Devonviolet Acres

[CntryBoy777]

Really Glad to hear the Good news!!!....tho, sorry to hear about ya having to part with your "babies"..........I understand how difficult it is to let them go, but age and health sure limits us all....hope the others come thru for ya and still want the others..........

 

[Baymule]

I am so happy for your sweet husband that he is doing so good. BJ said he has never heard him talk so much as he did when @Ridgetop and her husband were here. The guys were chatting up a storm when we were having our Poop Party. With 4 clogged up arteries, that poor man's brain was starved, no wonder he never said much! He laughs more, his color has gone from pasty white to a glow of good health. He looks better, feels better, making the decision to have the heart surgery is the best thing y'all have ever done. What a difference!

Culling the herd is something we all need to do. I have 4 ewes to cull. I will wait for them to lamb, then put them up for sale or slaughter them. I guess there will be lots of eweburger around here for awhile. My oops ram lamb still has his testicles, that is a problem. I didn't cut him, I thought he had a home, but that fell through. Now he is sequestered so he can't "sow his wild oats" in my flock. I won't cut him now as I don't want to set his growth back from the stress and recovery. He will be 5 months old in November and will go to slaughter with the other 5 lambs that I have a USDA date for.

Culling down your flock to just the ones you want to keep is likewise a hard thing to do. Maybe it will be easier to sell them in milk, maybe even bred back, for those who don't have a buck and want to get started with goats of their own. We started with 4 bred ewes, it was a great way to get started.

 

[Bruce]

By that time he will be able to go back to doing everything, without restrictions.

Really hard to make the decision to "thin the herd"

 

[Ridgetop]

I agree with Bay about selling your does bred and/or in milk. If you breed them now and then offer them as bred milkers you might get a decent price for them. Be sure to include the fact that they are bred to a meat production buck. If you still don't have buyers answering your ads after they are bred, dry off most of them to decrease your work load. You can continue to advertise them as bred does for sale. If you have breeding dates you can calculate kidding dates and put those dates in the ads. If you still have a couple left at kidding time, leave the kids on them so you don't have to milk. You can advertise them as fresh milkers with meat kids. After the kids are born, leave the kids on them and send one to the auction with the kids on her - sell as "freshened milkers - kids at side". Send one through the auction to see what the price is for fresh milkers with the kids. If the first one doesn't bring your price, sell the doe at auction separately as a fresh milker and the kids separately as unweaned kids. Do not bother to castrate or disbud.

Hopefully by selling them bred you will attract more buyers since they are getting 2 (at least) for the price of one. Be sure to advertise that they are bred to a meat production buck so the buyer will know the kids are meat goats, and more desirable. Having the kidding dates is also impressive and desirable to buyers. If you send them to the auction, prepare a short description of each goat for the auctioneer to read about them - good milkers, age, breed, that they are bred to a good meat buck, used to guardian dogs, vaccinations current. Include previous kidding descriptions, i.e. twins, single, # times kidded, etc. Do not bother with stuff like names, nice pet, etc. since most auction buyers are interested in usefulness only. If you attend the auction you might have several fliers printed out with information, put the lot numbers on them to hand out to anyone looking at goats.

 

[Baymule]

Very good advice. And since selling Latestarters goats at auction, she already has a good relationship with that auction owner. That guy put the goats on his web site and really tried to build them up. They brought better than she thought they would.

 

[Ridgetop]

Sounds like DV has a good in with the auctioneer. I would write up a description of the goats and talk to him before bringing them in. He may have advice on when to sell to bring the most money. if they are still in milk, we are approaching the time when most people let theirs dry up. Milk production normally lessens slightly during breeding season. Depending on how long DV can keep milking (I know she is cutting back her workload because of DH's health and recovery) does bred and in milk in anther month or so might bring a premium. Worth talking to the auctioneer now.

Good luck!

It seemed that whenever we bought animals the market was up, and when we sold the market was down!!! LOL

 

[Devonviolet]

Great advise @Ridgetop. I will keep that in mind for future reference.

Actually, now that I have a routine established, chores go fairly quickly. I have decided that the only other goat, that I’m going to sell, is Hope.

