Mighty Mouse Has Nothing On Dustin

We had some excitement today with Louie. My theory is that he was tired of all the fuss over Harmony and the babies and was not going to be outdone. So he went and got himself entangled in some blackberry brambles. And when I say entangled, I mean ENTANGLED. I was headed out the back door to take some scraps to the chickens and I heard an ungodly crying coming from the back pasture and could barely see Louie through the weeds. I noticed that he seemed to be lunging but not getting anywhere. I hollered for Dustin and he went sprinting back there, even jumping over the fence to get to him. I noticed Dustin hurdling the fence was a much smother operation than the time I tried to hoist myself over it to chase That Chicken, but I am coming to terms with that. When Dustin got back there this is what he was greeted with:

As bad as his chest looked in this photo, both of his sides were nearly as bad. Heavens. It took the two of us, 15 minutes, a pair of scissors, and some leather gloves to free Louie of his bonds. Dustin said when he first got back there that the brambles were all over his face and soft little ears, but thankfully he was able to get those free by the time I arrived, camera in tow.

After he freed Louie, Dustin scooped him up in his arms and carried him all the way back to the goat pen, about a hundred feet, which included jumping over a 2 foot wide ditch! Mom and I were suitably impressed. I don't know how much Louie weighs, but I feel nervous jumping that ditch myself and my 61 year old mother wouldn't even attempt it. I kept thinking of the line at the beginning of The Incredibles when Mr. Incredible says, "Sometimes I just want the world to stay saved. I mean, I feel like the maid, 'Didn't I just clean this place up?!" Anyway, Dustin carried him all the way back home and locked him in the pen to ensure there would not be a sequel. Now if that isn't the sexist sight you've ever seen I just don't know what is.

Romping with Babies

These are a couple video's I took of the kids playing with mom this morning. It was the first time they've been out of the kidding stall, and Harmony was looking a little restless so I thought I'd let her out for a bit while everybody else was locked back in the pasture. Both my mom and I stood sentinel to keep them away from the water trough and the electric fencing. Even though its pretty warm out I kept their sweaters on anyway. It was a little windy. And I am a big advocate for overdressing babies, including my own.

The buckling has perked up nicely and was be-bopping all about the kidding stall this morning, just like his sister is in these videos. They're on opposite nap schedules, and he was falling asleep on his feet through most of these videos. I've come up with a name for him. He will be named Laurel Haven Mumble Britches, or Mumble for short. *giggle* When a baby is conceived while owned by somebody else, as in Harmony and Tierra's case, then the baby retains the previous owner's herd name. I have registered the name Gypsy's Dream with both the American Dairy Goat Association and the American Goat Society, so any future kids conceived and born on my farm with have my herd name as their prefix. You know it's killing me not to get to name my new babies with my herd name now. As for the doeling, I think I will wait to name her until Tierra has kidded, because I have a special name picked out for a girl, but I want to meet everybody before assigning it to somebody.

I had my mom take a picture of me and the little doeling to give some perspective to their size. Can you believe how tiny they are?!So now the countdown is on for Tierra. I get to do all of this over again! Only this time they will have huge droopy floppy ears! YAY!

Styling & Profiling

I thought the babies might be cold tonight so I made them sweaters. :)

Babies!!!

Yay!

