rachels.haven's Journal

[Baymule]

Deeply felt love comes in many forms. In this case, love comes in honeysuckle, olive, oak and other browse. In a land surrounded by idiots, it is a comfort to be able to come to this forum where others "get" you and grieve with you. Big hugs my friend and give Saffron a hug from me too.

 

[rachels.haven]

Saf's down, appetite coming and going. Doesn't seem to be functioning well GI wise and the look in her eyes is going from "give me cookies" to "make it stop" so I made her one last appt tomorrow. The kids are very upset. She's their favorite. I'm going to try to find a crematorium that will come and get her so my distraught kids won't have to ride in the van with their favorite goat's wrecked, slightly gross body since covid has turned everytrip into a family affair (no cousins or babysitter to keep them busy, dang it). There will be tears and trauma from everyone if I do it myself, so I will pay for that.

I've got 100 bales of the area's first second cutting coming on Wednesday that I will not touch until mid to late winter. That should top us off. Everything else they eat will be brought in and kept on the ground floor of the barn.

We ate silkie cockerel from the freezer tonight. SO GOOD. It tasted pre-brined. You just have to get over the color of the bones and connective tissue. The kids actually ate it, so the flavor and tenderness was spot on enough to counter the appearance. 6 mo of being fed forage by the rooster, then being offed as soon as they filled out and became randy paid off.

I have a confession. I am allergic to tomato plants with some sensitivity to tomatoes, but I still eat them. If people can drink once in a while and enjoy it, I can eat a tomato once in a while and get a day of heartburn and feeling off afterward, but still enjoy that sucker. Touching stems left in or juice drips I miss are an itchy affair though. My sandwich on too thick and stiff GF bread had tomato and cuke from the store on it. No. Stinking. Regrets. Hah. (gotta rebel somehow, right? stupid allergies.)

 

[rachels.haven]

Extra pellets all round tonight in honor of the life of Saffron the Goat, gentle and always willing, herd queen (because she was the biggest). May she lay down to hog the feeder from all the short legged fat nigerian dwarf goats and smaller sized lamanchas tonight in Goat-halla simply because she can. Good girl.

 

[Ridgetop]

You saved her a lot of suffering.

 

[rachels.haven]

Bailey had a routine shots and vet appointment I forgot today.
Apparently she has lyme.

That's three bad things with my animals. Can I go home now?

Noticed runny eyes on 2 of my nigerian does. I'll be looking them over tonight.

Cleaned the convalescent stall and the doe pen stall to get the memories gone. Sure wish that would change the luck.

 

[Ridgetop]

They say things come in 3's. Hope that is it for you!

 

[rachels.haven]

Got my 100 bales of hay today. Bye dollars! It's nice hay though and the hay man is very low this year. He said he was only getting 20 bales/acre and normally he gets around 100. He'd like to start brokering hay to make up for it, but that's tricky. I'm going to load the loft for winter and get back in touch with him if I've got any room, and see where he's at.

He also moved into the town we live in this year with his GF. He confirms that it's almost impossible to farm here in this town (next door to the one he grew up in) and is having trouble getting permission from the city and state to maintain his ditches as the town wants to call them and his fields "wetlands"...except they are hay fields, which back up to someone else's hay fields. And the town is trying to claim them on his property for "conservation"(which used to just be about keeping everyone's well water quality decent and is now about whatever people want)...and hay and farming is how he makes his living and pays mortgage/taxes...so...The wetlands designation begins apparently 10' outside his new back door. I'm cheering for him to get the town to let him work. He says some of the other hay farmers got their permissions and are quite frosty with the sway they have in town govt and use it to limit competition. Personally I'm glad I'm not him. He's got my business and if he needs people to give him a good word I'm willing to go to town meetings where the locals get to decide what he does on his land. I. Like. Farming.

He also reports people coming to slack jaw at him doing his fields and other people coming to poo on his property while he's clearly home and in sight...so we all stood there scratching our heads at the local crazy people(property pooing resulted in a police call, btw). So people are really crazy here and it's not just me. His LGD is a central asian shepherd puppy, and quite frankly, I hope the pup works on the locals too.

