May Begins

Farm life is good! Everything, well mostly everything, has been going well. In crops, we've harvested our very first strawberry! This little guy even beat out Dad's established bed of strawberries. It was very delicious, and there are more ripening! Success!!

We also planted the last of the seeds today- corn, cucumber, pumpkin and bush beans. I also added a tomato plant we found at Lowe's - an heirloom variety that grows HUGE fruits, and an eggplant plant. The other stuff is still coming up, some better than others. The snow peas have blooms so we should have some peas soon. I LOVE snow peas.

Our first strawberry!

All the animals are doing well. Dinkey the Donkey has adjusted quickly and he and Roscoe seem to enjoy each others company. Dinkey is getting used to walking with a halter and lead rope. He gets to come out of the paddock to munch on our lawn and get brushed. Roscoe gets to come out less often since I have to make sure he doesn't eat the ornamental plants. Goats- jeez! At least the new super hot fence is keeping him where he's supposed to be.

The does are giving us about a gallon of delicious milk each day. Polliwog is still with us- we never heard from the family that took Niblet and said they wanted P-wog, too, so we have some deciding to do on that front. He's doing well and is so cute with those blue eyes.

We're still not having any luck with the cream separator. Chuck has called the company to do some trouble shooting but it looks like he'll be calling them again. He has, however, figured out how to make cheese! He's made a couple of batches of simple cheese and tonight made fresh goats milk mozzarella. It was very yummy and is already gone. Luckily, more milk to come in the morning.

Cheese and Quackers have moved from the brooder to a small pen in Rascal's coop. They have most of their big duck feathers but still have that awkward teenager look. Pictures to come soon when they're all prettied up! Rascal continues to be a lot of fun. She makes a mess of the fish pond, but it makes her happy so Chuck just rinses the filter several times a day.

Here they are practicing their pirate routine.

And here are the chickens hoping for a treat.

We have 2 weeks until the delivery of our next poultry order, and tentatively 3 weeks until processing of about 15 chickens. The bunnies will be ready to breed soon, too.

That catches us up for now!

Busy Season Begins

Things are definitely shifting into high gear here at Lazy Danes. Here's what been happening...

In crops, everything continues to grow and sprout as planned. Carrots were thinned yesterday and peppers and tomatoes planted. Several of the strawberry plants have blooms and the snow peas are have really taken off. We've had to water quite a bit, which after the super wet winter I won't complain, and it's really convenient to have the water coming from the shed.

Moving on to livestock, there have been lots of changes! We'll start with last weekends addition of Dinky the Donkey. Dinky is a miniature donkey and will get between 36-38" tall. He is 7 months old. We got Dinky mostly to be a friend for Roscoe, but also for some guardian work and I love the braying. He's very sweet with us and the girls and gets along well with Roscoe.

Version 1.o of the donkey/buck fence did not keep in said goat. Back to the drawing board on that one. Dinky is content to stay in his enclosure, but Roscoe has to stick it out in the cattle fencing until I can get a stronger box and run a higher wire. They still hang out together through the fence. And since it's where 3 different lots come together, even the dogs have been enjoying the company of Dinky.

In other goat news, Niblet, Scarlet's buckling, has gone to live with a very nice family that wants pet goats. The best possible outcome for little dairy bucklings. Merryweather's little buckling, Polliwog, is doing very well, and lucky for him the same family is planning to get him when he gets old enough. So he and his half brother will grow up to be pets together. For now he's enjoying being the only goat and not bullied by the slightly older Niblet. Siblings!

Milking is going very well. Now that Scarlet isn't feeding Niblet, she is giving well over a quart each milking. MerryWeather is producing as expected. Her teats aren't lengthening as fast as Scarlet's did so she's much more difficult to milk- especially without spraying it all over the place. Chuck tried out the cream separator over the weekend with out much luck. It will take some fine tuning to get it to the right thickness. We'll keep working on that.

Happy chickens ready for night-night. Somebody isn't putting their eggs in the nest boxes so we'll to watch them that they don't go broody and disappear again. The baby chickens are 11 weeks old and starting to look more like a meal. The keepers should start laying in 6 weeks or so.

