Road trip with the goats!

Friday was TB check day for Lucy and Patches, so we had to take them to the vet, about an hour away. Two of my daughters, A and C, came along, and C's friend KR was there for comedic relief. She's the funniest person I have ever met. She's like my BFF, only on crack. (she's not really on crack. I don't think.)

Eat before we leave, I'm not stopping  because you get hungry in 20 minutes.

Priscilla was pouting that she couldn't go too.

Wait, we have to ride back here? 

The rest of the herd had to see them off.

We had a personal escort truck for part of the way. We felt so special. Until he turned off. 

AGHHHH! Final Destination, episode GOAT GORING! (Really people? You've seen the movie, tie those things down!)

The one part I don't mind about going to a vet so far away, we have a beautiful view!

I love old barns!

Chatham VA. One of those beautiful historic small towns. (Not sure why this pic turned out so squished. C was my trip photographer. In other words, no Mom, I was not taking pics while driving. I promise.)

What can I say? They begged to stop for lunch.

How about some service here? We're starving!

Wait, I see someone coming. Maybe. 

What is taking so long???

Patches wanted to do a selfie.

Lucy had to take the selfie shot too.

This is how you do duck lips, Lucy.

Patches had to try out duck lips too.

My future's so bright, I gotta wear shades. (Music reference for those of us older than dirt.)

You look mah-velous!

Look, I'm a bunny!

Patches decided KR wasn't moving fast enough, so she gave her a little boost. 

They decided to have lunch al fresco. (That's Italian for eating weeds and leaves.)

French fries? Eww, no thanks.

We're stopping again??

Some food for us humans.

Yes, this says Mama Possum's. I'm not sure that bbq is made from pork, but their hotdogs and milkshakes are pretty tasty.

Yes, I know. I'm not mature enough to own livestock. Their tb tests came back good, by the way. Rest of their test results will be in Monday or Tuesday.

If you're ever in Danville VA, go to Mama Possum's. It's yummy, I promise!

Busy day on the farm

What a day yesterday. I mean, WHAT.A.DAY.

The day started off great, I did my morning chores, feeding the chickens, chicks, and baby guinea chicks, giving everyone water. Hung out 3 loads of laundry and then straightened up the yard so it wouldn't look too redneck for the vet. He was coming out to check over the herd and do a few tests. How does all this crud accumulate in the yard? Tools, boards, assorted project pieces, there was stuff everywhere.

The mister (my hubby) had brought home a metal crate thing to use as a hay feeder, so my daughter, C, and I loaded it onto the trailer and took it into the goat pen. As we were getting the goats corralled into the shed, the vet pulled up. Super nice guy. He answered my million stupid questions, showed me how to trim their hooves, and impressed me with his goat wrangling skills (he said he's the goat whisperer).

Lucy and Patches had blood drawn for the various diseases that goats can get: CL, CAE, TB, ADHD, oh wait, that's not one. He also tested for brucellosis. It doesn't get cool initials like the other diseases, I'm sure it feels left out. He also drew blood for a pregnancy test on Priscilla. All the goats looked good, no parasites.

He did give me some advice that I should have already known. If you are getting a goat, have it checked out for CL and CAE before you buy it. If that's not an option, when you pick up the goat, take it directly to the vet and let them draw blood. Once you get them home, keep them in a quaratine pen until you get the results back. The nasty stuff in CL can stay in the ground for 100 years, so you don't want to bring that on your property if you can help it.

It only took him about 30 minutes to do everything, and that included all the advice. I like a doctor that asks questions and listens to the answers, whether it's for animals or humans!

Once all the inside and outside chores were done for the day, I decided to try milking Patches. Dummy me waited until after Brown Sugar had her fill, about 5 pm, so there wasn't much to get. This was still practice anyway, so I wasn't worried about how much I would get from her. I don't want to use the milk until I get her results back from the TB and brucellosis, as those can be passed to humans. The idea was that if I did manage to get an acceptable amount to keep, I could freeze it until the results come back next week. Turned out to be a moot point anyway, as milking was an udder disaster.

Don't roll your eyes at me. You would have said it too.

I started off good. Set my pot on the stove to sterilize, along with a jar to put the milk in. I was still optimistic at this point.

