Ragdollcatlady's Just a Little Patch of Weeds Farm journal

[ragdollcatlady]

I have had more issues with my bator this year too. I usually just "set and forget it too"....not really, I do add water and check it every day, but don't usually have to fiddle too much. But Goose eggs are much harder for me to get to hatch for always. I can hatch most any other kind of egg though. I almost have DH convinced that I need another bator...all because I really do make enough from selling my sebaastopol eggs to pay for the geese feed. But hatching goose eggs ties up my incubator during the most important part of chicken hatching season! And I can't NOT hatch goose eggs as I need to make sure I have good fertility before selling.

 

[ragdollcatlady]

We had rain last night/this morning!!!! No idea where that came from!!! Rain is good rain is nice, by the pound or by the slice......oh wait a minute.... that is cheese I think......

I picked up our meat pen chicks from the feed store this morning. The kids will take 2 each to the fair to sell and the rest will be for our own consumption. I asked for 30 and the feed store guy was like "seriously?" I usually get 20. What can I say??? I was hungry and chicken sounded good..... well I do have to wait several months to eat it, but I was still sleepy! Who gets up at 6 something on a saturday morning to buy chickens anyways????

I got a message back that the family wanting to buy 2 of Littles kids are definitely sure and they will pick them up this week....Kinda sad about the little boy going, but they are going to be well loved and he gets to go with his sister. That is always nice.

I wethered Stinker and Reesas little boys this week and offered them for sale. They were getting "fresh" with the sisters so it was time.

Reesas little black girl will go home the first week of may...sad about that too. She is a licker. Licks my hands, by arms, my back when I am milking and my shirt exposes a tiny bit too much.... She is a totally in your face, love me more kinda kid. I knew I should have pulled that add!!! I am keeping her sister...who by the way has a really weird colored coat. She is a light chocolate roan. Well the coat coming in under her baby coat looks very white! I can't wait to see it! She has a really feminine face. I need to find a picture card!!!

We moved the lavender geese to the back but have them separated still. One of the girls is wanting to set so I gave her a few eggs and I am adding a few to the incubator.

We had one baby hatch out from under my broody in the white salmon pen, but after the first one hatched she left the nest with him!!! So we grabbed the rest and threw them in the bator.

We had a couple mixed breed and a couple pure silkie chicks hatch in the bator and under the chicken in the nest boxes over the last few days.

We had a 4H poultry meeting last night practicing showmanship and signing papers for the fair. Well my son decides that instead of bringing in his bantam orpington to do showmanship, he wants to bring in Pennywise the giant male muscovy duck. But he doesn't know the parts of a duck and when he trieds to show the vent....Penny launches the biggest, grossest poop all over the coffee table, me the floor and my papers!!!

Of course ALL the kids and their parents laughed till they were blue in the face and couldn't breath. It was hilarious...but YUCK!!!

 

[BlessedWithGoats]

Wow @ragdollcatlady! You've had quite the busy week!
That's great that some of your goats' kids are going to new homes, but also sad for you! I can only imagine at this point how hard it must be!
Congrats on the new hatchings, and best wishes with your future ones!!!

 

[ragdollcatlady]

Thanks BWG, but don't be sad for me....I already have pity parties for myself!!! LOL! No really...I am keeping several babies (I make all the rules and the rules say if I love it enough it has to stay ) and the goats earn their keep (well kinda) by giving me babies to sell. I spend way too much on them and earning back a few dollars in kid sales is a tiny bit of help to my overall hobby/addiction/pleasure/whatever you wanna call it. I definitely would love to have the means to keep every kid that I truly think has potential, long enough to really know, but alas, I am human with pitifully inadequate excess in the money department. I weigh out how much I prefer one kid to another, one set of genes (and the potential) over another, and even if I would be willing to trade a dam for the right to keep her kid (haven't felt that way yet). Once I answer those hard questions, I decide if I want to be sad for a minute (my feelings do count in this whole process), I decide how much I believe a kid would be worth to me if I were wanting to buy it (within what I feel is a fair market value). Then I price accordingly and if I can sell siblings together (even if I take a loss on the price of one kid) I do. I have to sleep with the decisions I make and I also don't want to make such a good deal for someone else that I would feel cheated. Whether it was tomorrow or a year down the road if I should see them offer the same kids for sale.

Has been a busy week though. Late nights too. I have a meatloaf in the oven right now...My kids love "meat cake" as they call it, so they won't mind eating this late. I think they call it meat cake cause I always make cakes round and I make the meatloaf in my giant cast iron skillet so it comes out round too. Weird really, since I think as a kid our cakes were always the rectangle or the sitting bear. I do make the sitting bear cake too, but meatloaf would definitely not work in that mold!!

 

[babsbag]

We had some rain last night too, about 1/4"...too little too late. Not sure what us CA residents will do if we have another year like this one. Last summer was the hottest one I remember in a long time so warm dry winters and very HOT long summers are not pretty when you live in an Ag. state. It was so hot here in Redding that I couldn't even get tomatoes to grow; they didn't set any fruit until fall, it was really HOT HOT HOT up here.

I know what you mean about the goats and deciding who stays. I have 17 does in milk right now, another 4 that are yearlings and not bred (one might be) and about 20 doelings and I don't need that many, even for a dairy. Time to make some tought decisions.

