Latestarter's ramblings/musings/gripes and grumbles.

[Devonviolet]

Yikes!!! That would have freaked me out !!! I might have pulled my trousers off, run into the water up to my thighs & scrubbed my legs off before getting into my car, to go home to shower! I would be concerned about taking the chiggers home with me, in the car!!!

UGH!!! I HATE chiggers!!!

 

[greybeard]

Just a thought . . . what if we mix the lime & sulphur? Or would the lime counter the effectiveness of the sulphur???

The article you reference, says sulphur doesn't change the pH quickly, and should be applied (dug into the soil) several times a season. We were planning to use a dry fertilizer spreader, set on the lowest setting, to spread our sulphur thinly. I believe it's a really fine powder, which can clog a spreader. So, we are planning to add course sand to the mix. Btw, we have 6" of loam over clay.

I dunno about mixing a neutral combination to retain current pH. Never had the luxury of not needing lime.
Almost always, pH doctoring is a lengthy process and has to be done in advance of fertilizing--at least a season in advance to give it time to work.
You can get sulphur in little pellets too, or granules. Usually held together with bentonite, but I don't know if the pellets would help with the chiggers.

About fertilizer. Lots of bagged fertilizeer now have 4 #s instead of the three NPK number. The 4th # is usually a pH conditioner, and is often sulphur. Reason being, fertilize and petrochemical plants have an surplus of suphur as a byproduct, and someone came up with the bright idea of putting it in fertilize to get rid of it at a slight profit, tho sulphur does provide benefits for plant growth too.

Yep, them seed ticks are a bad memory. We tried to avoid certain plants, like French Mulberry. Just brush against one and the seed ticks would shower down off of them and on to your pants leg. Brother and I were mid teen at time and hated to go to gym class in school because of all the bites on our lower legs and our poor older sisters..well you know how teenage girls are about their skin conditions. Seen my youngest older sister cry about what her legs looked like.

 

[CntryBoy777]

Well LS I've never had that situation with chiggers, but I certainly have with ticks. I had a couple of dogs die in my backyard back in the early '80s from poisoning by a neighbor. I took care of them and took them and buried them back in some woods a ways from the house. I had to cut the yard and I had a bagger push mower, put grass in big plastic bags to put out for the next garbage pickup. It was about 4-5 days later that the garbage truck headed up the street...I ran to the backyard to tote the bags out in tennis shoes and shorts....got them all out there and was walking back up to the house and felt something crawling on my legs...looked down and there were hundreds, in not thousands of baby ticks crawling up my legs. I ran in the house and told my wife at that time to go get the gas can. I went and stood in the bath tub and dowsed my legs with gas, shoes and all. Then washed with soap and water. I had never seen ticks like that before. I went and looked around the backside of the house and it was covered...even across the chain-link posts and gate. I dusted so much sevin dust it looked like it had snowed. I guess the dogs had some ticks on them, and when an animal dies the ticks leave the carcass. So, I fully understand your actions, but I would've been more inclined to do as @Devonviolet and went it the water wearing everthing....vehicle will dry....but, I want them off Now.

 

[Latestarter]

So I caught up Dot and Bang and took them out and attached them to a 25 foot plastic coated wire lead on a spiral dog stake so they could load up on fresh greens. I would have taken April out as well, but I couldn't catch her. She wanted nothing to do with me. I'm seriously considering attaching a 20 foot drag line to her collar so I'll have something to aim for when trying to catch her. She's one fast goat. Actually, I better go out and put those two back in the pen again. It's almost time to give them their afternoon grain.

 

[CntryBoy777]

April sounds a lot like Lightning....when we used to have to catch them to walk them, we had to catch Lightning 1st and then the others, otherwise the 2 of us couldn't catch him. Ya may give it a try anyway. May take some tasty sweet gum branch to entice her with....with the others still in the pen, she may be more relaxed and unsuspecting, but being alone means something is happening and she is wary and skiddish....just a thought.

 

[babsbag]

The more I read of things like ticks, chiggers, and "fahr ants" the more I like living in CA.

 

[Bruce]

Ya gotta bribe April until she comes to you Joe
Of course I've been bribing the alpacas twice a day since October and they still don't want to be touched.

 

[Mike CHS]

I found the best way was to let them work it out with food primarily. Our newest ewe would not come near anyone even at the farm she came from. I take in fresh grass and she is with our tamest ewe and her lamb. They both like being scratched and I do that with them when I go in. The new ewe watches but isn't interested in being touched. When I take their pellets in at feeding time I just squat down with the pellets in a bucket in front of me and of course Notag and Hoss come right at me but I don't let them get in the bucket. I don't push it and then put the feed in their bowls. It took two weeks but now I can go in the pen with fresh grass and all of them come up and get grass from the bag. She still watches me waiting for me to pounce but I don't try to touch her. I don't know if goats are the same but they do watch how you interact with the other animals. I can squat in front of Notag and she will lean in to get her scratches. Hoss is the same way and you could roll him over if you wanted to.

That was pretty much the way we did our original ten and now they look for the scratching. We are new at all this but it has worked for us.

 

[Devonviolet]

When we got our wethers, they would get out once in a while. At first we panicked and then I grabbed a small bucket & put a little bit of grain in it. Before I called the goat, I took a leash, made a slip noose, with the handle, put it loosely over the wrist, of the hand, that I held the grain bucket in.

I shook the bucket, so the goat knew it had grain in it. It never failed. The goat came running & started the eating grain. Once his head was in the bucket, I slipped the noose over his head, and he had an instant leash. It works every time.

When we first got the girls, the door, to the hoop hut, didn't latch and the girls ran out. At first I panicked, & then I remembered the grain bucket/leash trick. It worked like a dream. Instant leash!

 

[Southern by choice]

We had a buck that we got at 8 months old ( i think he was 8 months). He was not handled at all. I mean we had to catch him in a 12x12 stall... the whole group of kids just had no hands on no handling. We had him for years he never did come around. He would come up and watch us love all the goats around him but he wouldn't let us touch him. There were a few times we did then he realized a flew like a bat out you know what. One year we couldn't even get ahold of him to put him in the breeding pen. We moved him to make it easier and then we lotted him come breeding season. He was ok to touch through the fence but always hesitant.
He was never abused just never handled, the lady was honest about it. You'd think eventually he'd come round. He didn't. But he was a sweet goat, caused no issues, never mean or aggressive. We figured we could never sell him because we thought he'd just go from home to home because of his issues with people. He was too sweet and so gentle we couldn't do that to him. He remained here til we lost him from the Chaffhaye incident. So sad, he fought so hard but I think all the handling and us having to move him to a stall for treatment just was too much. He didn't recuperate.
I imagine she may come around for you ... does are a bit different and she has had handling. If your doe doesn't come round I would recommend pulling her kids at birth, she will bond with you then.