The New Pasture

Well, we finally got our second “pasture” – more of a paddock, really – fenced in this past Sunday. When I say we, I mean that my husband and father did most of the heavy lifting and I got to spin all the little metal clips that hold the woven wire fencing to the t-posts. Hehe. But I am very grateful to them!

Daisy, a Nubian/Kiko cross yearling doe, nibbles down some tall weeds.

Right now they’re only going out in it as a group for a few hours a day, to mow down the tall grass that is in there. I didn’t want to put them in there full-time because, well… their current pasture is a little sparse, so to go from light grazing with supplemental hay, to rich, green tall grass might’ve upset their systems a bit. Once it is grazed down more, I’ll be putting our yearling buck, Bam-Bam, and his little half-brother Twinkie out there. Of course, once Twinkie goes to freezer camp, I’ll have to figure out something so that Bam-Bam is not alone, but at least this should prevent us from pasture breeding and ending up with January babies again.

Sarah (l), a Kiko/Boer doe kid; Red (background), a grade Boer doe; and Bam-Bam (foreground), a Kiko/Boer yearling buck, out grazing in the pasture. And I think those are Pirate's legs that you can see under Bam-Bam. Hehe.

What about you? What new projects are going on around your farm or homestead?

I think Spice approves.

 

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Down the road…

The time has come for our foundation herd sire, Larry, to go down the road. He has sired all of our kids from the 2009-2011 kidding seasons, and with some transitions in the ownership of the herd, we’re also looking to re-evaluate our direction and our bloodline. As much as we love what he has produced, and hate to see him go, it would be nice to outcross his daughters to a new buck rather than continue to breed them back to their father.

Spice, our livestock guarding dog, with Larry

For those of you who don’t know, Larry is a grade Kiko buck. He is four and a half years old. Here is his kidding record:

2009 Kidding Season – exposed to four adult does, producing:
Twin bucks out of a grade Nubian doe
Twin does out of a grade Boer doe
Twins, a buck and a doe, out of a grade Boer doe
A single doe kid out of a Spanish/Boer doe

Larry in 2010

2010 Kidding Season – exposed to five adult does, and three yearling does, producing:
Twins, a buck and a doe, out of a grade Nubian doe
Twin bucks out of a grade Nubian doe
Twins, a buck and a doe, out of a grade Boer doe
Twin does out of a grade Boer doe
Twins, a buck and a doe, out of a Spanish/Boer doe
A single buck kid out of a yearling Kiko/Spanish/Boer doe
A single doe kid out of a yearling Kiko/Boer doe
A single buck kid out of a yearling Kiko/Boer doe

Larry, in summer 2010 with Kiko/Boer kid Bam-Bam behind him

2011 Kidding Season – exposed to five adult does, and three yearling does, producing:
Twins, a buck and a doe, out of a grade Nubian doe
Twins, a buck and a doe, out of a Spanish/Boer doe
Twin does out of a grade Boer doe
Twin bucks out of a Spanish/Boer/Kiko doe
Twins, a buck and a doe, out of a Kiko/Boer doe (purchased from us exposed to him)
Three yearling does (two Kiko/Boer and one Kiko/Nubian) were also exposed to him and have not yet kidded

If you have reviewed any of our other posts regarding this year’s goat kids, you will see plenty of his offspring. I’m going to try to use the WordPress gallery setting to upload some pictures of his offspring from prior years… we’ll see if it works.

Edited to add: Okay, it’s putting them up as small thumbnails, is including the pictures of Larry within the gallery, and isn’t showing the captions under the pictures… and I don’t know how to fix that. But if you click on the thumbnails, the pictures will come up for larger viewing.

We are asking $250 for Larry, and would like to get him moved off the farm as soon as possible. Having two to three feet of snow on the ground (depending on where you look) is making space seem especially tight right now.    He is located about forty-five minutes north of Syracuse, NY. Please e-mail me at aiketgate88 (at) aol (dot) com if you would like to inquire about purchasing Larry.

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Playtime on the Farm

Yesterday the weather was mild enough to shut the horses out of their run-in and allow all the kids and their mothers out together. Of course, there was much jostling amongst the adults to determine who was going to be in charge, but the kids seemed to think it was rather fun once they got past the initial shock.

Twinkie and Oreo hanging out. (Yes, Oreo noticed that I had the camera out.. he really doesn’t seem to like the flashing light.)

Sarah says, “Whatcha doin’? Got any treats?”

Moses, on the other hand, just mosied around, strutting his stuff. He even went “head-to-head” with our momma Nubian doe, DJ, which was rather humorous to watch. Gutsy little guy! Unfortunately, none of the shots I took of that came out – my camera just can’t handle motion in that lighting.

Moses says, “Yeah. Yeah, I know. I’m hot stuff.”

Then, I brought in… a monster. Or so you would have thought, from the kids’ reactions:

Sarah: “What… is it?”
Annabelle: “I don’t know.”

“Eek!”

So, who was it? Well, in close quarters she’s a bit camera-shy… but I was able to get this decent shot of her out in the bucks’ pasture:

It was our lovely lady Spice, who was delighted to be able to spend some free time with the new kids.

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Ambition

The next time that I purpose to do something incredibly ambitious, would someone please put me in a strait jacket instead?

On the bright side, our two percentage Boer does Em and Costich – who are known more commonly as “Red” and “Sister” because my mother can never recall what I named them – finally had their feet trimmed. When we purchased them, their feet were extremely overgrown, premuch to a state of neglect. We let it slide, though, because the previous owner had an advanced stage of cancer and hadn’t even been able to go to the barn to see his two goats in quite a long time, and was having his son give them feed.

But we got them home. And we knew they needed to be trimmed. And we knew we needed trimmers. And we knew we needed to look up trimming.

I finally got around to researching the trimming process, as well as purchasing the trimmers. Then on Thursday when no one else was home… I got ambitious.

I’m pretty sure they both outweigh me. Solidly. Does anyone know roundabout what a two and a half year old Boer doe weighs in at? I’m pretty sure it’s more than me. And I’m pretty sure I don’t have horns. That’s 2-0 right there.

But I do have opposable thumbs. Which they quite clearly lack. Score one for the human race.

I thought I would try this nifty strategy where I pick up a foot and use the rest of my weight to pin the
victim goat against the side of the barn. It didn’t work so well. Apparently they have a lower center of gravity and greater forward motion than I do. Who knew?

So finally I got Em to the middle of the pen, reached under and grabbed the legs on the far side, and… dropped her where she stood. And sat on her. She was displeased, but I accomplished a lot more than I had been.

I bickered with her sister for about five minutes before I decided that I was being stupid. So I grabbed her, sat on her, and trimmed her feet in no time at all. She was far more cooperative than Em. She didn’t flail.

When all was said and done, eight feet were trimmed. And one human was very tired. And running far behind schedule. I had wanted to be to work by 9:30. It was 10:15 when I came inside.

The final score? You decide.

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