Goat Kids Moved

How fun it was at first to have the little goat kids in my basement.  The fun quickly subsided!  After tons of bedding changes and feedings, and a little warmer weather for a few days, we decided it was time for them to go out to the barn -with a heat lamp of course. Sunday was the big day!  After I had my 4 hours of sleep after getting off work that morning my husband decided it was a good day to do it before I went back to work that evening.  After we gave all 8 of them their CD&T injections, which they didn't like at all, two of the boys got their bandings done.  They hated that tremendously!  I don't blame them at all! This was the second round of CD&T for the first two kids and the first round for the other 6.  They will need another round in 21 days, then yearly like the rest of them.  We still need to give the 3 we first purchased their yearly injection but that will wait until it's a little nicer outside. The little boy that is 100% boer will remain intact as a billy for us later.  He really is amazing looking!

In the barn we set up a pen, lined it with hay, put up a heat lamp and put in a grain feeder form them.  They are all now eating hay and grain pretty well.  We still feed 3 times per day but that will soon go down to 2 and then 1 and so on til weaned hopefully by 8 weeks.  We are going through a 25# bag of milk every week or so right now.  Our total investment on 8 bottle goats until weaning will be about $60-$70 each.  Not bad, really.  Last year the 3 boer goats we purchased for $90 each and they were all weaned. 

They had a good 3 days of mild temps to get used to outside until the next big freeze hit.  Yesterday was cold and last night got down below zero, but this morning they were doing well.  In the barn and out of the wind it is pretty mild.  We may add another heat lamp for tonight just to be safe.  I had visions last night of finding frozen stiff kids this morning!! Tonight will be very cold again, but if we can get them through today and tomorrow then Saturday through next week will be in the mid to upper 30's during the day, so the forecast says so far.  

We are still on the lookout for more goats!  If we are able to find some for the right investment whether they are kids or nannies it will be worth it.  I do think, though that we have all the crosses I want right now and will be looking for higher percentage boer goats for now until the crosses have their first kids and I can see how they turn out.

"Jumpy" as we call her was jumping the pen in the basement at feeding time to come upstairs and investigate the bottle making! Our dog thinks she is the goat wrangler!!

 

As always, have a great day!

Deep Well Pump Problems

We have learned so many lessons these past few years and gained a wealth of knowledge, but as we were reminded of this week --we have sooooo much to learn!

On Monday morning I went out to do morning chores and when I turned on the well pump NOTHING happened!!  Called my hubby who said the handle must be frozen due to our amazing Iowa winter that has seemed to go on forever.  He would take care of it when he got home --NOT!

After 4 days of carrying 5 gallon buckets of water (my poor husband's back was at the brink of breaking!) from the house to the cows, goats, etc I finally called a repairman.  Keep in mind that we have never had our well pipe freeze and it has been lots colder here than it is now.  I was sure it was the pump gone bad or something horribly expensive to fix.  The repair man was here Thursday for 5 minutes in the pit and knew it was frozen.  Apparently the southeastern winds freeze them faster than anything.  We informed him that we haven't ever had this problem.  He replied "I've heard that a thousand times this last week". 

He also informed us that we should have a pressure tank in the pit so that when the pump does it's job and pumps tons of water that the spicket cannot possibly pour out fast enough it doesn't burn up the pump eventually!  Had no idea that this could happen to a pump that he says should go forever!  That would have been a cool $1500 fix!  Yikes!  While we had him here we decided the $350 investment for such a pressure tank was a good investment and had him install it as well as put in an outlet for a heat lamp.  Took about an hour and voila running water again!  Yay!!

This morning the darn thing was frozen again due to the heat lamp he put on it was shattered, so again we thawed the pipes which was a 30 minute fix and replaced the heat lamp bulb.  Hopefully the new tarp, hay and wood we put over it all will fix the heat lamp problem and we are good to go for the remainder of winter --which I hope is not much longer!!

This summer will be a revamp of the whole coverage we have on it to hopefully prevent all this in future years!

HAVE A GREAT DAY AND STAY WARM!!

Weak Goat Kid

So, we had a goat kid that couldn't stand when we got her and the farmer who sold the batch of 7( in my last post) to us didn't know why.  She came free with the others if we were willing to take her.  So, of course we did with hopes of nursing her back to health.

For days she drank just like the rest and toileted the same.  You couldn't even tell anything was wrong until she tried to stand.  Her legs seemed weak was all.  After a phone call to the vet, I was doing physical therapy on her legs with each feeding.  This was done in a rigged-up sling I made from pieces of fabric I had laying around slipped over a big tub.  For a couple of days she seemed to be improving, she definately wanted to stand but just could not get her legs to hold her.  A few days after getting her here I got a Bo-Se injection for her in case it was just weakness.  This injection that I was convinced would be a fortune after reading an internet article cost me only 10 cents for a dose!!!  Proof that you can't believe everything you read online!! :)

From what I had read on internet it could be anything from weakness to spinal injury during birth.  I gave her the shot and it did seem to help.  I did a prick test just above her hooves and she definately had feeling in all four of them. The next couple of days she was improving a little again.  This whole time she was eating well and acted just as energetic as the others. 

