Trick Question

Yesterday's farm puzzle has turned out to be a trick question. For, in fact, the baby goats can also escape from baby pen B. Dang! So all the babies got penned back in the shed. Ok, fine, it was starting to drizzle anyway.

Today, I planned to rotate out the two baby groups half way through the day in baby pen A. Before the second rotation, Sage and Petunia escaped said pen. I'm still confused as to how. I still firmly refuse to be out stubborned by goats, so tomorrow Rosie and Scarlet get to go to baby pen A for a while, and I'll rotate the others out as needed.

Whew! This is getting tedious and I'm still only getting about a cup of milk from Rosie in the evenings. She's getting more comfortable with the arrangement though and will stand rather patiently and nibble her grain. As she relaxes she lets down a little more milk each time.

We have sprouts now! Today I saw beets and both types of peas peeking out of the ground. I didn't look real close since this was during the nightly rounds, so I'm hoping to see lettuce tomorrow, too.

Spring official starts this weekend and it certainly is beginning to look like spring around here, too. Fun and busy time to be farming!

The Great Goat Puzzle

Mahhhhhhhhhh!

There are 6 goats and 4 paddocks. All goats must be out with a buddy, however, to get milk and not have accidental pregnancies...

Rosemary can be with Scarlet or Petunia

Scarlet can be with Rosemary, Petunia, Flash, Chipper or Sage

Petunia can be with Rosemary, Scarlet or Sage

Flash can be with Chipper or Scarlet

Chipper can be with Flash or Scarlet

Sage can be with Scarlet or Petunia

The babies (Chipper, Sage and Flash) have to be in the mesh pens or they escape back to the herd. Scarlet can't go in the upper paddock since pine needles are bad for pregnant does. Rosemary escapes from the upper paddock to find her babies.

The big question- Where do you put the goats? *

Main Paddock

Upper Paddock

Baby Pen A

Baby Pen B

Solution later...

*If it rains, everybody comes back to the shed.

Now on to duck sorting.

Milk!

Just a quick update to celebrate our first sip of goats milk!

After a couple of set backs with separating goats, and a rocky first attempt, Rosemary gave us our first 1/2 cup of milk for this year. She's still a little confused by the process, and not letting down much milk, but hopefully that will change soon. Scarlet still has not had her kids. This is why I should have written due dates on a calendar instead of on a little scrap of paper that laid around for a while then disappeared. On that note- Foxy (rabbit) should be due to kindle about the middle of next week. Rosie's milk is indeed fattier than the Nubian milk. It was already separating after a couple of hours. It tastes very rich and creamy, too. Yum!

The baby chicks are not doing as well as past batches. We lost 11 out of 27. Usually we only lose 2 or 3. I called McMurray Hatchery and they assume they got chilled during shipping. They are going to reship what we lost in a couple of weeks and hopefully the weather will be nicer. This is the first group that the post office has waited until opening to call-usually they call as soon as they come off the truck, even if it's 6am. What we have left from this bunch are doing well now. They have their wing feathers and are beginning to get their tail feathers. I still have no clue what our mystery chick is.

Pictures of cuteness next time!

More Chickens!

The big news this week is the arrival of the new chicks. Monday morning I got the call from the post office to come pick up my noisy box. At the time all were alive, but we have lost 5 as of this post. It was very cold Sunday night, which just makes shipping harder. What we have currently are 6 White Crested Polish (the ones with the poof on top) 3 Partridge Cochins Hens (the solid brown ones) 12 Dark Cornish (brown with black stripes) and 1 mystery chick (not pictured). There's still another 24 hours to go before I'll stop expecting more casualties. The other fowl are doing well. The ducks have been free ranging again, now that the weather has warmed and the chickens are starting to lay more.

Zombie Chick

Barred Rock

Rascal napping in the sun

The goats are all doing well. The others have accepted Flash into the herd. Soon he and Chipper will have to go hang out on their own away from the does, and it won't be long before Sage and Chipper are weaned and the Herrin's get FRESH GOAT MILK! Yum!

Flash, Sage and Chipper sunning

Sage

Chipper is king of the table

Petunia and Scarlet cuddling

Then they decided to really ham it up

Rupert always comes out on the porch and waits while I make the rounds

Bo's head hanging off the couch

Now we're just waiting for spring to plant the rest of the garden and it'll really get busy around here!