So. This morning at 5 a.m. I woke up to Dustin saying, "Kayte! What is that?" I took the cotton balls out of my ears and heard very distinctive sqeals that sounded like they came from the itty bittiest babies in the world coming from the baby monitor. I said, "OH MY GOODNESS! DID SHE HAVE THEM?!!" I flew out of bed and took just enough time to pull on my sasquatch suit over my underwear, scoop up my birthing kit, and head for the barn. When I entered the barn I could hear then squalling, and it was totally surreal when I shined the flashlight into Harmony's stall and saw her standing there in the dark with two wet little black and white BABIES infront of her!! I said, "Harmony, what'd you DO?!" This is what I saw:
They were both already up on their feet but still covered in birthing fluid and goo. I wiped them down a bit with the bed pads I bought just for that purpose, but Harmony was already industriously licking them off. She is the best little mama I've ever seen! Any worries I had about her being a first time mom and not knowing what to do have since flown out the window. She is absolutely intoxicated with her babies. If they so much as make a sound she is right on top of them licking them and comforting them.
It's hard to show how truly tiny they are. Here is a picture next to Ayden, who is only 3 1/2.
In all the excitement I did not even think to see what sex they were for a while. The little black one with the white belt is.... A GIRL!!!! And the white one with black spots is a little buckling. ALSO YAY!!! Since I am trying to build up a milking herd, obviously I was hoping for girls, but I knew if Harmony were to have a boy who is conformationally sound, I could keep him as a breeding buck to alternate with Puck. I don't have any Nigerian Dwarf bucks available for stud service within driving distance, so it makes sense to own my own.

So here is a close up of the doeling after she'd dried off a little bit. Come to find out she's not black and white afterall, but her back end is the most interesting shade of black and brown, it almost looks copper. Gorgeous! Mom's favorite thing about her is her one black eye patch. This is a picture of the buckling, who is not quite as vigorous as his twin sister. She is so perky that she was already acting spastic and trying to bounce around within an hour of birth. He mostly stood around looking tired, and was much more difficult to get to nurse the first time. The doeling got right down to business, dropped to her elbows, and butted Harmony's uddder until she found a teat to fit in her mouth.
He never did really figure out how to nurse, and I ended up milking some milk into a syringe (minus the needle, of course) and giving it to him that way, which he did not appreciate. I also gave both babies and mom a couple squirts of Nutri-Drench, a supplement to give them all a little boost after their ordeal. A few minutes after getting some colostrum down him, he perked up a little and I got him to latch on a couple times on his own before I had to go to work. He's been a little groggy all day, but this evening as I sat in there with them (no doubt sitting in something awful) he seems to have perked up quite a bit and I saw him go find a teat twice on his own and grab some munchie.

Harmony is just the best. I got some birthing fluid all over my hands when I was helping to clean them off this morning and she got so distracted licking ME that at one point I finally had to tell her, "Honey, this is really nice and all, but it's time to lick your babies, not me." I ended up picking a baby up and putting it in her face to help her re-prioritize. But, I have to say, after all that she just stood there letting me milk her tiny little teats into that syringe, even lifted her leg so I could get at it better. WOW! I'm used to Tierra who will not let me within a cubic foot of her udder without a proper grain bribe. I suspect I may now be dubbed one of Harmony's babies and am therefore allowed equal access to "the goods."

After everything had calmed down and both babies demonstrated that they could nurse a little, I came back to the house and prepared a big bowl of warm water with molasses in it for Harmony, which goats are said to appreciate. As I was mixing this brown water, I thought there was no way she was going to actually drink this. My goats don't do anything typical goats do, such as eat peanuts or vegetables, so I felt gooey stinky water would definitely be out. But when I showed up with it and a bowl of grain, she went for the warm molasses water first and sucked it all down! The grain followed quickly, though. By that time she was passing the afterbirth, which I think is actually quite pretty in it's own way. What other thing in nature can you say is that color? And yes, it is safe to assume at this point that I am going to post a picture. So brace yourself.
For those of you who think this picture is gross, all I can say is that I feel sorry for you. This is life, and that thing grew two perfect little goat babies out of nothing in 5 months flat. Wow. In some cultures they bury a woman's placenta and have a ceremony for it, which I can really understand. Harmony's ended up wrapped in a bed pad and stuffed in a dirty yellow 5 gallon bucket, not quite the beautiful send off, but at least I took a picture!

