rachels.haven's Journal

[rachels.haven]

The AGHs I had were nice pigs...personality and meat. I am trying to not get more but, it's just on that back burner calling my name! Some available just 8 miles away. . Summer, garden, goats kidding, grass to cut...all add to feeding them out. Mine loved fresh grass cuttings. I cut with bagger and dumped to them. The size was nice. See where I'm heading? Meat was delish.

This sow has impressed me so far. I see what you mean. She's not skittish, not mean, not greedy. The pig farmer said just keep her fed, watered, and sheltered and she will be satisfied and happy to stay put and that about sums up her personality. I love it so far. The speedy kunekune piglet is funny and cute, but dang, that thing is skittish.

Miss @rachels.haven, you really had me going for a moment calling them "ugly goats"!

Lol, Senile_Texas_Aggie, for goats, they are VERY ugly.

 

[rachels.haven]

The pig man was right. Happy pigs don't do a lot. They are also very quiet. (at the moment)

 

[Bruce]

I'm sticking to under 200 lbs average.

I think that is a wise decision.

 

[rachels.haven]

Twin doelings for Erudite. Lamancha Hera has lost her ligaments (as far as I can tell, she's kind of fat) and should go tonight or tomorrow. I feel bad for pulling Eri's girls and making them bottle babies, but I have no Mothers' and Babies suites right now in my flooded barn and Eri teaches all her kids to avoid people like she does.

 

[Baymule]

Can you use a leash on your puppy? I have to put Ringo up or he will eat the dogs food. At 245 pounds, he wins, they lose.

Your barn is flooded? Nooooo

 

[rachels.haven]

Can you use a leash on your puppy? I have to put Ringo up or he will eat the dogs food. At 245 pounds, he wins, they lose.

Your barn is flooded? Nooooo

Leashing the puppy is a good idea. I forgot about that. All my other dogs follow me without any of us really thinking about it and for the most part listen. Meanwhile I was just thinking about how I didn't know what to do with Mr. Giant, White, and Flighty and we hadnt been making as much progress as I'd like de-flighting him and had regressed. If I let him out he does his best to be half a pasture away as much as possible lately and feeding that is difficult (thank you, Bailey). Catching that is even less fun. He thinks he's a wild goat. Should have been a bottle baby.

 

[rachels.haven]

And yes the barn is flooded, but not the buck and doe pens. Just everything else. Too much rain, I guess. We have a gravel deficiency.

 

[farmerjan]

WOW you have gotten some rain..... we are getting it today; it is very wet out there and COLD.... 72 yesterday and nice sunny day after early morning showers... started raining last night sometime after we got done feeding at 10:30 p.m. while it was warm and "drier" so we could get in and out of gates..... down to 33 this morning and never got above 34 all day on the recording thermometer. COLD and WET and downright miserable all day.....

 

[farmerjan]

Cute new babies.... and yes, making them more people friendly is definitely more desirable....

 

[Ramblin Farms]

Do you

Yesterday finally we closed on the house. Tomorrow we go out on a plane for an animal prep trip. Little bit stressful.

On a different note...
I had the opportunity to buy a used semen tank that holds from someone who had accumulated 5 tanks when people sold out of AI and she wanted the semen but didn't need the tank but took the extra tank anyway. It came with a bunch of nubian semen, which I will need to get g6s tested before using on Dan's nubian goat, Spot the Galaxy. I also bought some lamancha semen and 5 dwarf straws from a very milky lined dwarf buck...so I'm adding 13 bucks to my pen. The oldest 5 nubians have about 200 straws between them and are from the 70's and 80's. The kids are fascinated by the concept of "buck juice" from bucks long gone that they get to use to use to help Spot have kids but conveniently they are terrified of the concept of liquid nitrogen. I can tell you I will be storing the tank under lock and key in the milk shop at the new place. The tank gets to Mass tonight. The goat transporter will be taking it down with the goats. There's a lot of "Longman Dusty Baron" in there. Someone over collected.

I'm attempting to arrange a load of alfalfa to be coming while we're out there. I have some skinny goats that have had doelings on them for the past 8-9 months. It's time to get them beefy again for next year.

In regards to breeding. I have 5 lamancha does, and one dwarf tenatively bred and plan to put up a dwarf breeding pen when I get there (and the tenatively bred one one will be put back in there because I don't trust Eri to be bred until she's over being BRED, and she doesn't mind the extra "fun" anyway). I have 5 lamanchas I am holding off on to add condition to, to AI, or to stagger breed with cidrs and pg600. There's one lamancha doeling, Galaxy the noober, and 3 dwarf doelings that are too small and will probably be that way until next fall. And then there's the mini saanen that's just about ready now to breed and may go in with the dwarf breeding pen when we get there (with Eri and the 2 new dwarf does)...We might be able to have a kid filled spring and fall and a milky year after that for herd shares.
Time to stress about the prep trip!

Still have them extra tank with the nubian semen for sale