rachels.haven's Journal

[rachels.haven]

Hope's kids.

Just a quick one.

Lucy's kids from a few days ago. Doe in tan. I took the cord from her. I've got to get her listed separately from her brothers.

 

[Baymule]

If you enjoy Hope, then by all means, keep her. Sometimes we have our special pets, our special ones for one reason or another. It sounds like Hope will more than earn her keep.

 

[Mini Horses]

A good milk producer is worth keeping! For those, kids are just a necessary casualty. I'd milk that girl and kiss the kids as they left, sold.

 

[rachels.haven]

She can make registered mini lamancha grades as long as MDGA leaves their herd book open, and she can also make registered mini Sables and Saanens when crossed to my ND bucks.

 

[rachels.haven]

No more wet legs and leaking from the mini Saanen crew even though I milked early last night and milked very late this morning (sick kid and my night owl husband discovered it at midnight that the floor in the kitchen was floating on a layer of water, and there was dripping going into the basement so he got his handy wife up to help...so fun late night...dishwasher is leaking in multiple ways...stupid dish washer needs to stick to failing during daylight hours). Anyway, all of the mini saanens were 2 year old FF's with mature bodies. I kind of wonder if when a FF is prevented from breeding her first year (prevents kidding issues and all) that next year if she's a 2 year old FF she has all the ability body wise to produce a 2f's worth of milk, but the unstretched udder of a 1f which can result in leaking especially if their udder texture is courser more like a cow and there's a lot of mammary "meat" in the udder, which I think is what I have going on. I think I'll just milk them for a while and see what happens.

Finishing Hope's boys 24 hours of colostrum and transition milk before getting them out the door.

Today I rolled this month's round bale into the doe pen in preparation for seeding the pasture and dry lotting. Tonight I will also go get some alfalfa hay to try out from another supplier so they can dry lot optimally. We were mostly out except for a few bales I was saving for kidding and emergencies.

 

[Ridgetop]

Meaty udders are a bad fault and reduce mik volume. If they have meaty udders I would cull anyway.

 

[rachels.haven]

Meaty udders are a bad fault and reduce milk volume. If they have meaty udders I would cull anyway.

I probably will. It's annoying and likely the core cause of the leaking we had. Let me just get these kids out the door first.

 

[Baymule]

A flooded kitchen. Boo. At night. More boo. Not fun!
Mother’s Day is coming soon. New dishwasher?

 

[rachels.haven]

A flooded kitchen. Boo. At night. More boo. Not fun!
Mother’s Day is coming soon. New dishwasher?

Yep. New dishwasher time-one that hasn't been exposed to extremely acid water for years on end after being bought used in the first place The system we put in should help it last a normal amount of time.

As a side note we found out that us drilling another well will not change our water quality. Most areas have a clay layer between the surface soil and the (bed?)rock and water table that helps seal out contaminants and this area does not have that layer so the well water is just foul and polluted. Nobody should be on well water anymore here with all the development, but we're the AG reserve (viewed as similar to a game preserve and farmers and farms are the wild life) so the utility is unlikely to ever let us on so the best we can do is an expensive system to clean and sterlize it...that we may add to now that we have that information. And i may retest the water from time to time to make sure we are okay. And i won't miss the water if we ever move.

 

[Baymule]

Lots of water, but not fit to drink. Makes you wonder how people lived years ago. Bad water in developing countries is responsible for sickness and deaths. Lucky you. At least you have the option of your own filtration system. $$$$$$$$$$$$