As the water heated in the pot, I mixed up the udder wash recipe I found at Fiasco Farms. Then I heard a soft pop.

Oh no. I knew then what I had done.

 



In my excitement, I had put the jar straight in the pot, without a rack. Like a dummy. I'm a newbie at milking, but I know how to sterilize a jar. Usually.

So I got another jar out, and sterilized it the right way.

Then I grabbed the milking pail, bowl of udder wash, paper cup to dip the teats in afterwards, cloth to wash the udder with. That's more than my two hands can carry. I manage to get it all out there, and then had nowhere clean to set everything while I got Patches up on the stand. My youngest daughter brought the brush to brush her off with. See, in theory, I know what to do. In practice, though, I'm hopeless.

We finally got her up on the stand, and she went ballistic when I washed her udder. She said nope, not gonna do it. After we fought and she kicked, and I swiped, we settled down to milk. I managed to get a few ounces before she started kicking around again. Of course the milk was filthy, and then her foot went straight in the bucket.

Ugh. I'm done for the day. I know what to do next time though. Get some foot hobbles so she can't fight me so bad (thanks to a FB friend for suggesting that!)
Milk her when she's been separated from Brown Sugar for several hours, and make sure she's hungry so she will stand there and happily eat her grain.

The other goats were watching warily while all this was going on.

Molly was hiding and praying I wouldn't get her next.

 

 

Friday we'll take Lucy and Patches to the vet's office to have their TB tests checked. They are both easy going, so HOPEFULLY they will behave for me. The vet is about an hour away, so taking them there is much cheaper than a trip charge just to check their skin. Oh, and by the way, be glad you're not a goat. Humans get a TB test on their arm. Goats get them just under their tail.

 

I'll leave you with that thought.

Sunday funny

My second mama (my MIL) and my nephew came over this afternoon. He always loves checking on the chickens, so we went out to see them and see the new guinea chicks. We have some young Barred Rock chicks that we got from McMurray a few weeks ago, and they always include a surprise chick in the order. I was telling Mamaw that we didn't know yet what breed the bonus chick was. My nephew looked at me real strange and said, "It doesn't have bones???" Bonus, C, bonus. Not boneless.

Speaking of chicks and chickens, we have a weird situation going on. Well, we don't, but my friend does. We had wound up with too many chicks back in the spring, so we sold several of the Hampshire Red chicks to my best friend. They've all grown beautifully, and she and I have been eagerly awaiting eggs from them. Mine have now been laying at least two weeks, but hers have yet to lay a single egg. No idea why. They all eat the exact same brand of food, bought from the same store. Our set ups are almost identical, same amount of sunlight during the day. Maybe my older hens gave mine the talk of What to Expect When You're Laying or something. If anyone has ideas on why chicks born at the same time, and raised together for a while, would be so different, please let me know! She's getting awfully tired of her freeloading hens. Her rooster sounds like he is being strangled when he tries to crow, so apparently she has gotten all the duds from that batch!

They're everywhere, they're everywhere

Our herd has gone from 5 to 11 in a single bound. It's the superherd. These are Nubian-Boer crosses, like Miss Priscilla. We went and picked them up this morning, and thankfully the rain held off until after we got home. Introducing....

Little Girl (still thinking of a name for her that my BFF approves of. Apparently I'm using all the names she likes for baby girls. All I can say is, she better step it up and give me an honorary niece if she's gonna be this picky.) 

 Patches, who is Little Girl's mama. Little Girl will only nurse from one teat, so she's lopsided. She jumped right up on the milkstand and let me milk her a little bit. I think it will take a day or two to get her (and me) used to doing this, but we'll get her leveled out. And did you catch that? I milked her! My first time ever. Only got a few ounces before she decided I was done, but still, I did it!

 This is Sock. It's hard to tell from the picture, but she has one white foot, hence the name. She isn't the smartest one in the bunch, as she has gotten tangled in the electric fence at least 3 times in the 2 hours we've been home with her. She may need a name change, but as dumb as she is, I would surely offend whoever has the same name. Maybe she should just be Sock, Dumb as a Rock. Yeah, that sounds good. She is really sweet though.