 

[BlessedWithGoats]

Thanks BWG, but don't be sad for me....I already have pity parties for myself!!! LOL! No really...I am keeping several babies (I make all the rules and the rules say if I love it enough it has to stay ) and the goats earn their keep (well kinda) by giving me babies to sell. I spend way too much on them and earning back a few dollars in kid sales is a tiny bit of help to my overall hobby/addiction/pleasure/whatever you wanna call it. I definitely would love to have the means to keep every kid that I truly think has potential, long enough to really know, but alas, I am human with pitifully inadequate excess in the money department. I weigh out how much I prefer one kid to another, one set of genes (and the potential) over another, and even if I would be willing to trade a dam for the right to keep her kid (haven't felt that way yet). Once I answer those hard questions, I decide if I want to be sad for a minute (my feelings do count in this whole process), I decide how much I believe a kid would be worth to me if I were wanting to buy it (within what I feel is a fair market value). Then I price accordingly and if I can sell siblings together (even if I take a loss on the price of one kid) I do. I have to sleep with the decisions I make and I also don't want to make such a good deal for someone else that I would feel cheated. Whether it was tomorrow or a year down the road if I should see them offer the same kids for sale.

Has been a busy week though. Late nights too. I have a meatloaf in the oven right now...My kids love "meat cake" as they call it, so they won't mind eating this late. I think they call it meat cake cause I always make cakes round and I make the meatloaf in my giant cast iron skillet so it comes out round too. Weird really, since I think as a kid our cakes were always the rectangle or the sitting bear. I do make the sitting bear cake too, but meatloaf would definitely not work in that mold!!

Those are some good things for me to think about as well, once I start having more goats! (Thanks for sharing your thought process!) Which ones stay and which ones go? I know I won't be able to keep them all. :} Right now I have 3, two does and a buck, but both my girls are pregnant, and I might be adding another doe this week... It probably won't be too long before I come to the point where you and babsbag are, about having to decide which ones to keep.
"Meat cake"... that's cute!

 

[ragdollcatlady]

I am glad I am not looking for any of your dairy style goats Babs....... I am already hooked on these boers of yours.

Of course tonight Ravi would have had me cussing up a storm....If I were a cussing sort! I want to give her grain, but the boers all busted the gate to the mom-n-me kid pen. So unless I let her out of the pasture, I don't have a way to supplement just her. But since I have been doing that, she has been a horrible brat about shoving her way out of the gate when I try and bring my milking girls out to milk. She refuses to wait her turn. So tonight, she and I had a couple yelling/wrestling/shove the dang goat back over the speedbump while trying not to hit my head or squish any other goats, or let anyone else out of the pen, matches. Everyone else will more or less cooperate. But not her. And to top it off, I am worried that her 2 smaller kids aren't growing as well. They are eating. She feeds them frequently. But the smaller 2 just look sunken in. They play, hop, run and they sleep together and don't cry excessively. But there are three so only 2 can eat at a time. And like I said, she and I are having issues about how to supplement her. So I grabbed the little boy and shoved the bottle in his mouth. He only fussed for a second and took all I had with me. I bought some cows milk, cream and yogurt and mixed up some "faux milk" for the 2 boers and to start transitioning the little nigerians that will be going home this week.

And to think that just last year I thought I was crazy for freezing 2 whole shelves full of excess milk! I am down to just a 6 or so packs of colostrum and a few more packs of milk. I had the original thought that I would use frozen milk for making more cheese. Glad I didn't.

 

[babsbag]

I have a bottle baby Lamancha right now as her mom decided she needed to die It is amazing how much milk they can go through.

I really understand the wait at the gate and wait your turn thing. I have goats that get milked and then want milked again and again just to get more grain. When I get the dairy done I am so excited that there is an "in" door and an "out" door. I get so tired of fighting the mob.

Maybe you need a new kitten? I have a 4 week old bottle baby that I smuggle in with the goats.

I am getting really anxious to get Flash, even though I will miss Rocky; he is an absolute sweetie and I know you will love him. It will be fun to breed some minis next year, not very many mini Alpines around here so hoping they are in demand. Just hope my big Alpine buck doesn't mind the new kid. I have a LM buck I am keeping to so Flash will have someone his own age which will be nice. My bucks have always played well together so hoping that is the case. If the minis sell well I may sell my Alpine buck and just keep Flash; unless I need replacements, then it is a little tough as I don't want to milk minis. I just don't want so many bucks.

 

[jodief100]

WOW!! How exciting, all the hatching and babies and kids getting ready for the fair. Good luck to all your kids at the Fair!

 

[ragdollcatlady]

Thanks Jodie!

Babs,
Sorry but no, on the kitten....I love cats, but now that the 'stuck in the AC vent' cat looks like it is going to stick around, I am going to have to find a way to fix, vaccinate, etc..... and I am once again somewhere around 12 cats, despite saying goodbye to Despereaux recently.

Just last night while I was milking, Jasmine was playing with a mouse she caught. It was dark out already but with the darn lights from next door, I can still see plenty. So her mouse got away and ran over the top of my foot (sandals on so I felt it!!!) TWICE!!!! I screamed like a little girl!!!!

Reesa and Stinkers wethers went home today. They got to go to the same one so that is awesome!

Tomorrow Littles 2 kids are supposed to go home and this weekend Reesas black doe is supposed to go to her new home too.

Ravis Buck already comes straight to me to get a bottle whether I have one or not! And I got Bullseye (I know I am in trouble cause I named her ) to take a few ounces for me. The fat girl doesn't want any, but since she is a tank that is clearly full, I won't argue!

Had my hearing checked today and everything looks good. I actually started this journal when I had an ear infection and my eardrum ruptured. My world was very quiet...... one ear I struggle more than the other and it isn't as sharp but I have a normal range for both ears so I am happy about that.