Wayyy too busy...

And not even on goats. Work has been pretty much insane as of late, and while I certainly need the work, it has dominated every part of our lives. I am taking a moment today to play a bit of catch up, although I am sure I won't get very far.

We had been waiting on one last yearling doe to kid out to complete May (which ran into June kidding in the top field. After seeing what a great job all these young does did with their kids, I would probably have been safe to have bred them to kid out in potentially freezing weather, but I wasn't sure, and only hindsight is 20/20. We had some new goat friends visit to look at our goats and see more about the Kiko breed, and Aggie had been walking around "hollering" all morning, so we were expecting her to start labor relatively soon. Chuck took the visitors down over the hill to see some of the older does and some of the unbred yearlings that we had deemed not quite big enough to breed for this kidding. Not long after, Aggie's water broke and she began her labor in earnest. I texted Chuck so he would know she was beginning to kid. Aggie was one of the bottle babies we have bought, and we didn't know if this would make a difference in her maternal instincts or not. She and her sisters did get a few weeks with their mother before she died, though, and that seems to have been long enough. PJ had already kidded out and was taking good care of her twins. Not to be outdone by her sister, Aggie was cleaning the first kid before the second was even out. The first kid was a flashy little thing, looking a lot like granddaddy Iron Horse. There was a delicacy around the muzzle, though, that made us hopeful that maybe we had our second doe kid of the group. Chuck didn't want to be too intrusive, but tried to look and see, and Aggie was totally unbothered by his presence. As of matter of fact, she wasn't the least bit worried about any of us. She accepted visitors watching the event without the bat of an eye, and she really rose to the occassion. She showed them a textbook Kiko kidding. She got the kids out, cleaned, and the first was up trying to shakily butt her udder for that first important drink of colostrum in less than ten minutes. When she had the second kid, brown like she is, we again were thinking that this kid really looked feminine. After Aggie and her kids had some time together and everyone had been up to nurse, Chuck investigated more closely and confirmed we had two new doelings. Finally. So out of the ten kids born to six does, we had seven bucks and three doelings.

The older kids were quite interested in the new arrivals, much to Aggie's annoyance. A few of the new girls' cousins got "flattened" by aunt Aggie. The following pictures show 34's brown and white buck kid by Ace visiting the girls. We also see that PJ's black and white buck and doe pair came to visit their cousins. Aggie and PJ are twins sisters by Iron Horse and were in the last set of kids out of Purdy, so they are heavily Tasman Zorro. PJ's kids are Boomer's, and Aggie's belong to Ace. We'll see how the two sets develop over the next few months.

My Kingdom for a Doeling

I had written that the first two of the young doelings had kidded out last week, presenting us with two tiny black bucklings, and a pair of rather "loud" bucklings. This past Wednesday, two more of the young does began to go into labor when Chuck arrived at the farm. Part of me wishes he would have the same effect on me (as the end of my pregnancy draws near, I find myself very ready to "take a load off").

The first of the doelings to kid was Ginger, a PB doe by Boomer and out of 34, who kidded last week. She seemed to struggle somewhat, and Chuck trying to get a better look at what was going on didn't exactly set her mind at ease. Eventually, she produced yet another black buck kid with a white star on his head. This one was Ace's kid, but Boomer's color passed through to his grandson in this case. Ginger is not a huge doeling, and this was a good sized kid, so I'm sure she is glad to have gotten the whole thing over with. I don't have weights in front of me, but if I remember correctly, this joker was over 8 lbs, when the rest of the bunch in this group have been much smaller and more suited to their first time mommas.

After Ginger had gotten through her ordeal, Piper went into labor. Piper is Ace's full sister, so we bred her to Boomer and I was hoping to get a couple of doe kids that combine the best of both lines since she is a big bodied doe for her age. Instead, she gave us a single buck kid. Another buck - that's SIX bucks out of four does. I was beginning to wonder if there was something in the water.

Today, when Chuck arrived at the farm, he sent me a text saying he thought PJ was ready to give birth. Shortly after, I received pictures that showed she had actually already given birth - and we had the first doeling of this bunch. Of course she had to throw a buck in there, too. When we look at these kids, though, we can't help but laugh. For everyone who says they won't eat goat - hey, we're producing Holsteins now, to keep everyone happy! You know, with horses, you have a reasonable idea what color foal you may get when you breed a stallion and a mare of certain colors. Not so with goats. It has certainly been an eye opening experience this year, what assortment we seem to be getting. And so far there is no predictability from one year to the next. I remember reading something about the complexity of the genetics associated with color and patterns in goats. We sure have a bizarre palette this year. That's good with all the bucklings, though, because chances are the ones that don't make the cut as future herdsires may well make nice fun family wethers.

