Frustratedearthmother's Journaling Journey

[frustratedearthmother]

Holy Cow! That must've been exciting, lol. At least you had power!

 

[NH Homesteader]

Lol she was 3 1/2 weeks early so it was kind of surprising!

How are your bottle babies? Still bottle babies?

 

[baymule]

Your daughter ought to be glad that you didn't name her Sandy.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Oh my goodness....I guess that was a surprise.

Bottle babies:

One buckling is pretty much 100% bottle baby.
One buckling is about 75% bottle baby.
The doeling is 50/50.

Doeling and one buckling will nurse on their own. But, mom doesn't have enough milk for them both. If I separated mom and doeling I could probably not bottle feed baby girl any more.

Unfortunately, the 100% bb buckling is limping on a back leg. No heat, no swelling, no breaks, no tenderness when I bend, squeeze, poke, prod and pull...nothing wrong that I can find. But, he limps. Grrrr! Gonna watch him for a few more days and see how it goes.

I have 18 tomato plants going strong. Put some eggplant seeds in a tub - waiting for 'em to show themselves. Put a couple zucchini seeds in another tub - waiting on them too. I want to get some yard-long beans planted asap. I'm gonna try putting them in the ground and see if they will grow. Might just move them to a totally different area that's never had anything planted there and see if they'll make it.

I'm thinking I'm going to spread some things out this year. I'm a squash lover, and winter types are my fave so I think I'll put some in a good sized pen behind the big barn where I had some last year. They did really well there so I might as well try it again. Only problem will be if I end up needing that pen.

Need to seriously think about goats that are staying and goats that are going. Somebody please tell me I don't need six bucks!

I've been saying that I need to sell Dusty - the reg. Nubian because I'm mostly going to kinders and mini-nubs. But - he is seriously putting some great udders on his daughters. Every daughter of his that has kidded has an udder that is soooo much better than their dams. (course their dams udders are rather crappy!) I may keep him for one more season, lol.

 

[NH Homesteader]

Lol everyone kept saying we should name her Sandy. We were like... Uhh..... NO!

Ok so you need to sell Dusty and all the older, crappy-uddered Nubians. How many will that get rid of?

How many goats do you have anyway? Is that like asking a woman her age? Bahaha

 

[frustratedearthmother]

With all the babies I'm pretty sure I'm over 40, but hopefully under 45ish...still have about 3 more does to kid....yikes! One of 'em is just barely starting an udder...she's likely not due until late May-ish. Hope she'll make a liar out of me, lol.

 

[baymule]

40 to 45ish?

 

[hqueen13]

Again, all I have to say is that you claim I'm busy! LOL
Glad everybody is doing well. How's the goatie girl that had the broken leg?? Everything still fine with her?
I don't know how you keep that many goats straight. I'm sure they'd all be loose running everywhere if they were mine!

 

[NH Homesteader]

Yeah that's a LOT of goats! I have no idea how you keep their hooves trimmed and keep up with that many. My limit is 8 permanent residents and their kids. But.... We'll see about that! Lol

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Thankfully, most of the year they're running the pasture and taking care of themselves. It's for these few months when babies are here that things get hectic. I'll be doing anti-coccidia treatments on the babies this weekend. Most of my goats have really good hooves and when the ground is dry, like it amazingly is right now, their hooves aren't an issue. I do have a couple who do need constant, consistent attention, but not too many of them.

The bottle babies are growing! I'm slowly increasing the amount they get and am just about ready to cut them down to three bottles a day instead of four. That'll mean I won't have to go home at lunch. I know some folks who never give 4 bottles a day - but I think it helps when they're little. However, that does create a bit of a dilemma. The routine for the last couple weeks has been that when I go home at lunch I give the mama does an extra little snack and then kick them out to the pasture until I get home from work. They get 4 or 5 hours to browse and be away from their babies. Then I bring them back in one at a time and milk them. I'm using that milk to feed the bottle babies (and in my coffee!). But, if I don't go home at lunch the does won't be separated from their babies and won't build up milk for me to steal. I know the solution is to separate mamas and babies at night and milk in the morning - but who has time to milk 5 does before work??? Not me... (Well, technically I could - but I'd rather sleep!)

Saw a zucchini plant had popped up yesterday. Not so sure about the eggplant though...this cool snap mighta zapped the one that had sprouted. We were at 44 this morning...brrrrr!

@hqueen13 - the little gal wore a cast forever. She was a very slow healer because she would never slow down, lol. Even in a 6 x 6 pen she was way too active - literally bouncing off the walls. Vet told me to keep her confined, but I found that she did better if she could go out so I ended up putting her in a bigger stall that has a run attached. She'd run and jump a bit in the mornings, but then she'd spend the day just lazing around instead of running circles in her stall.

I was a bit concerned when I took the cast off because she wasn't walking perfectly on it - but I think that had more to do with wearing the cast for so long and she had a little atrophy in her leg muscles. I gave her a real close look yesterday and noticed that she's moving almost totally normal now. So, I pronounce her cured!

Plan is to get some pictures this weekend and start listing some of the goats for sale. Decisions, decisions!