Here are some baby pics!

Milking stand is done!

Good weekend for a project.  We picked up the supplies on Saturday and built it today.  We downloaded the plan from Dairy Goat Journal, and for about $25.00 in lumber, voila!

Building the base

Excellent work!

Isn't that pretty?

So I had to go buy KY Jelly...

Marie asked me if I had any KY Jelly.  How do you answer a question like that?  Well, I didn't, so I figured I'd pick some up when I stopped at the supermarket.  So I cruise around the store and there it is, right under the wall of condoms.  Right behind the two guys standing there talking about whatever.  I take another spin down a couple of aisles and what do you know?  'Whatever' is pretty interesting, because they haven't budged.  I finally sucked it up and went in around them.  There are a lot of different KY Jellies.  I am looking for the giant size bottle, the regular stuff, nothing fancy, nothing tingling, nothing 'his & hers'.  Just lube.  Thank God I found the giant size generic brand, so at least I could have some dignity out of the area of the 'whatever guys'.  :-)

Baby watch!

We're on our first official baby watch tonight.  I was out feeding when Vic got home.  He came into the shed and immediately spotted Pim's udder.  VERY disconcerting.  I called Marie for some advice.  Once the udder starts to fill, we could have babies anytime.  Could be tonight, could be in a couple of days, we'll have to watch and see.  No power out there, so we ran three extension cords out.  Had to shave Pim's udder, lol!

The vet is scheduled to be here tomorrow around noon.  As much as I hope to have babies tonight, it would be nice to have her give them a once over and get their shots on board.  More later!

Colostrum Express

I took a ride over to Buxton on Sunday to pick up some frozen colostrum ice cubes from Cheryle.  You didn't know there was such a thing, did you?  Apparently, we are going to have babies sooner than we anticipated.  We were thinking February, but I guess I didn't read the notes.  Pim was pastured with Jethro for a week in July.  Count out 150 days and -assuming it took- we are going to be in business pretty darn soon.  Basically, from here on out through January, we could have babies dropping out all over the place.  Hence the colostrum.  We need to bottle feed it to all the kids to make sure they each get some.  Then we freeze any extra from mom to have on hand for the next batch.  So...off I went, and got more clipping and milking lessons to boot.

Check these out:

I love this picture.  Look at her face, you just know she's saying 'What are you Doing???'

Dis-Budding 101

This morning I drove over to Creeping Thyme Farm in Buxton for a lesson in dis-budding.  With very few exceptions, all goats, including does, grow horns.  Not a very good idea with dairy goats.  They can get caught in fencing, and are pretty formidable weapons as well.  So as a matter of course, all babies have their horn buds cauterized in their first week or so.

Marie and Tim were still finishing up their morning chores, which gave Missy and me time to play with the babies.  It was a warm, sunny morning and I could have stood there all day just watching them bebop and bounce around like little jumping beans.  When they were ready, we brought two twins, a doeling and buckling into the milkroom.  These guys were just over a week old.  Marie pointed out that it's very important to take ALL the babies away at the same time, even if you're only doing something to one of them.  This way their mother won't reject them when they return.  We sat them on our laps and Marie gave them both a buzz cut to clear the spot where the horns were just starting to press against the skin.  A butane dis-budder is used, which heats up super hot.  The end is placed over the horn buds and burns/cauterizes the spot.  A disk of skin is removed and you actually see the bone.  Any protrusions are carefully scraped away, then the area treated with Blu-kote.  They also had a silver colored spray that they used on the lighter colored babies to try to camouflage the area.  This is another way to trick mom into accepting her babies back.  Who knew goat could be so fickle?

Keeping the babies still is a challenge for sure.  We swaddled them in a towel and held them in our laps while Tim did the dirty work.  The smell is...nauseating.  The babies scream during the procedure.  It is not for the faint hearted.  I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't witnessed it myself, but honest to God, as SOON as it is done, they are up and about like nothing happened.  We also did two doelings that were born just a couple of days ago.  That seems like the way to go.  They didn't have nearly the time that the older kids had.  What a difference a week makes!

I was also given a hands on lesson in hoof trimming.  I finally feel confident in what I need to do and how to do it.  It's similar to cleaning a horses foot or trimming a dogs nails, just a lot more squirming involved.  I cannot imagine doing it on a bigger goat, I helped with two today and it's a very physical process.

Lots of good lessons under my belt now.  Of course, I haven't used the castrater yet...I think that will be my job...  :-)

Santa baby, put a dwarf goat milk stand under the tree...for me...I've been a very good girl...

Dwarf Goat Milk Stand Plans by Melissa Thomas from the May/June, 2007 issue of Dairy Goat Journal. Presenting information, ideas, and insights for everyone who raises, manages, or just loves goats.