AI Workshop - Western NC

If anyone is in the Western NC area - a friend of ours has been working towards getting an AI workshop arranged for sometime in the early fall. For details and to express interest, email 4footfarm@gmail.com.

Maternity Ward

Chuck felt like he was in the maternity ward today, with two of the young bred does going into labor and a third looking iffy. The surprise of the day was what Kitty produced. She is a Sports Kat daughter, so I bred her to Boomer to concentrate the Sports Kat genetics. She is one of the youngest bred does, only 14 months old and still growing. She was not very round, so we assumed she was carrying a single. Instead, she presented us with two very tiny black bucklings. The smaller was under 4 lbs and the larger just over, and when I went back and looked at her papers, she was a single and was less than 5 lbs herself at birth. I just can't imagine anything so tiny can possibly thrive, but we have gotten used to some very substantial kids, although to much older and larger mothers. These two tiny packages were up nursing quickly. Now I am probably the only person in the Southeast who can breed does to kid in mid-May (so they don't have to deal with the cold weather my older does have to kid in), that can manage to have those young does pick the very day in May that is below average in temperature and where the night is supposed to be way below average. I have talent that way. Since Kitty, being the smallest of the bunch, often gets shoved out of the sheds, Chuck set up a large dog crate with some straw in the field for the kids and hopefully Kitty doesn't move them out of it. Boy, these guys are tiny.

The next event of the day was 34's labor and delivery. She was such a good first time mother last year, I only had her in with this batch of does because she needed a little less aggressive group of does to be in with than my older mommas. She had a very nice buck and doe by Boomer last year, and I bred her to Ace this year to see what he would produce. I know what she gave me bred to Boomer, so I have something for comparison. Here again we ended up with two bucks. I told Chuck to shove them back in and see if next time they would come out as does, but he didn't seem interested in trying that. I drove up after work to see all the new arrivals, and really enjoyed watching 34 with her kids. She is so attentive, and so available to them. She just seems to do everything per the textbook. Chuck took a sequence of pictures of her laboring, delivering, and attending her kids, and I will have to blog it when I have time to get all the pictures in order. In true Kiko fashion, the kids were up nursing in ten minutes. She delivered, cleaned, and fed like an assembly line. These are Ace's first kids to hit the ground. We'll know more in a few days what they really look like. Right now all we can tell is they are pretty loud in the color department, and that Ace's airplane ears breed true. We hope his growth rate and parasite resistance follows suit.

Happy Mother's Day!

During kidding season, there are lots and lots of reminders of how important mothers of all species are to the survival of the next generation. Our momma goats have their kids, get them up, get them fed, and then protect and feed them for months. Like human moms, their mothering styles vary from the moms who allow their kids more freedom from the first few days and just check in on them periodically to the super protective moms who keep their kids close at all times and would keep them in a tightly knit family group forever if they could. I've said before I like the protective momma goats, and I still feel that way. We decided to wean Fifty's buck kids one of the Animal Welfare Approved ways - we made a pen inside the pasture and put them in it. They cannot nurse Fifty or try to breed the adult does or doelings, but they did not face the stress of a total separation. They are well weaned now, but we notice that Fifty often still checks on them and spends time with them, and can even be found sleeping next to their pen.

I remember last year when we brought little 34's kids out to tattoo them (which we tend to do late). Even though her kids were old enough to wean and paying little attention to her anymore, she stood at the fence, watching us with them intensely, never taking her eyes off them. This year her yearling daughter Ginger got her head stuck in the fence and when all of the goats came running to the other side of the field as we drove up, 34 took a few strides towards us, then turned and ran back to be by her daughter's side, where she remained until we came to get Ginger unstuck. Both are bred this year, soon to kid out. I will be interested to see if 34 is in any way invloved when Ginger kids. Ginger was a year old in March, so she is on the young side for does we breed. She is obviously bred, but if she only singles that will be fine with me as she is so young. 34 is the only doe in this field who has kidded before, and she is very wide so we are of course hoping for twins or triplets, although I have read that if a young first timer twins the first time she often singles the next.

