A blog tracing one family's journey of turning 12.1 acres of rural land in South Carolina into a working farm, with everything from dairy goats to pigs and turkeys. They started this adventure with no hands-on experience, vowing that what one man can do, another can do.
The goat barn is still a work in progress, but it's slowly but surely coming along. Jesse helped me put half of the roof up last Saturday morning (kill me now). It took a few hours and quite a bit of screaming and even a little blood on Jesse's part, but we got it up, with only one sheet that does not lay flush against the other. It was the last sheet of metal roofing, and by that point I just did not care anymore. I'll figure out a way to plug it later. A few days ago (Wednesday) Dustin helped me tack up the OSB along one wall while Ayden was sleeping. I got a chance to show off my circular saw skills for him, but I still can't tell if he's impressed or not. He seems more leery than anything. Then last night he helped me hang up the new hay rack I'd just purchased at our local feed store. As always, we did it by flashlight because the only chance we have to do such things is after Ayden goes to bed at 8 p.m. The thing is huge and as soon as we put some hay in it, Tierra and Louie started chowing down, and would not let anybody else near it. Lucy stood close by waiting her turn, giving a running head-butt to Sahara and Harmony if they dared think of entering the goat barn. You know you've got it bad when Lucy's picking on you. I think I've figured out the herd hierarchy. Tierra, Louie, Lucy, then Harmony and Sahara somewhere about the same level as pond scum. Anyway, I sat out there with them for a little while after finishing with the hay rack and just watched them be. (Yes, I was wearing the aforementioned Sasquatch Onesie, and was therefore warm and toasty and probably could have happily spent all night out there.) When I closed the gate as I left, I heard a scuffle coming from behind me and turned just in time to see Sahara running full tilt at Lucy and finally standing up for herself a little. Good for her, I say. She's got a good 10-20 lbs on Lucy; she could take her.
Well. I just went out to take a picture of our nifty new hay rack and feed the goats, and guess what? I shoved a big flake of hay into it and it fell down. *sigh* I knew it was too heavy for those little screws. So much for a picture of my shoddy handywork. Instead, Dustin took a picture of me and Louie hanging out on the picnic table (he says it looks like we're having a lover's quarrel). I also rigged up a light out in the goat-barn-becoming, and man, let me tell you, its glorious to finally be able to SEE! I was able to get a picture of it all pretty and illuminated. You can see all the leaves my mom raked in there today when she came to babysit Tierra. This morning when I was feeding everybody I noticed her vagina was really looooong. Like, 5 inches or so, and looking really stretched out and droopy. And I even caught her pawing at the ground, and it had me all panicked that she was going into early labor or something. Of course I would have to go into work all day today at the library, so I called my mom first thing this morning and she volunteered to come keep an eye out since she had the day off anyway. That's devotion, ladies and gentlemen. To make a long story short, by this afternoon everything looks normal again and maybe Tierra is just deliberately trying to freak me out. While I was sitting out there with them a few minutes ago, I put my hand on her belly and I felt the tiniest little poke against my palm. It's possible that I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I just felt my first goat baby move. :)
I am struck by how oblivious of certain things I was when I was still a city girl. Especially the seasons. But if you really think about it, what evidence of fall do you really see in the city? Your tree looks a bit bare and you have to rake your yard or suffer your neighbor's wrath. But living here, when fall came it came with a vengeance. Yes, the leaves fell off the trees. All 20 or so in our yard. One day it was like an entire forest molted right on top of us. I've never seen drifts of leaves like we've experienced here. But the most striking difference of all, is looking out our back windows over the back pasture. When we moved here it was so green and ALIVE that I told my husband I had a certain degree of irrational panic in my chest that we were at war with nature and it was about to win and swallow us up. Everything was so BIG and so GREEN and so many many MANY BUGS. You've never seen bugs like we had when we moved here in August. All the normal stuff, mosquitoes and the like, but also copious amounts of wolf spiders, crickets, and these huge terrifying orange and black striped centipedes everywhere you stepped in the yard. (Here's a picture of those nasty things. Ayden made me go "bug hunting" with him our first day here....ewwwww!) You could not walk 5 feet without seeing one of those things. Really. The chickens went mad for it when I first turned them out. Here are some before and after pictures of the back pasture. It's amazing to me how different they look.
Christmas morning we were greeted with a grim sight. The night before, we had been missing a chicken but figured she was just out in the brush and would show up the next morning, as often happens. But on Christmas morning, just after opening presents, I went to look at the goats through the window and saw a black lump up against the electric goat netting. I said, "Oh, no! Is that a CHICKEN?!" Dustin hurried and got dressed and went out to investigate, and reported that she was indeed dead and had apparently somehow gotten a talon stuck in the electric twine in the netting. When he moved her it actually smoked a little. Ahhh! What a horrible way to die! I can't decide if she died of electrocution or stress. What I don't understand is first of all, how on EARTH does one get one's talon stuck in a piece of twine? Second of all, in her thrashing about she should have been able to free herself. The chickens figured out months ago not to try to squeeze through the electric netting anymore. That first couple of weeks you'd see them try to hop through it and take off squacking. They quit doing that at least 2 months ago, and any who care to enter the goat pen now walk directly to the pallet gate and enter through the slats. On one hand, I keep telling myself that in following with the survival of the fitest, I don't want to pass on genes of a chicken too stupid to figure out not to walk through an electric fence after 3 months of practice, but on the other hand, I surely don't mind eating eggs from a stupid chicken or eating a stupid chicken itself! What a waste.
Today a little excitement was thrown into my morning routine. Normally just after waking up, I slip on my pink fuzzy robe and head out to the big picture window in the computer room to look out at the dawning day and see what the goats are up to. Today, this is what I was greeted with.
When I first looked out at them, I noticed Lucy had her bottom up in Louies face flagging her tail back and forth on his nose, and he was enjoying it as much as she was. He'd get so excited that he'd tip his head down and put his forehead against her bottom and give her a good push. I thought, great, my buck is so confused that he thinks he's gonna knock her up by giving her a good headbutting to her privates. But then, to my great surprise, he gave a little hop like he was thinking about mounting her. I naturally ran for the camera. Here's what I saw.