After that I tied off the doeling's long umbilical cord (you can see it in her photos) with some dental floss and trimmed it up a bit. Then I dipped both babies' umbilical cords in iodine, which they did not enjoy one bit. You submerge it in a small cap full, then tip them over on their back to completely saturate the entire thing. Harmony didn't appreciate me making her babies scream, but it took all of 3 seconds to do and I'm pretty sure she's since forgiven me.

So, all in all it was a fabulous day. Everything I said about Harmony having poor timing I take back. She let me get a whole night's sleep, didn't even need me to assist as she'd gone and done everything herself, and I didn't have to miss a minute of work. She even had them early enough that I could play for a couple hours and help get nursing underway with time left for a shower and to get Ayden off to school. I am a little disappointed to not have witnessed the birth, but this way there was no anxiety or stress, just, voila! Babies! Besides, I still have Tierra's to look forward to, and if she has as many babies as we suspect, that birthing counts for two in and of itself!

Thus concludes the first birthing on our farm, which by the way is officially named Gypsy's Dream Farm. :)

7 Things

Well, apparently I've been tagged, and now I have to post 7 things my readers may not know about me. Hmmm. Here goes.

1. For those of you who've seen the movie Tombstone, you know the villain who in the opening scene kills the bride and groom as they leave the chapel? His name is Curly Bill Brosius. And I am related to him. My mother's maiden name is actually Brosius. My husband is tickled by this fact to no end, and was astounded the first time he made me watch that movie when I jumped up and paused it and said, "Holy crap! I'm related to that guy!" All I'd known was that there was some shady western guy in my family tree by the ridiculous name of Curly Bill. I had no idea I was descended from such legendary stock! That movie has a veritable cult following, and I am therefore to be worshiped. A little.

2. I am double jointed in my knees. I thought everybody's knees made nasty grinding noises when they bent their knees backwards a little. Apparently they don't, because they can't. Oh.

3. I grew up traveling the US and Mexico, and attended public school in Sonora, Mexico for a few years when I was about 9. I spoke fluent Spanish, which has since seeped out of my ears in my sleep, apparently. I can still understand about 70% of what I hear, but can only regurgitate about 20% when I have to speak it.

4. I used to have my nipples pierced. And yes, it did hurt. Worse than natural childbirth.

5. I lost my virginity in kindergarten. My boyfriend (who I "dated" straight through 2nd grade) told me at recess one day that he saw his parents "do it" and would I like to try. I thought about it, and said, "Sure!" So we met at the bottom of the playground where there was a small grassy slope. By this time a whole crowd of 5 year olds had gathered to see exactly how "it" was done. Brandon (my bf) told me that we were going to lie down and wrap our arms around each other and roll down the hill, in other words, "doing it." We rolled down that hill in front of the entire kindergarten class, and I have to say, when I got up amidst reverent whispers of, "Wow...they just did it!" and brushed the grass clippings from myself I felt quite the woman.

6. I LOVE to bellydance. I was taking a class in Charleston before we moved out here to the farm, and was actually taking private tutoring lessons from the Bellydance Troupe leader practicing my audition piece for the troupe tryouts in July. I would have made it, too, and gone on to shake my mommy belly for half of Charleston, but instead I set aside that dream to move an hour away to the sticks and be a farmer. But I've never regretted it for a minute. There will be another opportunity for bellydance, I know.

7. I enjoy doing mildly shocking/obscene things to inanimate objects. Hence this picture taken on our honeymoon in Canada.

I now tag the following sites for 7 Things we don't know about them!

• Life Beyond the Sidewalks
  
• Hodge Podge Farm
  
• A Homesteading Neophyte
  
• This Goats Life
  
• Goat Philosophy 101
  

And a special thanks to the person who was kind enough to put us on this list in the first place!
Nature's Harmony Farm

• Once you are tagged, link back to the person who tagged you.
• Post the rules on your blog.
• Post 7 random or weird facts about yourself on your blog.
• Tag 7 people and link to them.
• Comment on their blog to let them know they have been tagged.