 This lovely mama is Mona. Very friendly and gentle. 

Here are the new ones all together. Somehow I didn't get pics of the other two kids, the two on the right in the above pic. There's a young solid white billy, and Mona's son, who is white with a brown head. I would have went back out and gotten pics, but I'm tired, ok? 

This is one of the reasons I need a nap. You can't see, but there are 6 tiny little baby guineas in there. The reason you can't see them? It took 3, count them THREE layers of wire to keep them contained. We knew the chicken wire was too big for them, so we found a wire mesh basket crate thingy to put them in. Well these little boogers can get through that too. So I found some hardware cloth to make a fence around that. So they are in the basket, surrounded by hardware cloth, surrounded by chicken wire. 

And the other reason I need a self induced coma is this (pretty proud of it actually)

My oldest daughter and I worked Friday and made 39 half pints of crabapple jelly. If you've never made jelly, it's a great one to start with, because it's soo easy. 

How to Make Crabapple Jelly in a Few Easy Steps:

What you need:

• A bunch of crabapples
• sugar
• liquid pectin, optional
• A pot to cook the apples in
• cheesecloth or jelly bag for straining
• jars, lids, and rings (sterilized and kept hot). I prefer Ball, since they are made in the U.S. and have always been very good quality jars.
• water bath canner

How to do it: (mostly according to Ball)

1. Check through the crabapples and make there are no worms, blemishes or any other yuckiness.
2. Wash them really good. I filled up the kitchen sink and let them soak. A little vinegar in the water is helpful, but not essential. 
3. Remove stems and blossom ends.
4. Dump the apples in a large pot, adding 1 cup of water for every heaping quart. Make sure your pot is plenty big enough, because the apples will expand as they cook.
5. Bring them to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for a little while. 
6. Mash them up with a large spoon or spatula as they begin to split open.
7. Strain through cheesecloth into another pot or large bowl, to remove all pulp. You only want the juice. 

Now, there are two ways to do it. You can just use sugar, or you can add pectin. I'll give you both ways.

Sugar only method:

1. Combine 4 cups of juice and 4 cups of sugar in a large pot. It will foam up, so use a pot larger than what you think you would need.
2. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly.
3. It needs to come to the gelling point. This will vary depending on how high above sea level you are. I'm at approximately 640 feet, so I bring mine to 220 degrees on a candy thermometer. Use the boiling point and add 8 degrees. If you don't have a thermometer, go here and learn how to do it without one. 
4. Once it gets to that point, take it off the heat and fill your sterilized jars, leaving 1/8" headspace. Wipe rims, screw on lids (not supertight, just fingertip snug.)
5. Process in a boiling water canner for 10 minutes. This should make 8 half pints.

Pectin method: (follow directions on the package, but here's what I did, using liquid pectin)

1. Combine 5 cups of juice with 7 1/2 cups of sugar. 
2. Bring to a good rolling boil. This is when it doesn't stop boiling when you stir it.
3. Add in your pectin.
4. Return to a boil and boil for one minute, stirring.
5. Remove from heat.
6. Skim off foam with a metal spoon. I got a lot more foam with this method than with the sugar method. I didn't try to get every single speck off, but the majority. If you are entering this jelly in a fair, get it all out so it's beautifully clear.
7. See step 4 of sugar method, continue the same way. I got 9 half pints doing it this way.

The sugar method takes longer to set up, or gell, but don't worry, it will! Apples have a lot of natural pectin, but it takes longer to set up when you don't add extra pectin. I did some both ways yesterday, and today they were all gelled.

Enjoy!

Welcome to Canaan Hills!

The hardest part of writing anything is getting started. Once I write the first sentence, I can ramble on for hours. And I HATE writing the first post on a blog. Who are we, what are we doing, and why do you care?

We have just gotten our first herd of goats, so we have no idea what we are doing, and I'm not sure why you care. You'll have to tell me that. I hope to entertain you, let you learn from our mistakes, and maybe even inspire you to step out and try something different.

Some things to expect: 1. I will make frequent references to God and my life as a Christian. Hopefully I can encourage you along the way, maybe help you to see God if you don't already, or at least allow my light to shine. 2. I seem to do a lot of stupid things, like smacking myself in the face with a tree, as I did today (it takes talent, don't be jealous), and I am bound to make lots of mistakes with the goats. Please read several posts to see how I fix my mistakes before trying anything I might report on.