*Ok, so I'm gonna go ahead and issue a warning here for those of you with delicate sensibilities. You know who you are.*
Ladies and Gentlemen, Louie has just found his mojo. I do believe he has finally figured out what to do with a girly goat who's feeling frisky. When Dustin saw the video, he said, "It looks like someone fluffing a couple of pillows." He he. I'm not sure if Louie made full contact, and I did not see Lucy arch her back (the equivalent of a goaty orgasm), but he's got unlimited access to her so with practice he may just get it perfect. Lucy seems pretty happy with all the attention, and I saw her just after this video was taken actually walking backwards flagging her tail all about. Guess she's decided to lead with her business end. :)
Could we possibly have baby Angoras on the horizon?
The day has finally come. I have begun construction of the goat barn. My lumber was delivered 3 days ago, and has been sitting in my yard taunting me ever since. I started 2 days ago when I got off work a little early. I arrived home at about 1:30 pm and did not have to pick Ayden up for a few hours, so I thought I'd try out my new power hand saw. I'll admit that I'm more than a little afraid of that thing. As I was screwing the circular blade on, visions of decapitation and missing digits swam before my eyes. It even says in the instruction manual (yes, I read it. I'm not a complete idiot) to stand to either side of the blade as you're cutting...just in case. Wonderful. Before I could even begin my quest of self-mutilation, I had to knock the existing boards off the goat barn, which was no easy task, especially when you're having to hammer out 4" nails from each one. I'll spare you the details. My plan was to cut 3 inches off the outside posts to create an incline so the water will run off the barn instead of puddling. Here is a picture of the goat barn "before" Kayte came at it with power tools.
The first time I fired that hand saw up (after pushing lots of buttons in an attempt to release the safety switch, that is) I almost peed myself. Know when you're near a construction site and you hear that unearthly screeching sound of some manly man wielding some sort of power tool? Yea. Thats what I had in my hands. Oh dear Lord. So I'm standing on a step stool because we don't own a ladder, and I turn on this electrified homicidal banshee, put it up against the line I'd drawn on the post, close my eyes, and push. I felt friction, but still no feelings of amputation or the like. After I shut it down and did a finger count, I noticed that Robert, my good ol' boy neighbor, had come out on his porch to see what on earth that crazy city girl is doing. Just what I needed, and audience. Anyway, the posts were so thick I had to cut from both sides, but other than that, the whole thing was rather uneventful. If you consider a face full of saw dust uneventful, that is. After the first post I ditched the step stool and just wielded that thing above my head. Every time I'd tuck my chin down to my chest, close my eyes, and hope for the best. Even with goggles on I could not convince my eyes to remain open, so I figured I might as well protect my face if I can't see what I'm doing anyway. I kept telling myself, well, at least I'm doing one better than standing to one side of the blade, I'm on another whole plan than it is. If it comes off it's gonna go whizzing right over my head like a Frisbee. After cutting all the posts on the right down to size, I hauled the boards for the roof one at a time across the yard and chucked them over the goat's fence. Did I mention that Sahara and Harmony were underfoot the whole time, Sahara maintaining a constant stream of invectives for the duration? (They've been confined in the goat pen since I discovered that they were escaping over to the pond by way of crawling under the gate. Will remedy that as soon as possible.) I had to knock down the privacy fencing along the side of the barn in order to get to the outside posts to shorten them. After all that nonsense, I then lifted those 8 foot boards, by myself, mind you, above my head and balanced them across the posts then hammered them into place. I cannot believe I got that much done in 2 short hours. This is a picture of what it looked like when I walked away. When I went to pick Ayden up I had a good half-cup of sawdust in my hair, and another cup or so on my person, which was quite exciting/distressing for him. Try explaining what saw dust is to a 3 year old with out inciting him to want to use said power tool. When we got home and I showed him what a mess I'd made of the goat pen, he gave me a stern talking to and said, "Mommy, you gotta CLEAN THAT UP! We gonna have Christmas party and you made mess! You gotta clean that up or you get in TROUBLE!" This is the look he gave me:
The day after the new goats arrived the weather finally cleared up enough that I could go sit with them in the back pasture. It had finally stopped raining, but was VERY windy and cold out. At this point the Nigerians were still keeping themselves segregated, even though the gate to the goat pen where Tierra and the angoras were was open. When I put my chair out there, they came right over to me as I stood surrounded by the rest of the group. Here's a couple videos I took one right after the other as soon as I sat down. As you can see, as soon as the Nigerians came close, Tierra hustled over to me and was in almost a frenzy to mark me as her territory.
As you can probably hear, Sahara is still almost unbearably noisy, but I'm hoping she'll calm down and quiet down as she gets used to the rest of us. I sat out there with all of them for almost an hour, and she literally did not shut up the entire time. Even as she's browsing and eating, she's still keeping up a steady stream of belch-sounding bleats. Between her constant chatter and the freezing cold, I finally had to get away from them and go back inside. But, I am very happy to report that Tierra did not head butt the new girls a single time. She did later on that evening, but that's mostly because they had gotten brave enough to enter the goat pen and investigate her lean-to, which she has yet to even let Louie and Lucy near. Oops!
One interesting thing did happen, though, when I got home from my new job at the library yesterday afternoon. Harmony and Sahara had gotten out of the back pasture and were milling around over by the pond! Oh, dear! It's my first case of escaped goat. My others have simply never wanted to escape, but the new girls do not see this place as home yet and also have a bad taste in their mouth about being terrorized by a huge Nubian. I'm thinking that they probably climbed up on the dog crate we had back there as their shelter, and jumped the fence. Stupidly, we had put it up against the fence as a perfect step for them. There was a single strand of barbed wire atop the fence from the previous owners, so that means the goats had to clear that on their way over. Ahhhh! We were out there in the dark cutting that evil stuff down by flashlight last night, along with putting some new hinges on the gate going from the goat pen into the back pasture, which had broken about a week ago. All of this in the dark, freezing cold. I, though, planned ahead for such instances. After being so miserably cold trying to spend some quality time with my goats, I knew something had to be done. I refuse to be miserable while doing chores and I also refuse to give up spending time with them all winter long. So, I bought a one-piece zip up thingy from the hunting and fishing department at Walmart. Ha! It's great, because now that I'm having to get up really early to do my chores before taking Ayden to school then going straight to work, now I can do my chores in my work clothes because I just zip the darn thing right up over my clothes! It's awesome. But not pretty. I plan to spiff it up a bit, maybe silkscreen some polka dots all over it or something. ;) I'm hesitant to even post a picture, but in the interest of full disclosure and the ability to laugh at one's self, here you go. Honestly, though, I really don't care how stupid I look as long as I'm warm. I really don't. You see, I spent about 5 of my young formative years in Mexico, and my little body did not get under about 50 degrees the whole time. I swear it's broken something inside me thats supposed to keep me at a decent temperature. So my husband can laugh all he wants, but as I was holding the flashlight for him last night as he was screwing the new hinges on the gate, and shivering and miserable, I stood there toasty warm in my Sasquatch Suit. So there!