In rabbit news, I've had to admit failure on the Angora front. Of all the new things we've been doing, harvesting Angora wool was my least favorite. It gets everywhere, so outside was the only good option, which means the weather had to cooperate. Then I had to time it right before a shower because it goes up your nose and all over your clothes. Anyway, after a lot of thought and plenty of guilt we sold our breeders and processed the others.

Instead of Angoras, the hutches have been turned over to a breeding set of Silver Fox Rabbits. Chuck has been wanting more meat rabbits and to keep with the heritage versus commercial theme were researched and found a lady near Asheville that breeds them. The Silver Fox is critically endangered according to the ALBC, with only 200 registered in the USA. The does are a little young still but we will start our own breeding program in the next couple of months.

Chuck named them so here we have pictures of Isaac, Foxy and Cleopatra.

Now for the ducks, all is well. Rascal had a sore foot last week and wasn't getting around so well. Waterfowl have really weak legs and she has been in and out of the pond rather exuberantly. After a few days of rest in her pen she's back to her old self. Here she is peeking around the columbine.

Cheese and Quackers are getting taller, but still aren't all feathered in. They have about a week left in the brooder, then it'll be on to a mini pen next to Rascal.

I'm sure I've missed something on this go 'round and there's certainly more happening all the time.

Welcome Polliwog!

Polliwog was born 4/14/10, at about 5:00pm. He and his mom, MerryWeather are both doing great!

MerryWeather, the new mom

Polliwog has blue eyes like his daddy, Roscoe.

Sleepy baby. Here he's about an hour old.

More farm news to come soon!

Disbudding Niblet

Niblet and his mom, Scarlet

Whew! Glad that's over. Today was the day we sucked it up and disbudded Niblet. For those new to the goat lingo, disbudding is when you cauterized the horn so that it will not grow. Why do this, you ask? Because I don't want me, my children, my dogs or my other goats gored, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Plus,they can tangle themselves in fences, hay mangers etc, and tear a horn later which is a bloody mess. There's the why, here's the how.

Our first choice was to have a vet do this for us. Her response was - "everyone does it themselves so I don't even have the equipment for it." Eek! Are we goat farmers or not? We had already gotten the equipment so it was up to us. I did get an Rx for banamine from the vet to help take the edge off the pain. Yay drugs! I also picked up the tetanus antitoxin just to be safe. Time to disbud.

The time came, I gave Niblet his meds- he was a trooper. Then, shaved down his fur around the horn nubs while we waited for the banamine to kick in. After about 45 minutes he was feeling very loopy. Chuck heated up the iron while I got into position holding Niblet. He was not happy about being restrained and hollered for his Mommy pretty quick. Then he REALLY hollered when Chuck applied the iron, cauterized horn one, reheat iron, cauterized horn two. A touch up to make sure it's done, then take Niblet back to mom for some soothing milk.

Here he is back in the paddock an hour and a half later. He's recovering fine, hanging out with his mom and aunt Merry. He was even head-butting Merry a bit when I checked on him last. You can see the burnt ring around his little nubs, and a touch of blood. These will scab up and heal, then the fur will grow back.

So glad that's over with. Next up for Niblet is castration, and I think we're actually going to keep him as here as a friend for Roscoe now that he needs to be separate from the does. Roscoe is definitely not happy being by himself. We were pondering getting him a donkey as a companion/guardian but I think Niblet will be a much better friend. Plus, we don't have a lot of pasture available for a grazing animal. A donkey may still be in our future, but not soon.

In fowl news, Cackle Hatchery finally gave us a ship date for our next lot of birds. We have 5 Blue Slate turkeys, 5 Ancona ducks and 12 Plymouth Rock chickens on the way the week of May 10th. Yippee! I also ordered a killing cone to aid Chuck in all the processing he has coming up.

The Cayuga ducks are doing well. They are 2 weeks old today and only need to be in the brooder another 2 weeks. I still can't tell the sexes yet. I guess I really should choose sex-linked breeds so I can tell immediately. Oh, well.

I leave you with pictures of the Cayugas on Easter. Cute, cute cute!

More Baby Pictures

Well, one week in and the milking is going very well. I'm able to get about 24 oz at each milking before Scarlet gets done with her grain and therefore done with standing still. The hobble was back ordered so I guess other people are having the same problem. The little guy is growing fast, a week old today. He comes out in the paddock with his mom some now and has been sampling the hay and grain.