Last weekend she was very weak it seemed so we still did therapy but not quite as much.  She was still drinking fine and trying to get up.  It was all to no avail, though, as she passed away on Saturday.  The kids were so disappointed.  I had made them hold off on naming her until we knew if she made it or not. 

After talking to our vet, there was probably nothing else we could have done.  Most likely she had gotten stepped on or had an extemely hard birth.  Still, I would like to know what happened and what eventually killed her.

RIP little goat!

New Baby Goat Kids


On Sunday, my husband found 2 nannies and twin bottle goats for sale about 2 hrs away from us.  Within an hour he was on the road with the kids to go pick them up (I had to be at work shortly so I missed out on this roadtrip).  He came home with all 4 looking very healthy and purchased for a decent price even with gas to get there and back.  Each of my 2 youngest children will show one at the county fair this year!  They are so excited!!  They also gave us a recipe for

 homemade "kid" milk. 
1 gallon whole milk
1 cup cultured buttermilk

1 can (12oz) evaporated milk

Dump out enough of the gallon to fit the other ingredients.  Shake up and serve warm.  Using a funnel works really well.

This recipe was working very well.  They seemed to love it!  Not sure of the breakdown whether it ends up being more or less expensive than powdered goat formula which around here sells for $56/25 lb bag. 

We have never had bottle goats before.  What a learning experience and how cute they are!  I have never seen such young goats.  They are so tiny and adorable!  We are keeping them in the basement for now.  I was told that is about the only place warm enough.  We have in the past had bottle lambs in the basement.  It seems as though everyone I talk to that has raised either has at one point had the critters in the basement! 

Yesterday as I was talking with the local feed store to find out if they had the kind of bottle nipple I wanted and she asked if I wanted any more goats.  Well of course I did!  There was a farmer in their store at that very moment who had 7 bottle goats he wanted to get rid of!  YES -7!!  The funny part is that he only lives 2 miles from us.  Needless to say, now I have 9 baby goats in my basement!!  Seems kinda crazy to me.  So I have spent the last 24 hrs feeding goats and then doing it again a few hours later :) 

It takes about 3/4 gallon of milk each time we feed, so I have passed on the idea of buying all those gallons of milk and have a bag of goat formula on order at the feed store.  I will pick it up this afternoon as well as some bedding for all of them.  It will be a lot easier to figure how much to make and not have to make sure I have the ingredients on hand and lots of them!

I have learned a lot the past couple of days about goat kids and their behavior -including but not limited to "bathroom behavior".  Boy, do they go a lot!!  I did run across an excellent website:  www.goatwisdom.com .  They have tons of info about everything "goats" you could want to know.

As always, have a great day!

Long Winter Already

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas holiday with family and friends.  As always at this house the kids got too many presents and I ate too much!  I even bought myself something for after Christmas that I won't talk about now due to still feeling guilty about it! 

It has been a long winter already!!  The snow has been here for 2 weeks but it seems like ages.  I am so ready for spring to come.  All the seed catalogs have started to arrive, but I have decided not to look yet.  It only makes my spring fever that much worse.  The kids went back to school today and the hubby back to work yesterday which means that now I have to do all the morning chores by myself again.  This sounds unpleasant to say, but even more unpleasant to do.  This morning it was a whoppin' 24 degrees when I was out there. At that temp at least I didn't have to get the whole winter garb on to be out there less than an hour.

We did learn a valuable lessons with the snowstorm that came a few days before Christmas:  snow/ice covered electric fences do not work! I hadn't even given a thought to the fact they would get covered.  So, our wonderful electric fence I raved on is, until the ice melts, turned off.  The cows are stuck in the barn lot, which I think they don't like much.  I cannot imagine they would love being cooped up like that, but my husband says everyone's are in the lots right now.  Another tidbit of info: we are still last on the road plowing list!  I am thinking that list should change up each year for fairness?

It is about time to separate the calves from the cows and bump up their grain.  They never love this time of year.  Still not sure if all the cows are bred as I am hoping but won't know for some time.  (Wish I had my own trans-abdominal ultrasound.)  

With all the holidays past now I can get back to this blog like I should be and my new endeavor I am working on getting started.  I love to start new endeavors and get so excited!  My husband thinks it is part of my "illness" to be busy all the time!!!

HOPE EVERYONE HAS AN AMAZING 2013!!!