Goats&moregoats: KickinUpDust Farm Journal

[goats&moregoats]

Well I managed to get the main barn clean and ready Sage & Ginger. I also got the babies barn cleaned and fresh bedding down. Cleaned their bucket and filled with fresh water. Gave them more pellets as their dish was empty and hung some pine branches on their fence. The dog crate is cleaned, will put in hay barn when I go back out. House work after dinner & babies are fed again. Fiance' already cleaned the kitchen while I was outside...not enough thank you's can be said. Subway for dinner. Now that the main barn is done I can concentrate on the yard work in between chores and working with Sage & Ginger. This weekend is the planned hoof trimming and such, then turning the older girls out in big pasture. Then I will clean the buck pen & shelters before moving all the babies into that for the time being. This will give them much more room to run & play.

@CntryBoy777 , so guess what Ginger really likes!? Yes Sir, pine needles. She came up to me on her own after the second one. She even sniffed my hand. When she had enough she calmly turned and walked away instead of running for her life. I also got to pet Sage for a bit. We will do this again tomorrow.
Sage
Didn't get any of Ginger today.
Babies enjoying their pine needles
Clean barn
My big baby, Storm.

 

[CntryBoy777]

That is really good to hear!!....I knew ya would find something to work for ya....all is looking well there, and Storm has grown into a mighty handsome young man, too.....

 

[Bruce]

Not surprisingly, our weather has been similar to yours

It also looks like I can finally turn the outside water hose back on. That will be a tremendous help. No more carrying water from the house.

I did that a few days ago and hooked up the auto waterers for the chickens and alpacas. No more water chores for awhile other than cleaning them out occasionally

but this morning they both are like, "we are not coming near you

I had that problem with the alpacas the last 2 days. I guess they don't like my red rain coat. They missed out on morning treats yesterday since I am forcing them to eat from my hand rather than dumping it in the bins. They would come in the barn then one would get nervous and they would both leave. Came back and repeated that 3 times. They started that again last evening so I took the raincoat off and they were fine. They sucked it up this morning after one false start.

 

[goats&moregoats]

Babies fed for the night.Forgot to get a picture of Rio's noggin. He is really becoming aggressive at feedings. The little pushy turd bit my finger tonight. I am glad he is the one I had banded. I am hoping that once they are moved to a bigger area he can run of some of that energy. Bottles washed and ready for am feeding.

I got Ginger & Sage shut in the main barn for tonight. Rain or no rain the treatments & hooves are getting done tomorrow. I had pellets in a bucket, hunt that on the babies door, let them out of the buck pen. Ginger acted like she wanted to take off, but she did not. I got the bucket and shook it as I walked around to the main barn. Sage followed me right in and in a few seconds Ginger peeked in. When she saw and heard the pellets being poured in the feeding dish she came right in and started to eat. I locked them in and returned with their water bucket. Put that in, they just looked up and then continued eating. Locked the door and secured it further. They should be a bit happier as well, for this barn is bigger than the shelters they were in. Now I call this the main barn to differentiate between shelters. Most on here have seen it and know it is not a huge barn. Anyway, I decided it would be much easier to wrangle them in the barn.

As soon as I am done with them I can see how they will respect a complete 6 line electric fence. That is what my sister in law had so they should be good. I lie, but not on purpose. Maybe a little less then a quarter of it is still Pallets with two hot wires. I want to run a 6 line electric just on the inside of that. I like the pallets as an added measure to discourage wild critters. I would like to believe that with all that space and browse the does would be content to stay in. Time will tell. My Nigerians didn't give me any issues.

Also tomorrow I would like to get the buck pen cleaned out. I can start on that in the am before my helpers get here. If need be I can finish it after we are done with the does. It's a good advantage point to watch the does as well. I really would be happy if I could get the babies moved tomorrow or Sunday. There are two smaller shelters in the buck pen, both plenty big enough to hold all four babies. The two does shared one shelter and hardly went in the second one.

There is also a second shelter in the main pasture. This can easily house two adult goats. This use to be one of Tahoe's favorite sleep spots when she wanted to be away from Jethro & Grub. Lordy I miss all of them. What I learned from those dogs has helped me in training Storm.

So that is my plans for the weekend. The house work has gone by the way side except for general pick & laundry. Laundry is a given. Oh well, I will have plenty of rainy days to get it done once I get all this rearranging and treatments out of the way. Spending time with the goats is more fun anyways.

Baby shots and trims on Sunday I am hoping.

I so would like to have all this done. I will be going away the weekend of May 11th. I would like everyone well settled by then.

Side note: I am only planning on breeding the two older does this fall providing that Winchester is ready for the job. I am hoping for a mid to late November breeding. I would like to space them by one or two weeks. We will see. Any hoo, I called my sister in law to see if these girls had been bred before. She said yes. Sage had twins and Ginger had triplets. No trouble with delivery. Hope the delivery stays the same.

 

[goats&moregoats]

What a successful busy day. Boy am I tired.