Today my mother and I drove about two and a half hours to go pick up my two new Nigerian Dwarf does, Sahara and Harmony. We rolled on up out of here at 6:30 a.m., so that aptly expresses my excitement. I don't get up that early for just anything. When we arrived at Laurel Haven their breeder, Tina, had already separated the girls from the rest of the herd. They came right up to the fence and stuck their noses through to sniff us and were very friendly. This is a picture of Sahara looking adorably up at me. Tina gave us a tour of her operation and we got to meet all of her other goats, even a little 4 week old baby that was just about the cutest little thing I've ever seen in person. The amazing thing is, he was already about twice as big as when he was born! They are only about 2 lbs at birth. I took a video of him nursing, but its hard to get perspective on how truly tiny he is.
When it came time to leave, we put my two new goats in the back of my little brother, Geno's, Jeep he was so kind to let me borrow. Mom assures me he had full disclosure of our plans to transport goats in it, so I'm going to go with that. When we first put them in the Jeep and started moving, all hell broke loose. Harmony and Sahara both started bleating at the top of their lungs. Harmony has a bit of a hysterical screechy bleat, while Sahara....what can I really say about Sahara's sound other than it is quite possibly the worst thing I have ever heard? The first time you hear it you're a little shocked and more than a little embarrassed for her. Here's a video taken 30 seconds after we started rolling away from Laurel Haven. You can barely hear me and mom giggling in the background over the screams.
By the time we got on the interstate they had settled down and Harmony even spent a good part of the trip lying down. Although goat pellets made an appearance almost immediately, they both held their bladders as long as they could and didn't actually pee until we'd been on the road a little over an hour and a half. I had never realized how much a Jeep Cherokee is like driving a glass box: the entire thing is nothing but windows. There is no blind spot in a Jeep, and this made it fun to gauge people's reaction in traffic. More than once a car would pass us and we'd be greeted with the sight of a car full of happy smiling faces beaming back at us. Apparently seeing goats in unexpected places can really brighten a person's day. Then again, we had a few people who'd drive by us with a completely confused look on their face, more often then not slowly shaking their head from side to side. At one point we stopped at a gas station to get some lunch and gas up. While Mom was in getting our sandwiches, and I was pumping the gas, the woman getting gas behind us came up and wanted to pet my goats. She crawled up in the front seat and was oohing and ahhing over them and asking what one owns a goat for. Give me one reason NOT to own a goat, I say!
As were were eating our Subway sandwiches, my mother discovered that they like Fritos. After that, eating our lunch in peace proved interesting! She'll probably kill me for posting these pictures, but I love the progression.
When we got home Dustin's cousin, Jesse, a fairly regular installment here at the farm, carried Harmony to the goat pen and put her down. She immediately took off running in the back pasture looking for her mom, Sahara, who had meanwhile escaped Dustin's clutches and was running around inside our thankfully fenced-in yard. Here's a video of that.
When we were finally able to get both of them into the goat pen, it was complete chaos. Ayden, who was overdue for a nap and a bit over excited by the whole thing, was as hysterical as the new goats and being equally loud. Sahara and Harmony are bleating as loudly as possible, and apparently the electric fence was out so Sahara kept trying to go back through the pallet we're currently using for a make-shift gate and getting her head stuck in it. Once we got her away from that, I turned around to see Sahara being head-butted by Tierra right in her belly. Ahhhh! I pushed Tierra away and gave her a stern NO, just to see her rear up on her hind legs toward Sahara like you see on the Nature of Omaha video's of 500 lb ram's who run at each other on their hind legs then slam their heads together. Picture it in your mind as something like this picture, but with an evil glint in her eye and a huge pregnant belly. He he. I thought to myself, "I don't think so!" and pushed her off to the side, thus thwarting her mighty butting action. After that we locked the new goats out in the back pasture so they could all get to know each other through the fence for a while. Live and learn. Of course at this point Ayden would decide to reduce himself to screaming hysterics on the ground because Dustin was trying to take him back to the house for a nap. Then, for extra fun, it started raining. Could this possibly get any worse? So now my two new pregnant does are stuck out in the back pasture with no shelter. This is not the warm home-coming I had imagined for them. Mom, Jesse, and I comenced running about scavenging materials to throw up some impromptu shelter for the new girls. We were able rig up an an old dog crate back there with a shower curtain and old drop clothes draped over it to keep it airtight, with folded up lawn chairs on top to keep it from blowing away. Thankfully the girls eventually decided to take shelter in there. For the rest of the evening I was posted at the window keeping an eye on them, with frequent trips out there in the rain to try to make them more comfortable. Tierra meanwhile stood sentry just inside the goat barn with nothing but her neck and head hooked around the side to keep an eye on her new adversaries. Louie and Lucy were mildly interested in the new goats, but thats about as far as their investment in the situation went. I knew they'd be fine with them, but Tierra, who has never had an aggressive bone in her body, was pretty thrilled about being herd queen here for the last few months, even if she only became so out of default cause her only minions were a couple of 50 lb sheep-goat things. So she's had a little time to grow some cojones, and wanted to make a lasting impression on Harmony and Sahara that she had no plans on giving up her title.