He says he's not surprised I lost a few goats this year. It got really hot for here and he says that's common when that happens. His family has sheep and a few goats along with their cattle and horses and feeder pigs at the big farm.

I went over Avalon today. Guess what? She's still a turd-tossing her head and kicking and refusing to be cooperative, making too much eye contact, and being defiant. Nothing outwardly wrong though. Clear runny eyes. She may just be in heat and that's causing her to act off and under the weather, but I think I'm going to run a fecal on her if she doesn't improve in a day or two as she's lost weight. Her famacha is good, but that can hide things. Naturally I worry about rabies since we've already got lyme on the property and rabies and lyme are the two diseases neighbors have warned us about, but I'm pretty sure there are hormones involved. She was blubbering around the pen today. Any time I work with that goat I want to put her back on my sell list-so pretty, but so difficult. I may evaluate her and make her a part of my spring cuts this coming year. It would be a relief.
And finally it looks like Patrick may not have bred many does, as they were all fawning over Durango now that the right amount of time spacing has occurred and it's Dur's turn. And Dur is not a gentleman and he does not miss the buck pen.
The Patrick thing puzzles me. He's down in the bachelor pad, breeding his male friends like the rest of the bachelors. Weren't the does good enough? Darn bucks.
I guess we'll know when the kids come if he got busy or just missed his boyfriends the whole time. I could have sworn he bred at least a few of those does.

 

[Bruce]

He says some of the other hay farmers got their permissions and are quite frosty with the sway they have in town govt and use it to limit competition.

He better hope they aren't on the board that decides who gets to farm their "wetlands" or he is screwed.

If he only got 20 bales/acre this year so did they, sounds like "competition" might mean fewer locals have to buy hay from far away.

 

[rachels.haven]

Yep. That's the thinking. Frank's also really good at mold, dust, and stem free, high quality goat/cow/sheep quality hay. The other farmers mainly do horse. Most horse people here don't buy local hay because it's pricey and sub par for the price, is what I get from talking to my horse neighbors. Also no alfalfa. (um, so they pay that $40/100lbs bale + delivery from an importer bringing grass, alfalfa grass, and alfalfa from out west)

We told him he needs to get on the board to deal with this issue. I was told when I moved in I needed to come to meetings and join in and my "farm" is a couple of chickens and a herd of goats. Frank is a real farmer who pays the bills with his farm and his family has been doing it for generations. Me? I play. I'm a hobby farmer (and the laws are going to keep it that way). My great grandad was a chicken farmer, and some of the greats pre immigration did horses (and died falling off!). Hobby doofuses like me shouldn't be on any ag board. That's offensive. I hope he gets on the board and gets a piece of the pie-ie, his pie/his property that he already bought and pays taxes on. People and legislative bodies have a lot of nerve here. Farmers should be allowed to farm especially legit ones.

We also wondered where all the old horses (and other old animals) here go when they start looking unsightly. There simply aren't any. Where I grew up there were old horses living the last of life to its fullest. It's not like they stay young forever.

Avalon is starting to go the way of Saffron. Vet says, get an autopsy if she dies, this is weird and nothing like she's seen before and she's done goats for a long time and as quite a bit of her practice. Meanwhile, treat for liver flukes that are easily mistaken as barber pole worm eggs if they are found at all. I also need to look for parasites that are atypical. So tonight my mean girl gets valbazen, then when the noromectin plus comes I will start on that. She might be pregnant and those drugs aren't good for bred does, but if she dies, she won't have kids either. I'd rather save the mom. The symptoms and saf's blood work could be similar to liver fluke, but apparently they are uncommon here. I've got to save this goat even if she is a stupid goat.

 

[Bruce]

I take it alfalfa doesn't grow well there? Because if it did a haymaker could bring in some serious money if people are willing to pay $40+delivery for hay from out west. Charge $35 and sell out of "product" fast.

And if the other farmers are doing poor quality horse hay that the horse owners don't want to buy, what do they do with their overpriced hay?