The efforts we have poured into the top pasture as an area for them to kid has paid off - the grasses and legumes are thigh high (although for someone 5'2" that is not so much of a stretch). I know they are not as nutritious at this more mature stage, but I'm thinking about those baby mommas having suppressed immune systems during lactation over the summer, and the parasites will have some pretty steep greenery to climb! We are trying a modified mob grazing scheme within electronet that gets moved when the stubble is about 6". So far the old areas are having good bounce back, and the does are getting a lot of forage going into kidding and early lactation. I don't know if we will be able to move them around like this once they start kidding, but so far, so good. I am still hoping to improve the soils in the pastures at the same time we raise good goats. At the beginning of this post is a snapshot at dusk of some of the expectant young does. The picture quality is horrible, but you can see the difference between the area they are on (we moved them right after taking the picture) and the rest of the pasture in the background.

We are still weaning bucklings, and I am going to keep working the pen within a pasture method to see how it goes. I want to get them back on the old farm for a while because it is getting overgrown, but I also realize weaning is a stressful time, and since they will be on tougher terrain with less attention down on the other farm, I want them to arrive there as healthy and well-weaned as possible without it taking the whole summer. I've got some pretty nice bucklings, and the move should show us who can really get around and forage, and still gain well with the increased activity. In an effort to utilize even the unfenced areas on the farm, we've taken the group of does we bought and quarantined last fall and have been sliding a pen down the outside of the fence line. Outside the fence is overgrown with lovely things like poison ivy and blackberry bushes, and in just a day or two they clean it down so it is quite walkable. It also is helpful for us, until we get that bushhog we've been wanting so badly. Seems like every time we get the money for it, some little complication pops up, like a blown tire on the car, or something else annoying and much more mundane than a shiny new bushhog. You can see the difference between the area they are in and the unmowed "weeds" behind them. That only took them a few days. The doelings in this group are sold, and the bucklings are going to be separated within a few days. The brown buckling against the fence was born the same day as the black twins behind the black doe, so we wonder if he somehow received a dose of radiation or some baseball player's steroids by accident. He is nearly the size of his mother, who is not a small doe.

Last but not least I have to comment on old Baby Longstem. Thankfully, we had another doe kid within a short time after he was born and she had a single doe kid, so Longstem has a partner in crime. I really think kids do better when they have other kids to run and play with. The two of them sprint across the pasture and leap and cavort, and the day one clever goat undid the gate and some of the unbred yearling does got in with the older does, Chuck found Longstem butting heads with one of them and holding his own, so he is getting pretty solid. I don't like bucks to be overly friendly, but Longstem seems to remember the kindness afforded him by a human at birth, and he puts up with the human kids. When he is weaned he will go to the other farm to grow out or hopefully go to a new family. We had a visitor that liked the looks of him, so we'll see how it goes. I just can't help but smile when I see him run and play. It just amazes me what a nearly frozen tiny goat can overcome, if he wants badly enough to live.

Latest picture of Baby Longstem

I just had to post this. Annalee and Chip found a couple packs of crayons left over from Halloween, and since the pack included orange, black, and green only, the subject matter that can be created from them with any degree of accuracy is limited. I thought this was a particularly good use of the color scheme... Annalee's latest portrait of Louisianna and Baby Longstem...

Below is an actual recent picture of Longstem. He is behind a kid born in late winter. He has a lot of catching up to do. But he runs, he leaps, and he plays. He has all that baby goat joie de vivre that makes them so entertaining and makes spring such a special time on the farm.

We knew this weather was trouble.

We were a day off. Instead of kidding during the middle of the sleet, Louisianna kidded the next night when the temperature dropped below freezing, but not so low as to freeze all the miserably cold standing water on the ground. Chuck had planned to run up and check on her anyway, and when he got there and found her wandering around, obviously having kidded, he feared the worst for her kids. Not only is Louisinanna a first time mother, she was also a bottle baby (a quad) herself. She has a bond with humans, and we wondered how much this would affect her mothering skills (she is a heavy doe with a lot of capacity and very meaty, but isn't one of the brightest lamps on the post). Chuck found afterbirth in one of the sheds, but could not immediately find the kids. He found one poor soul frozen in water behind the shed (not sure how he got there) and then what he thought was a piece of black roofing paper turned out to be her second kid, also a buck, and smaller than the first, in front of the shed. Chuck picked him up, thinking he, too, was lost, and nearly fainted when the small, cold, sodden package let out a faint bleat.