A few hours later the gate separating the goat pen from the back pasture blew open, and when Dustin rushed out to shut it, the two new girls had already come into the pen where Tierra and the angoras were. Dustin was right there to referee if needed, but the only thing that happened was he succumbed to a serious head rubbing from Tierra along his hips and thighs. She's been doing this nonstop since the new girls got here, I guess she's marking her territory, so to speak. It actually feels quite nice, she's got a head as hard as a rock and the muscles to go behind it. She could be after MY title as the massage therapist on the farm. She can have it. Anyway, she was quite civil and although she stared them down pretty good, she has not tried to head butt them since, and after that we went ahead and left the gate between them open. Harmony and Sahara have pretty much set up camp down at the far end of the pasture where the dog kennel is, so I'll just leave it there for a couple days and let them adjust at their own rate. More on their assimilation as it progresses.
Dustin finally gave up the custody battle with the chickens over the picnic table in our back yard. I've been trying to convince him to give it to the goats for months, but he said he liked having it for eating on. Well, he couldn't keep the chickens off of it, though. So it was pretty much always covered in chicken poop, which made it less than appealing to eat upon, as you can imagine. So about a week ago he got his cousin, Jesse, to help him move it into the goat pen. It's had high traffic since then!
Here's a pretty picture I took of Louie on the table last night, although it was too dark to see where he was. He looked like such a superstar I might have altered the photo a bit. ;)
Poor Tierra, though. She's too fat to get up on it properly, so she gets her front two feet on the bench and calls it good enough. She'll stay there forever, just like that, her big ol' back end still on the ground. Louie and Lucy will deftly scamper all over the thing, even turning around on the narrow benches, while Tierra is just parked there with her nether regions still grounded.
I, too, have been fat and pregnant so I could really identify with her. So I gave her a wee hug.
First order of business: I JUST MADE THE CUTEST SHIRT EVER! Yea, so I'm a little proud of myself. I just learned to silkscreen 2 weeks ago and this is only the 3rd thing I've done so far. I came up with this cute goat over a week ago and have been sitting on it until I could find something goat-worthy to say about it. I've already had 2 requests for one just like it, and I just made it 20 minutes ago! Depending on the interest I receive, I may just buy some blank t-shirts and sell these boogers. Maybe some day it'll be so fashionable that people will be wearing it across the butt of their sweatpants! You really know you've arrived then. *rolling my eyes*
Second order of business: I caught the white rooster crowing on video the other day and am finally getting around to putting in on here. Notice the pretty trill in the "doodle" part of his crow? I like it. Its a far cry from hearing err-err-ERRRRRRR! a hundred times a day.
Here's another video of the goats eating. I know its not that interesting, but I love my goats and think they're fascinating and funny, therefore I will continue to force feed my blog readers goat footage. End of story. ;) In this one I have pulled down a vine from a tree so Tierra and Lucy could reach it.
Be glad I decided to upload that video instead of the one of them eating dry leaves, even less interesting. But they make this divine crunchy sound and I swear they make me want to eat leaves, too. Know what? I'm gonna go ahead and put that video on here, too.
Oh happy day! Laurel Haven has made me an offer I simply can't refuse: that I could buy Harmony's mother, Sahara, at a very discounted price. You see, Harmony and Sahara still havea very special bond and spend just about every waking moment together. Their breeder says they browse side-by-side and she even finds them sleeping together in an old dog carrier on a regular basis. How cute! Besides, who can resist a goat with a BEARD?!Marigold, you know what I'm talking about. I feel very happy knowing my two new girls will have each other for comfort and emotional support coming to their new home. I'm very close with my mother, too, so I kinda get it. ;) I'm so excited to pick up not one, but TWO Nigerian Dwarf does this coming Saturday! And to make it even better, Sahara is also pregnant! She's been bred to a buck by the name of Sharpie, who is apparently ALL THAT and a wheel of cheese. See for yourself. Sharpie is actually the buck I was hoping would be the sire of my buckling-to-be in the spring. At first thought, it would make sense to keep a buckling from Sahara and Sharpie to be my herd sire, but Sahara's pedigree is not nearly as "milky" as a few of Laurel Haven's other does whose pedigrees are laced with stars and +'s and all sorts of fancy stuff that I really don't know what it means, just that its good! Seeing as how I want the best possible buck to sire my herd, I think it would still be a good idea to get a buckling from one of those superb does. In that case, the only goats on my farm that he'd be related to would be the kids that Sahara is currently pregnant with, because he'd be their half-brother. Although frowned upon by humans, it is perfectly safe to breed half-siblings in the goat world, its called line breeding and has produced some of the best quality goats available today. Generally speaking, the only combinations that are not a good idea are mother-son, father-daughter, brother-sister. The dilemma I face is that I cannot afford to replace my buck each generation. In other words, after my buck has been utilized his first year, that next generation will be his, and I would not want to breed him back to his own kids when they came of age. My thoughts at this time are that if Harmony were to be pregnant right now with a buckling from Charles, I could keep him intact and use him as my pinch-hitter every other generation as needed. Charles' pedigree is not quite as impressive as Shapie's, though, so I'd want to take a closer look at that and make sure I'm not breeding flawed traits into my herd. I'll definitely be talking to someone who knows what they're doing first. What it comes down to, is Nigerians are small, friendly, don't eat much, and rare in this area, so it would not be a bad thing to have two unrelated bucks on the premises. Besides, they'd keep each other company. This could all be conjecture, of course, as Harmony and Sahara could both have bellies full of doelings.... *sigh*... I can only hope!
Monday morning when I took Ayden out to the car to load him up and off to school, we heard the customary crowing issuing from the chicken coop. I've heard it so much at this point I can even accurately spell it: err-err-ERRRRRRRRR! Strangest crow I've ever heard. He's completely missing the "doodle" portion. Anyway, this particular morning we hear the err-err-ERRRRRRRR directly followed by a slightly softer scratchy sounding crow. So apparently our white Ameraucana rooster has finally started crowing. I happened to finally see him do it in person this afternoon, and let me tell you, despite his deficit of practice, he is considerably better than the black rooster. First of all, his voice is husky and sorta sexy sounding (can I say that about my rooster?), and he has a distinct trill in the middle of his crow. It's actually quite pretty. I'll try to video it sometime.