Sharing the Discomfort

If I have to listen to this all night, then you guys can at least hear it once so you can properly sympathize. This is a video I took 5 minutes ago of the baby monitor I've been sleeping with for 5 nights now awaiting notification of some goat babies. The rhythmic crunching is Tierra chewing her cud in the OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE BARN! It is punctuated with miserable little moans, also coming from Tierra, which indicates that she has indeed tried to lie down and is so miserable she moans with each inhalation. Then you hear the neighbors dogs barking as if they are right here in my living room. Oh, and the bit in the middle with all the knocking about and all the red lights light up? Yea, that would be Puck clambering around on top of his dog kennel he likes to sleep in. It's a veritable wonderland of awkward nighttime noises in there, and I get to sleep to it!

My Ticking Time Bombs

Goat Thy Name Is Bad Timing

This is Jacqui. Jacqui is my mother-in-law. There is a decent chance that I may hate her by the end of the week.

You see, Harmony's due date came and went yesterday, to no avail. No goo, no vanishing of the ligaments, no pawing at the ground, no baby talking; in other words, no babies. :( Today I had to work in Summerville, about an hour away, doing massage at a chiropractor's office. I was so worried that I would be gone all day and miss the birth, so I sweet talked my mother-in-law, the aforementioned Jacqui, into coming up to goat-sit just in case the grand event were to transpire in my absence. She even drove up last night for a one-on-one crash course in goat labor. By the end of the night her head was swimming with visions of little white hooves emerging, umbilical cords in iodine, copious amounts of colorful goo everywhere, and best of all, her hand buried in the business end of a goat. I think I managed to pretty well freak her out, basically. But she's a trooper and still game for the assignment. Luckily, I only had a few massages in the morning today so I was able to get home myself to keep an eye on Harmony by noon, so Jacqui was spared. For now. I'm hoping the offer still stands for tomorrow when I have to again work in Summerville. *This is me batting my eyes at you compellingly, Jacqui!* Its an acknowledged fact by all parties, though, that if Jacqui gets to witness the first birth on my farm I will hate her a little bit.

When I got home today, Harmony was still looking as perky as ever, with nothing to show for the passing of her due date but a little swelling in her vulva. As the afternoon progressed, and I was out there taking a peek at her bottom about every hour, I noticed that her little udder is not quite as little as it used to be! It's downright bulging out from between her back legs now, which I think is a good sign. For a first freshener (a goat pregnant for the very first time) she's got quite an udder on her, I think anyway.

This is a picture of me checking her ligaments. Goats have a ligament on either side of their spine right above their tails, and when they "disappear" that indicates that they have softened sufficiently to allow the kid to pass through the birth canal, therefore birth is impending. I've been practicing feeling everybody's ligaments for months now, so I'm fairly confident when I say that Harmony's are definitely still there, although slightly softer than they used to be.

So I've been out there all afternoon looking for all these signs in Harmony, then I looked over at Tierra. I realized that everything I've been looking for in Harmony, Tierra has already done. Her udder is as tight as a tick, I swear she couldn't get another ounce of milk in there if she had to. Her ligaments have been almost non-existent for weeks. I never did even find them today. She has huge shallow depressions on either side of her spine just above her tail, another sign. No goo or anything, though. I swear, I'm not going to be able to watch for any of the classic signs with her, because she's already done them all. I was able to feel the babies kicking this afternoon, though, so that means they're probably not in position and serious about coming out yet. She is due Tuesday, 6 days from now. I don't know how she's going to accommodate her babies growing in there even another day. It's hard to express with pictures just how large her stomach really is. It's hard to show her pendulous walk as she tries to navigate with this huge thing hanging from her middle. These pictures were taken from some different angles this afternoon to try to give an idea. Look at the size of her chest compared to her belly. Even with a beautifully attached udder, her milk-filled teats are mere inches from the ground. Every time I look at her I say, "Poor Tierra." Even people who have never seen goats before come here and say, "Wow! Look at that goat's belly!"