I was home asleep through all this with our human kids (I am six months pregnant now, and I give out pretty easily) but a phone call woke me up. As Chuck relayed all the details, I couldn't offer much but to get him warm and get colostrum in him if he could. Chuck had put the little buck on the dashboard and was using the defroster to blow warm air over him like a blow dryer. I can't tell you how nice it will be when we finally get power to the farm. He milked some colostrum out of an exhausted Louisianna, and was not sure she was going to be okay herself. After reading so many studies about how premature humans develop faster when they get skin to skin contact, or "kangaroo care" as they call it, I suggested Chuck put the little buck against his stomach so he could be against warm skin and hear a heartbeat like he must have been hearing before birth. We spoke on and off during the night, and when the time came he had to come home so I could get ready and make it to work, we opted to bring the kid home because the wet cold weather was still so beastly. Chuck had managed to get a little bit of colostrum in him, and we always keep a can of condensed goat milk in the pantry although we rarely need it.

The little buck was tiny. The one who died was the larger of the two, but it was obvious from the beginning that this guy wanted to live. Chuck made him a warm bottle and he actually was able to drink a little, and was perking up, but was still totally unable to stand. We'll never know what all happened as she was kidding, and whether he could not stand to nurse ever or whether the ordeal of the night had just left him too weak to stand. Annalee came in to see him, and we explained that this little guy was in very bad shape and might not make it. She looked him over and exclaimed, "look! I can see his stem" as his umbilical cord was still long and was trailed out beside him across the bottom of this cardboard box. Chip met him later, and since Annalee was on spring break, she went with Daddy to take "baby Longstem," as she began to call him, back to the farm to see if Lousianna could nurse him.

When they arrived at the farm, Louisianna was still wandering the field, acting like she was looking for the kids. Chuck brought her out of the field so she wouldn't have so much help from the mob of other does and older kids looking for handouts. He held the buck up so he could try to nurse. I can't recall if he could at this point, when held, or if Chuck had to milk her again, but she turned to the kid and began to do all the things a doe should do with a newborn. She licked him all over as if he wasn't already dry, and talked to him. Chuck made a small pen around one shed and put the kid in there with her to see if the two of them could work things out. At some point later in the day, he found that the little buck had managed to stand, and was working his way back to her udder and making shaky little jabs at it. He managed to nurse a bit on his own.

We could have chosen to bottle raise this kid, but not only do we have pretty much no extra time at our house with human kids' needs, but we figured the best chance both of them had to become "normal goats" was to try to make it on their own. Louisianna is still trying to figure it how to be a decent mother (she wants to nuzzle the kid whenever he nurses, which, while a nice thought, effectively swings her butt, and hence udder, away from him because she is long and he is tiny - the look of exasperation on his face when she does this is the stuff of cartoons). Baby Longstem still has a long way to go, and he is dealing with the effects of his inauspicious birth, but he still wants very much to live. The cold wet weather has finally given us a brief reprieve. I hope the warm sun will be healing and supportive to them, and that he got enough colostrum in him to give him what he needs to make it the first few months of his life. Only time will tell. I hate the other larger buck didn't make it, but Baby Longstem has so much to overcome having all his mother's milk may be what he needs to play catch up. Luckily we have another doe who should kid out soon, and she is a seasoned mother, so hopefully this kid will have some others his age to grow up with. And hopefully next year Louisianna will be better prepared for kidding. She seemed to have quite a bit of pain that first night, but has shown no signs of infection, thank goodness. Just another reminder that Kikos, while tough, are still living creatures. Our does spoil us, really. They have their kids, clean them, and get them up feeding as if birth itself wasn't a miracle and the most dangerous time of their lives. We tend to take that for granted.

I would be surprised if Baby Longstem is the buck he could have been, at least not for a very long time. He has the genetic potential to be a very nice buck, but who knows if he can overcome this rough start. At this point he is the apple of Annalee's eye as tiny as he is. She knows he still has a long row to hoe, but she is smitten. We're just taking this as another opportunity to learn and do it better next time, and also as a reminder of just how strong the absolute will to live can be.