The next morning I decided to let the chickens out before taking Ayden to school, as he loves to help me with chicken chores. Upon my return, I was greeted with one of my black hens OUTSIDE the gate in the driveway. So I parked the car out in the street as to not scare her away from the gate. I open the gate, in she goes. As I'm headed back to my car, I hear a rustling in the dry leaves down the street. There I spy two MORE black hens, on the wrong side of the fence. Grrr. So I reopen the gate and huff it down the street a little ways and chase them into the yard. Of course, one of them darts into the yard and the other runs to the far side of the street and hides in the neighbor's ditch. Wonderful. Of course now a car is coming, and I know for certain my chicken is going to choose that very minute to run back across the street to our yard and get hit. So I'm waving at the guy who kindly stopped for us and I'm putting myself between her and the street, hoping to hold her there until the car goes. He's laughing and yelling out his window, "She get away from you?" Ha. Ha. So he starts to pull forward, and off she goes, darting out in front of him. I motion him to stop, and she escapes unscathed. Thinking I'm finally done hearding wayward chickens, I take one last look around. Way down the street, maybe 250-300 yards away, I see my neighbors chickens out in the street. I thought to myself, "Boy, one of his scrawny chickens sure got fat!" I squint my eyes and look closer. ITS THAT CHICKEN! The White Devil Chicken! Gone-a-visiting. As I'm headed down there (keep in mind my car is still idling in the street behind me) here comes another vehicle, this time a good-ol'-boy in his pickup. He stops and introduces himself as the man who lives behind us. Who knew? He gives me a bit of a hard time about my wandering chickens, and I'm off to reclaim my Devil Chicken. Thankfully she was open to the idea of returning home. So now almost every day I find chickens out in the street, scattered from my driveway all the way down to my neighbor's driveway. I've given you a picture here to show really how far they're wandering. Today there were 6 out there. I suspect a certain Game Rooster is the major attraction down there. I'm going to have some funny looking babies from these girls if they keep it up. Maybe they're embarrassed by their harem-masters' crows and choose to go to a bird who really knows what he's doing. Saturday my mother and I found 10 on the wrong side of the fence, thankfully that time in the lot next door, though. Thats more than half my flock! You'd think they didn't have a huge yard to run in.
I'm gonna go ahead and give you a minute to really look at that picture. Really. Go ahead and click on it and see if you can figure out what's happening in that picture. Take your time.
Finished? What would you say this is a picture of?
Here, let me give you a hint: Yes. That is Louie. In my lap. I'm just sitting there minding my own business reading my book about Henry beheading his wives, when Louie comes up to me and wants a scratch. I'm thrilled that he's warming up to people so much, so I give him some lovin'. Then I try to go back to reading my book and next thing I know there's a buck in my lap. I happened to have the composure to take a picture with my free hand.
Well, something terribly thrilling has just transpired. I have arranged to buy my very first Nigerian Dwarf goat! Her name is Laurel Haven's Harmony, and she will be coming to me as a registered bred doe. Here is both her baby picture and her current picture, courtesy of Laurel Haven's website.
She was born September 7, 2006, just a day before Dustin's birthday. She will be pretty tiny, Nigerian Dwarfs are usually between 19-21" at the shoulder. She may possibly be even smaller than Lucy! It makes me very thankful that all my goats are super sweet and I won't have to worry about anybody being nasty to her. She is bred to a handsome fella by the name of Laurel Haven's Yes Charleston, or Charles for short. Here's his picture.
With a little imagination you can just see how adorable their babies will be. Harmony's breeder said she envisions that they will be white with spots. Yea! I have been eye-balling the Nigerian Dwarf goats from Laurel's Haven for over a year now, and not only are they beautiful and well bred, but you can really tell that the breeder knows what she's doing and is faithful about updating her website (laurelhaven.net). I have been lucky enough to find quite a few ND breeders here in South Carolina, but honestly, I prefer to find one I like to work with and trust and then stick with them. So, with that in mind, I have also reserved a Nigerian Dwarf buckling from their 2008 Spring kids! This will be my first and only buck -unless Lucy's breeder continues to not send me her registration papers, in which case I am going to keep Louie as collateral! Actually, at this point that would work out just fine because then I would have a pen-mate for my little buckling in the spring. My new buckling will come from one of my top three choices of their breeding schedule. Obviously, there is no way to determine how many babies or what sex a doe will have, so you put in your top 3 or so choices and hope for the best. In any case, I feel confident that he will have the superior milking genetics that I want to establish in my herd. He'll be a little fella just like Harmony, and no relation to her, so their future generations will be purebred Nigerian Dwarf. I will also use him to breed the other full-sized goats I plan to get, to make miniature milkers that eat less and have creamier milk. Good cheese making milk.
We will be going to pick Harmony up December 15th, and she lives about 2.5 hours away. We will be able to transport her in a medium sized dog carrier, which just makes my life so much easier. It is the bane of my existence as a goat farmer that I do not own a pick-up.
Some other pretty exciting news is that I am on the brink of beginning construction on the goat barn. It is no longer to be a ratty lean-to. It will be a bonafide building with a milking area, grain storage, and two kidding stalls. It will look something like this diagram, although I may rethink the location of the milking stanchion. The black squares are the posts that are already set into the 15x15 concrete pad. I am going to use shipping pallets to separate the stalls, so that I can move them as desired to create bigger or smaller stalls. Honestly, I could probably get away will dividing the left half into 4 smaller stalls if I needed to, with each stall being about 7.5'x4'. If any of you building whizzes or goat aficionados see something that I am missing or a better idea of how to do it, I am all ears! I am very excited to have a sheltered place with electricity and a spigot to do my milking and chores in! No more milking by flashlight while my back is getting rained on! Not to mention a safe and cozy place for all these babies on their way!
I have to post some pretty pictures I took with the goats this morning. After running errands and eating breakfast this morning, I decided, as I often do, to take the goats for a stroll. It was such a beautiful morning and the breeze was blowing just hard enough that it steadily rained down crispy yellow leaves upon the 4 of us.
Here's a nice chest shot of Tierra. I had just set the camera down and started the timer when she decided she had to go see what the big deal was with the shiny little box making all the noise.
This is a picture of Lucy standing against the fence polishing off the rest of the leaves still clinging to survival.
I LOVE my goats. They are everything I ever thought they would be.