Ginger and Sage do not do leashes at all! Had to take them by the horns to the milk stand. Once there it was not anywhere near as bad as I thought it would be. She went up the steps with little hesitation. However she did lay down as soon as I lifted her front leg. I got her front feet done in that position without any difficulty. Her rear legs I couldn't do that way. So Mike my helper supported her weight while I got those done. Then copper treatments.....oh what fun with out the pill gun(I am so getting one). I did get it done though.I did see if she would let me touch her udder. I expected her to lay down or kick, absolutely nothing. Didn't bother her one bit. She actually hunched a bit as if a kid was nursing. Lice treatment was easy.
Sage was next, she had to have some physical assistance(little pushing & tugging) but I did not have to pick her up. She stood quite well for her feet. Getting those pills down her throat was a battle. One I would not like to repeat. I also checked to see how she felt about her udder being touched. She was completely fine with it as well. Again lice treatment was easy.
They did both have to be brought to the hay barn together. Leaving one alone in the goat barn did not work at all. That will be ok once they get use to a lead or following me. Thankfully Amy my other helper is use to handing goats from when I had the others. After everything was done they were released into the bigger pasture and a very content to be there. Not once testing the fence. Throughout the rest of the day I was in and out of the pasture and they would come down to supervise.
I got everything done with the babies today as well. Also got the buck pen cleaned out and transferred the babies to that pen. They were more than happy with the room to romp, grass to nibble on and more sunshine to be in. They have a stump and small wooden bridge in there for now. Tomorrow I am hoping to add a couple other things for them to climb and play on. Got a hay delivery as well. Last of the season I believe.
Since I got everything done today plus the babies, tomorrows list has changed. Tomorrow if weather permits, I need to finish taking down a section of fencing. About an hour to hour and a half worth of work. Add toys to babies pen and some yard work. Housework if it's raining.
I worked with Storm yesterday with sit and wait. Sit he knows. Wait he picked up on really quick. I will work with that some more and then work on stay. He stays at the door when I am getting his food, but I need him to stay anytime I tell him to. We also took a walk to the neighbors(a crossed a small field) for Storm to get a ham bone from Uncle Jim & Aunt Kaycee. He did pretty good on the leash. He hasn't been on one since Nov. except for the trip to the vet in March. He was a little excited to I had to keep reminding him to be easy, but other than that he was good. They love him to pieces and can't believe how well behaved he is for 9 months.
It definitely feels good to have all this stuff done and to see the goats out in the pasture from the window. I did miss that. I think Ginger will slowly come around now that she knows I am not going to hurt her. The babies definitely needed to move they are growing way to fast.

Sage & Ginger already exploring.
Winchester, Rio, Nutmeg & Juniper enjoying their new space.
Rio's head. Don't know if you can tell what I was talking about as it is starting to heal over again.

 

[Wehner Homestead]

Looking good!

CeCe (my Lamancha doe from Southern) seems to knock her horn scabs off at least every other day and I’ve had her for more than a month now. She’s over two months old. I’ve seen her stick her head in random places and butt Sparkle. I think she’s gotten them to where they aren’t attached overly well and they just come off easy. I just monitor her.

 

[goats&moregoats]

Another rainy day and everything is wet wet wet! Got morning chores done while it was only sprinkling. Just as i got back in the house it let loose again. No outside work this morning. Most likely not this afternoon either, looks like the rain is here for the day.
House cleaning and I will probably take Doreen to visit her daughter in law. No excitement in this location.

The wire fencing above them was to stop a previous wether from jumping out.entrance to the shelter is to their left. In pic 2 Rio is actually going in shelter. They are standing under an extended roof. Pallet on top was to prevent previous goats from jumping up there as a way out.

 

[Bruce]

That was a seriously busy day!

 

[goats&moregoats]

Yes @Bruce , it was and my knee didn't bother me at all during or after. Now with all this rain my right knee is acting up. They are hoping that one will wait 4-5 years. We will see. When it does happen the goats are staying if I have to crawl my way out there to take care of them!
Now this is for everyone, but especially for @CntryBoy777 for it was the greens suggestion that really helped this process along. Guess who isn't mad at me at all! She has decided that she can come close enough so I can give her muzzle a quick rub. Ginger. She still looks so thin to me though. Maybe once this rain stops and they can actually get at the browse & the nice rich grass they will start looking better. They get grain morning & night right now. Along with a sleeve of hay for each. Not exactly sure on the amount they should have @Southern by choice ? I don't know there weights either. Have no way of weighing an adult. She would not put up with being held right now and I wouldn't want anyone getting hurt trying.

Miss Sage is back to being ok with me being right next to her and petting her. Sorry picture is blurry.
They are both very interested in the babies. They tried to get in the babies pen and the babies tried to get out. The babies pen is just to the right in these pictures. It's pallets with hot wire top and middle. All the babies have touched it at least once. Again, poor babies. By the way this is what I look like after one rainy muddy feeding four hungry impatient kids. The pants and hoodie were fresh out of the dryer just before I went out.

 

[Wehner Homestead]

I understand the multiple rounds of clothes in a day when it’s muddy between all of the farm animals, dogs, and cats. Nothing like more laundry! Lol