest boxes with an open top for this reason. I put hardware cloth on the bottom, I lost too many litters when the does peed on the babies. With the wire bottoms, the pee went right through and the kits didn't die of ammonia pneumonia.

 

[AClark]

They are wire cages but not hanging, we built an open bottom shelf for them to sit on, and I have open top boxes for their nests in a shed. I had given them a ton of straw for their nests, there just wasn't adequate fur for them. It was rather sad, they were all huddled together in the fur, but cold as ice within a couple of hours.
I dont' have power out to the shed but I can run an extension cord. I was debating doing that for the next litter if I can't just bring the boxes in - depends on the weather and if it's going to be warm or miserable out. Our night temps are still pretty low so I might set it up to have lights on at night for them. Not a bad idea at all!