It seems like the boys are weaned or close to it. We have decided to keep them until they are about a year old, and butcher them, as by then, we should be getting low on meat.

The other two goats, that I was going to sell, are Rosemary and April. I really would like to breed them, so I can milk them next year. I would then most likely sell their kids next year.

 

[animalmom]

You have been on my mind for several days... how is life going? We miss you!

 

[Bruce]

Yeah, what @animalmom said!

 

[Devonviolet]

I apologize for not posting in quite a while. Life around Devonviolet Acres has been very hectic, to say the least.

DH continues to make amazing progress in his recovery from his quadruple bypass. He is able to do more than he did before surgery. However, I still insist on lifting all the feed sacks and other heavy things around the farm.

We have spent a lot of time going back and forth between here and Tyler, for doctor appointments, for both of us. This is an all day affair. First we have to do morning chores, eat and change clothes, then it’s at least an hour 20+ minutes to anywhere in Tyler. Of course, there is an hour or more spent on the doctor’s appointment, and because we are gone most of the day, we have to stop and eat something. Then, since we don’t get to Tyler often, we do some shopping in stores (like Sam’s Club), where we buy what isn’t available in Sulphur Springs, the next biggest city near us. It is always an exhausting day, and we usually don’t get home until time to do evening chores. By the time all that is done we are so tired, we are falling asleep in our chair in front of the TV.

And of course, there are all the never ending extra chores, that need doing, on the farm. We recently were blessed with 1–1/4” of rain, which we have been waiting for, so we could do our huge burn pile. We always wait until after a nice soaking rain, to do burn pile, to minimize risk of surrounding grass, bushes and trees catching on fire. And since we have to keep an eye on it for most of the day, to make sure nothing else catches on fire, there goes another whole day.

Since before DH went into the hospital, our riding mower needed a new motivator belt. Since he couldn’t do it himself, we needed to get the round bale off the trailer and take it to the repair shop at the hardware store in town. It took them about a week to get it back to us. When they put the belt on, the blades wouldn’t turn, so they put a new switch on, and the blades turned. YAY!

So, when we get the mower home, I started mowing the long weeds at the back of the open area (about half way back). I got about half of it done, and drove the mower up onto a small (5”) log, laying in the tall weeds, that DH had cut down last summer, and I didn’t know it was there. Once on the log, I couldn’t go forward or backward. I called DH over, and we began to try to figure out how to get this 600 pound mower off the log. After several attempts, I finally crouched down, with my back against the front of the mower and used my legs to push it backward. To my surprise IT WORKED!!! But then when I got back far enough to turn the mower back on, it wouldn’t go. AAARRRGGH!!! So, we had to push the mower about 350 feet back to the barn. It turned out the battery had died. So, DH put the battery charger on over night and the mower started. YAY!

In the morning I got the mower to start, but the blades wouldn’t turn again. So, I drove the mower back up onto the trailer and off to the repair shop again. It turned out to be the switch again, so they replaced it again for no charge.

By then, the grass out front needed mowing again, so the next day I got out there to mow. Well . . . I got about half of it mowed, and the blades stopped turning again. AAARRRGGHH!!! This time the belt that turns the blades had busted. I can’t really complain, because the mower is four years old and we have never changed that belt. Finding out which belt to buy isn’t easy, but after looking online and making a call, I figured out which one I needed and bought one on Amazon, with really good ratings. That finally came early this week, and DH just hasn’t been able to find the time, to hoist the mower up, so he can change the belt. Once that is done, it will be time to do the whole property again. Hopefully, this time the mower will make it through the whole thing without breaking down.

I could go on and on, about the vegetable garden, milking, making cream, kefir and cheese, breeding goats, and building projects (like a hay shed onto the back of the barn, and a carport on the side of the workshop - to protect our truck in the event of a hail storm). But that will have to be another day. Tomorrow I will start cutting down trees, to make room for the hay shed. There are five trees than need to come down before we can start building the shed. When we get that finished, I will have five more trees to cut down, before we can build the carport. And then I will have to use the rototiller to get the winter garden going.