I was talking to my mother (FarmMama) on the telephone this morning and happened to look out the window to see what the goats were up to. Let me tell you: Louie was partaking of a deep and soulful sniff of Lucy's bottom. I mean, the boy was completely engrossed for a full minute or so. As he came up for air, I saw him flehm. This is quite a sight. The buck lifts his upper lip and looks for all intents and purposes just like he's smiling. A buck does this to help smell the pheromones wafting from his girlfriends butt. :) If you look very closely in the picture you can kinda see him doing it. Notice that Lucy is quite the willing participant in all of this. She was more than willing to let him go on sniffing and smiling all afternoon if he'd like. After he finished, she turned around and was sniffing and licking all over his face, her little tail wagging a million miles a minute the whole time. I do believe we might see some action soon! I should have known something was amiss when the two of them did not touch their grain that morning.
Caught him! I was standing along side of the chicken coop, as I'm sure you can tell. Right after taking this video, I opened the chicken coop door and saw all of the chickens pressed up against the door of their partition. Of course he would immediately stop crowing as soon as I opened the door. I stood there for a minute looking at my two roosters, who in turn stood and looked back at me. Nada. So I stepped to the side, just out of sight. CROOOOOOOOOO-A-a-a-ark! I thrust my head back in the doorway just in time to see.......... drum roll please.......... the black rooster crowing.
Last night while I was on the phone with a lady about a goat (oh, I am SUCH a farmer!) Dustin came tearing into the house yelling my name over and over. My first thought was that the Copperhead has made another appearance and has perhaps succeeded in eating our firstborn. As I threw down the phone, he said, "Our rooster is crowing!" This is a big deal. We have been waiting for one of our roosters to figure out he can crow for quite some time now. Apparently, Dustin and Ayden had been playing soccer near the chicken coop when all of a sudden they heard a creature being murdered within the dark confines of the coop. It sounded something like "crOOOOOOOAArk-k-k". It took Dustin a minute to figure out what it was, but he soon decided it must be an attempt at the fabled Cock-a-doodle-doo that Ayden has told us roosters do. We were not convinced, until now. The real question is, which one is it? The big beautiful black Wyandotte rooster or my gorgeous white Ameracauna rooster?
Obviously, my first order of business this morning was to capture the blessed event on video. I did not think this would be hard, as I must have heard it 20 times if I heard it once in the time it took to load Ayden in the car this morning before taking him to school. When I got home I ran inside for the camera and posted myself just outside the window of the coop. Not a peep. Nada. Nothin. So, camera in hand, I went to milk the goats and decided this is as good a time as any to capture that on video.
The chicken antics I mentioned are as follows. I set my milking tote down while I stepped inside the goat pen to give Lucy and Louie their grain then lock them out in the back pasture. No sooner had I done this, than a chicken had jumped up and was in the process of pecking at the coffee filter on my milking jar. Ahhh! Here's a picture to prove it. You can see her friend in the background sitting on top of the fence, which is their new favorite thing to do. I shoo that chicken away, and as I grab my milk tote and head into the goat pen to milk Tierra, who is waiting ever so patiently for me, I spy a black chicken who has locked herself out in the pasture with Lucy and Louie, and is successfully stealing their grain. That is one brave chicken. As any of you who own goats know, they are serious when it comes to their grain.
After milking, I decided to stalk the chickens for a while and try to capture the elusive crowing rooster. While entirely and disgustingly unsuccessful at that, I did manage to capture some rather incriminating evidence all the same.
I told you! What did I say? That brown chicken has it in for my feet. Thank goodness I have a solid layer of rubber between my tasty soft tootsies and her. While observing the chickens I also witnessed a near chicken-rape. I was staking out the large black rooster when he noticed that one of the hens had laid down for a moment for a rest. He went running full tilt across the yard and pounced. I saw him coming, and I saw the lustful glint in his eye, so I scrambled to turn the camera on in time, but alas, he was too quick for me. He pounced, she screamed, he fell off of her, she ran a few feet away, and then they both partook in a bit of feather ruffling. They shook it off, so to speak.
With this episode in mind, I cast a fearful eye on Ambrose lounging amongst the chickens. I tried to explain to him what had just happened to this poor unsuspecting hen when she mistakenly chose to lie down on the job, but he would not listen. He rolled over and exposed his soft underbelly to me, taunting the chickens. Here's what happened.
Ok, so its not as exciting as it could have been if the rooster would have been feeling trans-species-amorous, but nonetheless, it goes to show that I was not lying when I said he loves the chickens.
To conclude, I am accepting bets on which rooster possesses the death-rattle crow. I am giving 4:1 odds that it is the larger black Wyandotte rooster. I hope to catch the "crow" if it can be called that, on video this evening when they all go to bed. We'll see.
Well, I just found an old blog that I did on Myspace back in June about the prospect of moving out here to the country. I have just posted that blog here on blogger, so if you scroll down to the very first entry, you will see it.
As you can see, I outlined the basic plan for the farm, and it is interesting to me to see how closely we've followed The Plan, and some things that we've decided to do differently.
For one thing, we were not able to start out with the Nigerian Dwarf goat breed, as they are prohibitively expensive and hard to come by in this area. It was much easier for us to start with a goat breed that is abundant in our area, which turned out to be the Nubian, which I had thought my least favorite. I had heard that they are very noisy and make themselves quite a bother. Living with Marek at the time, I could not handle the thought of having yet another animal contributing to the cacophony. But, Tierra was the first goat I found and am I ever so glad I did not trust unidentified voices on the Internet telling me that Nubians are terrible to own. She's a joy.
I still plan on breeding Nigerian Dwarf into my heard, and I would not even mind having crosses of all the full size dairy goat breeds mixed with the miniature stature of the Nigerian Dwarf. The NG breed is also known for its high butterfat content, which means you can make more cheese per gallon than you can from regular goat's milk. I would like the first buck I invest in to be a Nigerian Dwarf with good dairy characteristics. Here's what Tierra's offspring would possibly look like if I bred her to a NG. They'd be called Mini Nubians!
I also ended up with an Angora goat, which was not even mentioned in The Plan. I had thought that it would be fun some day to experiment with the Angora breed and see if you truly can make money from them. Well, now I get to experiment sooner rather than later! The way I have figured it, if I can get even a modest sum for her mohair, it should cover the cost of her yearly feed and maintenance, with a little left over. Add to that the profit if/when she kids each year (with a break here and there, of course), and she should turn a profit. In any case, she's the only animal here (other than Ambrose) who is a pet and gets to stay just cause. I would like to learn how to card mohair, dye it, and spin it. If I did those things it would be worth much much more.
