- Thread starter
- #231
freemotion
Food Guru
Working hard cleaning the milking area and organizing that corner of the garage so I can set up my milking machine in a nice, clean, organized space. WOW it was a mess! How do we accumulate so much stuff? I found street map books that I used to keep in my trunk but have since been made obsolete by GPS and googlemaps. In the trash they went. Along with lots of other stuff. Then I donned the rubber gloves and scrubbed and scrubbed. And I'm less than halfway finished! Yikes! Back to the salt mines!
Meanwhile, the kids went outside in their new pasture/pen with Te'a as a babysitter. They have a nice cedar for shade, and I spent some time trimming lower branches, pulling privet that has invaded that space, and I put up some hardware cloth over the crotch of the tree so no baby feet or legs or heads get caught up in that tree. They are fascinated by leaping up and bouncing off the tree trunks in their pasture, and with that one in particular.
They stayed out from 9-3 and then came in with their second bottle. That's right, they get only 3 bottles starting today. Sniffle. Their crying breaks my heart. So I hand fed them some nice, succulent grass and some tiny apple leaves and the boy, Birch, started to figure out how to find his own grass. Mostly he ate dirt, roots, old leaves, last year's dead grass. It is a wonder they survive.
But the big news is.....I just peeked into their stall where they are napping....and Birch was chewing a cud! Yippee! So I feel much better about the reduced bottles. I do the Fiasco Farm method and give them only 10 oz per feeding. Many people double that. I want them eating solids as soon as possible. Ginger is not giving enough to give them double milk....in fact, I am giving them a lot more than she is producing. So they need to eat grass, leaves, and hay. The leaves are starting to come out here, so soon I will be able to bundle branches for them in their stall. They will really shoot up when that happens.
Meanwhile.....
for wee cuds!
Meanwhile, the kids went outside in their new pasture/pen with Te'a as a babysitter. They have a nice cedar for shade, and I spent some time trimming lower branches, pulling privet that has invaded that space, and I put up some hardware cloth over the crotch of the tree so no baby feet or legs or heads get caught up in that tree. They are fascinated by leaping up and bouncing off the tree trunks in their pasture, and with that one in particular.
They stayed out from 9-3 and then came in with their second bottle. That's right, they get only 3 bottles starting today. Sniffle. Their crying breaks my heart. So I hand fed them some nice, succulent grass and some tiny apple leaves and the boy, Birch, started to figure out how to find his own grass. Mostly he ate dirt, roots, old leaves, last year's dead grass. It is a wonder they survive.
But the big news is.....I just peeked into their stall where they are napping....and Birch was chewing a cud! Yippee! So I feel much better about the reduced bottles. I do the Fiasco Farm method and give them only 10 oz per feeding. Many people double that. I want them eating solids as soon as possible. Ginger is not giving enough to give them double milk....in fact, I am giving them a lot more than she is producing. So they need to eat grass, leaves, and hay. The leaves are starting to come out here, so soon I will be able to bundle branches for them in their stall. They will really shoot up when that happens.
Meanwhile.....
for wee cuds!
Not likely.
