Goat Kids Have Started to Arrive!!!

This morning when we went out to the barn we were slightly surprised to find two slimy, wet doelings.  About a week ago Precious (our Nubian doe) appeared to be starting to loose her plug.  Since then she has been dry every time we checked.  The only indication that she was starting to get close was her utter filling.   So we were a bit surprised to find her with kids this morning.

Primrose

Having them still very much in need of drying off and Precious doing her best to clean them while still trying to pass the afterbirth, I went and got some towels and dried them off for her.  Above is a photo of Primrose still a bit wet.

Primrose and Butterfly

They soon were dry and happy!  Butterfly has a great set of lungs on her and is quick to let you know that she is not really a fan of heights.  She would much rather have her feet planted firmly on the ground, thank you!  Mother and kids are doing great and resting well.

Butterfly and Primrose

 So tonight Faith (our Alpine/Toggenburg doe) who is as big as a house, and Katie (our Alpine/Sanaan doe) who was starting to seriously form an utter, are both deposited into cozy birthing stalls. 

We will see what tomorrow brings. 

Venturing into Sheep???

My true goal is to farm full time.  I believe in this economy the only way to do this is to be all purpose.  I believe we need to produce near everything that we consume here at home. So when a friend called to say she has a lamb ram that had been rejected by it's mother and asked if I would like it, what else could I say but YES! 

But very quickly my youngest daughter, Rhiannon, decided that she was to be his mother.  She carries him everywhere and feeds him his milk from a bottle.  If she puts him down and walks or runs away he quickly follows her.  So I am believing that instead of gaining a lamb for meat, I may now need to look for a ewe for him.  She does not become overly attached to any of the calves that we bring home.  But she was even up bright and early this morning to feed him.  I think that he only is in his pen when he is sleeping and sometimes she holds him so long that he sleeps on her.

Naming critters this year seems to have been a bit of a challenge for us.  The calf that we recently got had no name for days.  Now Rhiannon is calling the newest addition "Little Big Man."  After quite a discussion it was finally decided that his name would be "Clark", as in Clark Gable.  However I believe she will continue to call him "Little Big Man" and that may be the only name he ever truly knows.

Now the search for a ewe is on.   We will see, plans always have a way of changing around here. 

Goat Hoof Trimming

Today was goat hoof trimming day. 

We try to ensure that we do this at least every six weeks.  As I am sure you can imagine this is no easy task.  The actual trimming is not really the difficult part, but it is an art form and takes a great amount of practice to do it well.  The difficult part is convincing the goat that they really do need this done.

The way that we handle this is to put each goat on the milk stand and give them a bit of grain, this will keep them busy long enough to trim at least one hoof, but maybe two if you are lucky and quick about it.  We are not usually lucky.  My job is to soothe the goat and hold the light while my husband does the real work.  He has to hold the foot up while trimming.  Naturally the goat does not like this too much.  Most of our goats are used to having this done so there is less fighting then there used to be.

There is an art to trimming hooves however.  It is important to trim them accurately to ensure that the goat walks on the hoof correctly.  You will need a good pair of hoof sheers.  Online you can purchase a good pair that are relatively inexpensive.  

Above is a photo of a pair found on the Valley Vet site.  They can be found on several different sites as well.  Jeffers and Hoeggers both carry them. We also find it helpful to use a hoof pic and a hoof knife.

Above is a photo that shows a good idea of what hooves should look like.  I did not think to take photos while the process was happening.  I was too busy ensuring everyone was on their best behavior.  Anyone who has goats know that in itself is a full time job.  But we did get our task completed and before any of the girls decided to have babies too. 

We have a total of 9 goats who all have nice trimmed hooves after today.  

Busy Busy Busy

Last weekend was a busy one.  We started the weekend by going to Houlton on Saturday to pick up grain from Aroostook Milling Company and a couple automatic watering systems from Tractor Supply.  

We really like the quality of the grain that Aroostook Milling produces.  Our chickens seem to like it as well. :)  They turn up the heat on egg production when we have the grain from Aroostook Milling.

Having the automatic watering systems will help with the spilling of water.  We have one cow, Olive, who loves nothing more than drinking her fill and then tipping her bucket over.  Installing these new systems will help to keep the floor dry and keep water available for her as well.

Upon returning from a nice ride, we completed the daily chores and called it a night.

On Sunday there was much to be done.  In order to install the watering system, a goat pen had to be moved to the other side of the barn and the cow stalls built.  Good thing my husband is so handy!  He often tells me that when I 'think' it means he has to work.  He may have something there.  Once this was all completed, and it took a while, we did manage to get one of the watering systems set up.  Then again we completed the daily chores and called it a night.

Monday morning meant going back to work which meant getting only small tasks accomplished.  Since the kids had basketball games on both Monday and Tuesday night. 

My husband did manage to install the other watering system however.  One is working great and the other seems to be leaking and we are still trouble shooting to figure out why.  So lots of work and money spent and we still have water on the floor... AHHHHHHH  We think we may have found the problem but we will have to wait until tomorrow to find out.

On Thursday we received a call from a Tide Mill Farm with news that they had a male calf born that was for sale.  So we left work on Thursday night and went to the feed store to purchase a bag of milk re-placer and then went and picked up the newest addition to the farm.  We have purchased several calves from Tide Mill.  Here is a picture of the little fellow. 

 Not real sure what to name this little guy yet...  We have a tradition of naming after movie stars.  Let us know if you have any ideas.

Lots more work to do so off I go!