Chickens. Check. Pretty much on track with The Plan when it comes to them. I've lost 5 in the past few months, and one of my Wyandotte hens ended up being a rooster. Oh, well.
Ducks. Oooooh I want ducks. I want them now. I'd like to convert the underside of our back porch into a duck house- still working on Dustin for that one. In my opinion, its just wasted space. All I'd have to do is enclosed the underside with some tastefully done (ha ha ha ha!) chicken wire, and then close in the section under the stairs as a waterproof nesting area. I think it'd make a bang-up duck shelter, someplace safe for them to call home at night. I'd also like to devise some sort of pet door in the chain link fence going to the pond so they'd be able to free range the yard and pond area during the day.
We're still on track with the bees, as we plan to get them in the spring. Not sure where we're gonna put them, but we'll find a place.
Another thing we've added to The Plan is gardening and possibly a pig (or two). I know what you're thinking, what on earth do you want a pig for? Well, we want to eventually grow all of our own produce and fruit, and gardening on that scale requires quite a bit of muscle. A pig can be a farmer's best friend when put to work effectively. You can temporarily pen them on an area to be rototilled, and they will methodically eat all the vegetation, root around in the soil and remove all existing roots, all the while working their own natural fertilizer into the soil. By the time they're done with it, its ready to plant! A single sow can produce about 20 piglets a year, which could be sold off as weaner pigs or raised out for pork. Throughout history the pig has been known as "The Irishman Who Pays the Rent" because they are ridiculously profitable even in times of depression. We don't eat much pork, but its never hard to find people willing to pay for fresh, organic pork fresh from the farm. Couple that with the gardening benefits and their labor-saving ways, they make a perfect addition to any homestead. All that being said, I am a little intimidated at the thought of owning a pig. I've spent the last year researching chickens and goats, and pigs are like an alien creature to me. We'll see what happens.
We also plan to start raising turkeys in the spring. I'd like to secure advance orders for heritage-breed organic Thanksgiving turkeys, and raise out enough to sell come November, plus enough for our own consumption, and also enough to start some breeding stock for future generations. Unfortunately, almost all turkey breeds have lost the ability to reproduce naturally due to genetic modifications, such as breeding them with breasts so large that they are physically incapable of doing the deed. Therefore, if you want any chance of turkeys that know how to be turkeys, you have to look at the rare old-fashioned breeds. I am passionate about supporting and maintaining the populations of heritage breed livestock, and would like to incorporate them in the future. Barbara Kingsolver, my favorite female author, says that the heritage breed turkey she raises, the Royal Palm, tastes unbelievable and is almost reminiscent of lobster. Yummmm!
I can already tell it's going to be one of those days. It all started last night. For the second night in a row, Dustin told me we were missing a chicken when he locked them in the coop. This is because they've discovered that they can get into the back pasture via the goat pen, but then they're on the wrong side of the chain link fence, peering in at all their little chicken buddies. So, they commence to walk the fence line, back and forth and back and forth and back and forth.... you get the picture. Unfortunately, there's a gate next to said fence that leads into the empty lot we own next door, and there's a large gap under this fence. So, in all their pacings, they inevitably squeeze under this gate and then further compound their delimma by then trapping themselves in the lot next door, which has absolutely no entrance back into our yard. So from there they resume their pacing, half the time finding themselves out in the street and trying to get in our gated driveway. Well, the first time we were missing a chicken, I figured she was locked out of the yard and would show up in the morning, which she did. Same thing happened this morning, only, things went steadily downhill from there.
Here's what happened. Phase I: I saw her on the wrong side of the fence, so I opened the gate at the corner of the property by the pond, ran back to where she was, grabbed a tree branch and walked behind her encouraging her to walk toward the open gate. I do this almost every day for wayward chickens. Only, this chicken walked the entire length of the fence, coming within 5 feet of the open gate, then would panic and turn around and run the way we had come. I would whack at her side of the fence with the stick, trying to cut off her retreat. So what did she do? She'd leave the fence line and run off into the woods, making a large detour around the angry woman yelling wielding a stick. So then I'd have to run along my side of the fence and try to get on the far side of her to start the whole process again. We did this 4, maybe 5 times. At this point I'm starting to get angry, as it is 46 degrees out and I am just trying to help this chicken get back inside so she can eat some breakfast. After about the 5th time of having her within feet of the gate, only to watch her backtrack the entire length of the fence (about 250 feet!), I tried jumping over the fence. Yea, so I have not done that since I was a kid, and my center of gravity has...shall we say, shifted. After attempt 4 of getting my bulk over the fence, I drag a cinderblock up as a step. I catapult myself over the gate, land wrong, and twist my ankle. So now I'm near tears, swearing, and watching the retreating back of this blasted chicken, of course headed in the wrong direction. I'm so angry at this point I ignore my ankle and go plunging through the woods in hot pursuit. At this point I don't care that I'm chasing her away from the gate, I just want to grab her or at least give her a good scare. I'm so immature. Branches are crashing, thorns are tearing at my flesh, spiderwebs engulf my face, and all I care about is grabbing That Chicken. I cornered her a half dozen times, flailing out at her, my fingers like talons, only to feel her slip through my grasp. This went on much longer than any sane person would have allowed. Back and forth we went, until finally she ran away from the fence altogether and ran into the woods. I pursued. I finally gave up when she ran into a massive briar patch, and I screamed, "FINE! You can live out here for all I care!" I stormed back to the house seeing red, and feeling as if I was burning alive from the inside out. I went and milked the goats, my sweet sweet goats that follow me wherever I care to lead them, and still no sign of That Chicken.
Phase II: After having cooled off somewhat, I decided to lure her back with her flock-mates. I took their goody pan (where their scraps go. I call "here biddies!" and they come running) with a handful of chicken feed in it, call the chickens, and head out the open gate by the pond looking like the Pied Piper with 16 chickens at my heels. I set the pan just outside the gate, and watch as a few chickens run out to it, and sure enough, here comes That Chicken. She joins in and eats heartily. If you look closely in this picture you can see the silver pan just outside the open gate with chickens surrounding it. That Chicken is the white one standing to the right of the pan. I figure she'll just come right back in with the other chickens. Of course not! They finish eating, the other slightly smarter chickens come back in through the gate, she follows them, then at the last minute veers off to the right and walks along, yes, you guessed it, THE WRONG SIDE OF THE FENCE! I'm nearly blowing a gasket at this point. I do everything to encourage her to walk back toward the gate, ensuing a long and drawn out repeat of Phase I. I storm back to the house. I hate this chicken. I'm already imagining life without her, and am slightly saddened that my future generations of chickens will not have her unique white coloring, because I AM GOING TO KILL THIS CHICKEN!