Cheese and Quackers are getting bigger, too. They're just over a week old. Today they got to come outside for some playtime. I was thinking they might explore more but they decided to stay close- mostly just sitting on my feet or in my lap.

And here are the chickens in their playpen. I'm hesitant to allow them free range with the hawk we have, it actually got a guinea a couple weeks ago. They're 9 weeks old this weekend, and still have some growing to do before they're dinner.

The veggies in the raised beds are doing well still and we've had a load of pea gravel delivered to spread around them and the milking shed. It should look nice after many, many, many wheelbarrow loads.

Remedial Milking

Sounds pretty straight forward. Buy the does, raise the does, buy the buck, expose the does, wait for kids, have kids, milk goat, yum. Well, here we are at day 2 and at least there is goat milk in my fridge, and I do feel like several hurdles have been overcome. Major hurdle number one was the milking stand- as in we didn't have one when the niblet decided to arrive. No problem since we were going to give the kids all the does milk for the first 2 weeks. Well, new plan since she only had one kid. That means lots of extra udder stretching, lopsided teat making milk. Hence, yesterday became build-the-milking-stand-in-the-pouring-rain day.

And, ta-da!

Finally, all that extra stuff laying around is paying off! The stand is made from an old cabinet top , nice and sturdy, ready to clorox for easy clean-up. Add a stanchion made from scrap lumber, set on cement blocks and we're ready to milk! Right?

Enter Scarlet, lopsided udder, one kid having, new to this, too, doe. She kicks at the pail, steps in the pail, manages to remove her head from the stanchion and in general has a totally different idea of how this should go. Milking number 1 includes me and Chuck, pushing, pulling, coaxing, and yelping through- getting very little for our efforts other than an irritated goat. Holy goats, what have we gotten into?

Chuck is off to the corporate job today, and I get to go it alone. Dramatic music, please. Milking time comes around, prepare the area, add grain, go get the goat. Scarlet still does not want to go to the milking shed, no problem, lure with grain. Scarlet doesn't want to get on the stand, no problem lure half way up with grain, and when she stubborns up again, pick her up and put her on the stand. Luckily, she weighs less than a Dane (a little less). Praise goat and secure her head (fingers crossed on this point) in the stanchion. Wash udders. Whew, easy. Set up pail, hold breath, grasp engorged teat with cold fingers. Mah!

Whew! Scarlet's fine, she's eating her grain and props favorite kicking foot helpfully out of the way on the shelf. Here we go. First squirt goes up my sleeve, next one on the shelf, then (Hooray!) one in the pail. A few more wayward squirts and I get a rhythm. Alright! I'm milking! The rhythm doesn't last long, and I still get more up my sleeve and on the stand, but that's OK. I did get about a cup out, the udder looked less engorged, then I turned my attention to the small teat.

One of our concerns was that it was blocked and was drying up. After this morning, I'm going to conclude that Junior is a lefty and keeps that side emptied out. I decide this after getting a good grip on the teat, watching very closely for proper function... and squirting milk straight in my face.

Woo-hoo! It's working as it should. He's getting milk, Scarlet's fine, and I milked a goat.

Here are the fruits of my labor. This goes in to the fridge for the bottle feeding of Little Bit. It's a good way to make sure he's getting enough and will make him a little less wild. Right now, he's still got wobbly legs and sleeps a lot but that will change very quickly.

And, of course, here are pictures of the little guy...

A few more classes of Remedial Milking and I'll be ready to advance. Maybe in 2 weeks when we're ready to milk for our use I'll be able to pull it off.

Baby Goat!!!!!

Sometime last night Scarlet had a little baby boy! They're both doing fine. Chuck heard him this morning at 7:30 on his way to karate. We got his cord cleaned and tied. He has a cozy box with towels to hunker down in. Scarlet got a treat of wheat cereal and extra grain while we milked her a bit to make sure her teats were flowing so he could get his colostrum. She has passed her afterbirth and is taking good care of him.

Roscoe and MerryWeather were being very sweet with him, but we put them in the paddock to give mom and baby some bonding time. Now there is a lot of MAH! as they holler to each other across the fence.

Now we just sort out what to do with everybody and get into a routine! More pictures coming soon...