Lucy's Arrival

Slowly we are expanding the farm and moving toward our ultimate goal. 

This weekend we expanded our farm by adding a new heifer.  She is a Hereford/Jersey/Holstein Cross.  This will give us the multipurpose cow we are looking for.  We are hoping the milking lines will give us the ability to milk her while her beef lines will hold true in any male calves in order to produce a hearty beef critter.

Lucy

We have been raising our own beef critters for a while now, however the breeds we have raised have had mainly dairy bloodlines.  By making the change to beef bloodlines we hope to get a better feed to weight ratio.

There are many advantages to raising your own beef or if you are not in a position to raise your own, purchasing it from a farm that you are familiar with.  Our beef is incredibly tender.  I find our steaks to be far more tender than the same cuts bought in the grocery store.  It also makes me feel good knowing that my beef has no added hormones or chemicals. The beef we eat is truly fresh.  Raising our own beef allows us to eat the tender, more expensive cuts of steaks for the same price the hamburger costs. 

  

Waiting for the Kids

We are currently waiting for the kids to arrive.  We have three does who are bred.  Kidding should start here on the farm mid April. 

Katie (Sanaan/Alpine Cross)

Last spring we doubled our Goat herd when we had three does kid.  Vivien, our Lamancha, had triplets, two does and one buck.  Faith, our Toggenburg/Alpine cross, had twins does.  Precious, our Nubian, had a single doe.  That took our herd of four does to a herd of nine does and one buck.  We lost the buck within a few days and later in the winter lost one of the Lamancha cross does to a hay crib accident.  Now we still have twice as many does as we had at the beginning of kidding last spring.  We purchased Leo, a 1/4 Sanaan, 1/4 Alpine, 1/2 Oberhasli buck, from another local farm.  That gives us a total of eight does and one buck for the start of this kidding season.  Like I said previously we have three bred for this spring.  We will breed the four does who were born last spring this spring along with Vivien.   This is in an effort to create two breeding groups and have fresh goats milk and cheese year round.  I have read that this can be done and I am hoping to be successful with it.

Wish me luck and stay tuned for news of kidding and pictures of baby goats!

Thanks to all who are reading my blog and please let me know what you would like to hear about.

Bunnys Bunnys Everywhere

We had not initially intended to start raising meat rabbits so quickly.  It was in the long term plans to have meat rabbits, however we were still in the research stage when a family member asked me if we would like the two that she had purchased for her kids as pets last Easter.  Being who I am, I said yes of course (I have great difficulty saying no).  When they purchased them I had attempted to sex them and thought that she had two males and one female, she lost one along the way.  Since she had them for about eight months and had not had the pleasure of having babies I assumed that I had been mistaken when I sexed them.  It was after all the first time I have ever attempted to sex rabbits.  She said that she thought that she had two females, so our plan was to purchase a male this spring and breed them.  There turned out to be no reason to get a male as I was actually very accurate when I had sexed them.

And so the rabbits did what rabbits do best...

On the morning of January 26th while doing chores, we discovered six tiny babies.  Having never seen a new born rabbit I was surprised at just how small they are.  And then just as surprised at how quickly they grow.  We now have 6 beautiful babies.

5 weeks old

Needless to say the male rabbit "Thumper" was quickly removed from the hutch and given his very own bachelor pad.  However we discovered this past Friday afternoon that he had not been removed quickly enough because we found six new born baby bunnies. 

And that is how easy it is to go from 2 rabbits to 14 in just over two months!

Eggs, Eggs, Eggs

As the days are getting longer and warmer, at least we hope they will stay warmer, We have seen an increase in our Duck Egg production.  We have a flock of 12 ducks.  Our flock includes a variety.  We have Mallard, Welsh Harlequin, Cayuga, Pekin, Muscovy, Runner, and Swedish, to name a few. We have enjoyed the variety of eggs that they provide us.  Just this week one of the Cayuga's started laying and to my amazement she laid a dark gray almost black egg.

Gray/Black Egg from our Cayuga

We also are getting green tinted and white duck eggs.  See photo below.  Cayuga's will lay a very dark egg at first and each day the egg will lighten in color some.  In the photo above you see the first egg she laid is very dark while the second egg (in the photo below) is slightly lighter in color.

A gray, green and white duck egg with a large brown chicken egg.

 In addition our Ducks, who have turned up the heat on their eggs, we are also getting a large number of chicken eggs.  We also have a large assortment of chickens.  Some of our chickens lay very large eggs, almost as big and some actually bigger than the duck eggs.  Our Chickens really started laying in large quantities around November and have not slowed down all winter.  We are currently getting on average 30 eggs a day. 

Beginning of a Blog

Today I have made a decision to try to document some of our hard work and progress through a blog.  I am no writer, I am a mother, wife, and co-owner and co-operator of a small farm in Downeast Maine. I have 3 children, 17, 14 and 9.  I have been married to my husband for almost 18 years now.  It is our dream to run this farm.  We currently both work full time jobs as well as working the farm, parenting children and attending a variety of events.  So we started this farm in 2010 with one beef critter and 2 dairy goats.  Today we have 8 dairy goats, a dairy goat buck, a Jersey heifer, a bull, a steer, an assortment of Ducks, Chickens, and Guinea Fowl as well as meat rabbits.  In the past two years we have raised 2 steer and 4 pigs for food in addition to what we currently have.   Our goal is to raise healthy hormone and chemical free food for our family.  There are other long term goals but all in good time.
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