Phase III: Time goes by. She still does not come in on her own. I am storming around the chicken coop looking for Ayden's bug net, with visions of netting That Chicken. I find the net, but there's no way a chicken will a) fit in the net and b) be stupid enough to run into a neon orange net with a large caterpillar head on it. So, I walk back to the fence one more time, kick the fence a couple times to move her toward the gate, and watch with bated breath as she inches closer and closer to the open gate.... she faked right a few times like she would head back into the woods, and at this point I am praying to God above, please just make this chicken come through the gate. So she does. Comes walking in like its the most logical thing in the world.
Ugh. As I wearily walk back toward the house, still exasperated from the whole operation, a single brown chicken runs full speed at me and starts pecking my boots. She's taken a shining to my purple toenail polish, and for the last couple weeks every time I come outside she runs up to me looking quite confrontational, and takes a peck at my toes, which does not particularly feel nice. Here's a picture of her having a go at my boots this morning. I've been trying to tell Dustin how the chickens no longer respect me, they try to eat my toes, and in the mornings I have to put my purse on my exposed flip-flop clad toes as I physically push them aside to open their small door in the coop. They used to part like the Red Sea when they saw me coming. Not so anymore! Now I get bum rushed by this brown chicken each time I walk outside, and confronted with an unmovable wall-o-chicken if I dare to tresspass.
This video was about attempt 7 of trying to get the goats on video making their respective noises. The problem is, they only holler at me when they want me to come hang out with them. Once I'm close by, they just stand there and stare at me. It makes for titillating video footage, let me tell you. I was trying to capture the range of sounds they make. Tierra has this unholy moanish-groanish-wailing sort of noise. Sounds sorta like a mmmmmGUAHHHHHHHHHHhhhh or a variation thereof. It sounds absolutely painful. The Angoras, on the other hand, make a neat little maaaa sound. As I've said before, the poor darlings look and sound just like sheep, the only difference being that sheep don't have half their personality and sheep go Baa while goats go Maa. It's all very technical. ;)
Here's another video, taken this morning, where you can at least hear the Angoras talking. I've actually gotten to the point that I can tell Lucy and Louie's maa's apart. Louie's is actually louder and higher pitched than Lucy's. Ironic. This was taken as I walked outside for our morning milking. I have a confession: I also took a video of me milking Tierra, but I had failed to take into consideration how absolutely horrible I looked. I really do not dress up much for the goats. Come to find out, pink corduroys, a green and white fuzzy sweater, polka dot rubber boots, and a slept upon French braid did not make me camera-ready. Will possibly try again tomorrow after a little more attention paid to personal hygiene.
Ok, I know that’s gross, but real farmers don’t let a little goo dampen their spirits. I’ve been watching Lucy like a hawk for signs of going into heat, and I think it might have finally paid off. I had her locked up on the stanchion giving her hooves their second trimming (it will probably take a few to get them in any kind of decent shape after the neglect she suffered), when I smelled something, well, a little funky. I turned my head to the right to scope out her bottom a mere 10 inches from my face, fearing the worst. When Tierra was sick her butt stunk horribly from having diarrhea. But, lo and behold, no diarrhea smears, but a nice line of dirty goo hanging from her vulva. I’m super paranoid about seeing tapeworms hanging out of an animals butt, so that was understandably my first thought. Yes, of course, I have a picture!
Now aren’t you glad I’m thorough? ;) You can see that the underside of her tail is a little dirty, too, which is another sign of having discharge. Her vulva also seems a bit swollen, which are all signs of being in heat. I’ve been watching Louie for any signs of interest, but so far nothing. This could stem from a few things.
1. Lucy is not really in heat and I have no idea what I’m talking about. Very probable.
2. Louie does not have any idea what to do with a doe in heat.
3. Louie is gay.
4. Louie and Lucy have already satisfied their carnal little goaty needs unbeknownst to me, and now feel glowy and satiated and in need of a cigarette and have resumed life as usual. I don’t know if it works this way in the goat world. How do horny goats act after they’ve done the deed? Surely they don’t keep at it the whole 12-36 hours that she can be in heat, do they?
Guess I’ll just have to wait and see if she goes back in heat 18-21 days from now before I have any definite answers. If Louie continues to not do his job, I may try to find somebody local with a Pygmy buck to service her. Their babies would be what’s known as a Pygora. Here’s a picture of one.
put half of the roof up last Saturday morning (kill me now). It took a few hours and quite a bit of screaming and even a little blood on Jesse's part, but we got it up, with only one sheet that does not lay flush against the other. It was the last sheet of metal roofing, and by that point I just did not care anymore. I'll figure out a way to plug it later.
what? I shoved a big flake of hay into it and it fell down. *sigh* I knew it was too heavy for those little screws. So much for a picture of my shoddy handywork. Instead, Dustin took a picture of me and Louie hanging out on the picnic table (he says it looks like we're having a lover's quarrel). I also rigged up a light out in the goat-barn-becoming, and man, let me tell you, its glorious to finally be able to SEE! I was able to get a picture of it all pretty and illuminated. You can see all the
leaves my mom raked in there today when she came to babysit Tierra. This morning when I was feeding everybody I noticed her vagina was really looooong. Like, 5 inches or so, and looking really stretched out and droopy. And I even caught her pawing at the ground, and it had me all panicked that she was going into early labor or something. Of course I would have to go into work all day today at the library, so I called my mom first thing this morning and she volunteered to come keep an eye out since she had the day off anyway. That's devotion, ladies and gentlemen. To make a long story short, by this afternoon everything looks normal again and maybe Tierra is just deliberately trying to freak me out. While I was sitting out there with them a few minutes ago, I put my hand on her belly and I felt the tiniest little poke against my palm. It's possible that I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I just felt my first goat baby move. :)