Ok, if you're here, you're probably here for the goats, so let's get to them. We currently have five. One LaMancha, one Nubian/Boer cross, and three Pygmies. I've heard they multiply like rabbits, so who knows how many we'll have next week.

A few weeks ago we decided to try our hand with dairy goats. I had found a Nubian doe in milk that I called to reserve, but I was too late. About ten minutes later, my phone rang. It was a friend from church calling to see if we wanted a free goat. Umm, yeah! The crazy thing is that she had no idea we were wanting goats! Her sister was giving away her pet goat, and my friend thought of me. That goat was Molly, a pygmy. We hadn't planned on having pygmies, but it's hard to turn down free.

She is pretty shy, and has been pouting since the rest of the goats invaded her space. Our hopes are to breed her to a Nigerian dwarf. Not sure yet if I'll try to milk her after she kids, or just let her be a mommy for the first kid.

Molly

Lucy came next. She is our LaMancha, (they are the weird looking ones without visible ears) and boy, what a personality! She is like an ADHD Jack Russell on crack. And that's when she's sleeping. Don't believe me?

See? She can't even sleep like a normal animal. I think she was scratching her head on the fence and dozed off.

She thinks I should share my coffee.

Yes, Lucy, we're talking about you.

Lucy quickly let Molly know who is queen around Canaan Hills Farm.

So after these two got settled in, I went to the Verizon store and brought home two more goats. 

No, really, I did. Why do I get the feeling you don't believe me?

See, what happened was...(don't you hate when people start off like that? Let's start over). 

Last weekend, we had a full day planned. Working on fencing, cooking for a family cookout that evening, and in the midst of all that, I had to go get my replacement phone programmed. I pulled into the parking lot, got out of the car, and I was walking across the parking lot I noticed a large dog carrier in the back of a truck. Seeing movement, I veered that way to see the dog in the back. Dogs are like magnets to me. I like other people's cats, but I love dogs! Sorry, back to the story. As I got closer, I could see horns in the carrier. 

Hmm, that's probably not a dog, I deduced. (I'm smart like that.) 

Just call me Sherlock. For in fact, there was not a dog in the carrier, but two pygmy kids! Two adorable, almost identical siblings. After sniffing out the owner, we exchanged phone numbers and I made a quick run back to the house to get the trailer for my two new babies. Yes, more pygmies. But they were so cute, and very well priced. My husband just shook his head when I brought them home. 

 Gracie

George

I mean, seriously, could you say no to them? George is a wether (a castrated male) and Gracie is a doeling, both 8 months old. We'll also breed Gracie to a Nigerian Dwarf. 

We interrupt this post for a PSA from Captain Obvious: If you are cross breeding goats, or any other animal, make sure the male is not a larger breed than the female. Don't make her try to deliver a kid that will be too big for her to safely birth. Now back to your regular programming...

Ok, so that's four. We had gone from one goat to four in a week's time. We had planned to give these time to settle in (ok, to give me time to settle into a routine with them), but then the hubby went back to Craigslist.

Next thing I know, we are on our way to get two Nubians.(the so adorable floppy ears ones) Yes, we have a problem, but we admit it. First step, right? But when we get there, one of the two has a lame foot. Foot rot, the farmer said, which comes from too soggy ground. That would have been helpful to know when we were discussing the goats on the phone. Grrrr. We were disappointed that he wasn't upfront about it, but we were nice about it and politely declined that doe. Obviously. Other than the fact that we are newbies to this and wouldn't want to start off with a goat we needed to doctor and possibly make it worse, we didn't want to pay out money for a goat that may or may not have a temporary problem. 

Priscilla, the Nubian/Boer cross

Priscilla is three years old, and due to kid in January. This will be her second time bred, she had just one kid the first time.

And that's our herd. For now. 

We also have around 50 chickens, a couple of beehives and a tiny little spoiled Feist named Rosie. We have some human kids too! Only one of the four human kids is still at home, but the others are in and out helping with the farm. More about them later!