When I was complaining to Ayden this evening over dinner that Harmony still hasn't had her babies, he told me very matter-of-factly, "Because they're not done cooking, Mommy." Oh. My bad.

So. Since Harmony insists on going over her due date, she's just gonna have to keep those babies in there until I can be home tomorrow afternoon. Because nobody WANTS to hate their mother-in-law. Especially not one as cool as Jacqui.

Pregnant Beauties

Poor Tierra. So pregnant she's taken to leaning on trees, and she still has a week and a half to go! She's so big she's even putting my huge pregnant belly with Ayden to shame! I guess I was only carrying a 7 lb baby boy, not twins, triplets, or even quadruplets! Anybody care to make a stab at how many kids she's got in there?
I'll post a before and after picture of her to give you the full effect.
Tierra when I got her:














Tierra today:
Notice I did not post a before picture of myself. Nobody wants the masses to compare them to their pre-baby states. There'd be too much crying and gnashing of teeth. We'll leave the comparisons for the livestock!

Getting Ready for Babies! (Not Mine, Thank Goodness!)

Well, lots of exciting stuff is happening here on the farm. First and foremost, of course, I have the two does that are due to kid soon. Harmony is most likely going to kid sometime in the next few days *me biting my nails*, and Tierra is due on February 5th, only about a week and a half from now. I got my husband to pick me up a used baby monitor at the consignment shop in Charleston 3 days ago, and we've been sleeping with it on in our bedroom, just in case. And yes, our bedrooms walls are orange, and it is awesome. You can even see the gold glitter in the paint in this picture. ;) Thank goodness the goats bed down and keep it quiet at night or I'm not sure I could be quite as vigilant a goatmother! As it is, I already sleep with cotton balls in my ears (picture this: a loving husband mouth breathing in your ear all night.... guhhhhh... guhhhh... guhhhh... you'd sleep with cotton balls, too).

I'm so nervous and excited about the impending goat births that I just about don't know what to do with myself. I try to remember life before pregnant goats and I just can't quite fathom it. I know I did it for 27 years, but I don't think I could have enjoyed it very much. I've compiled all the things I need for my girls' kiddings:
1. Iodine- to dip the kid's navels
2. Bed pads- to wipe the gooey kids down with
3. Gloves- in case I gotta go in!
4. Industrial size tube of KY Jelly- so my goat doesn't hate me if I have to go in!
5. Dental floss- to tie the umbilical cords if needed
6. Nutri-Drench- electrolyte supplement for weak kids/moms
7. 2 kid nipples and one clean ginger ale bottle thanks to Jacqui and Jerry- in case I end up needing to bottle feed somebody
8. Flashlight- obvious reasons
9. Molasses- to give to mom in warm water to help her recover from the stress of kidding
10. Camera- oh, yeah, you guys are gonna have some interesting pictures!
11. Vet phone number- just in case...

There's more, I know there is, but thats all my sleepy brain can regurgitate for now. I've watched so many kidding videos on youtube and read so much about it that I feel like an expert minus the hands-on experience. Not the best place to be, but certainly not the worst.

I've been keeping busy while waiting for all these babies to start raining down on us. I pounded 22 t-posts into the ground by myself yesterday, and man am I feeling it today! For those of you who don't know, a t-post is the metal posts that you see holding up fencing, field fencing in our case. You stick this really heavy metal tube thingy with handles on it over the end of the 6 foot high post and proceed to pound it into the ground about a foot. Yippee. Yeah, so, now that you know what that is I'll just let you digest the fact that I did 22 yesterday. I set all the posts for the very large existing goat pen fence, a buck pen, and even a separate quarantine pen to be used as needed, but especially if/when we get a new goat and need to keep it separate from the others for a while. I've decided to take the electric goat netting down that encloses their pen and replace it with more permanent field fencing, because I'm tired of the electric fence always shorting out from 6" of weeds or drifts of dry leaves bogging it down. I'll reserve the electric fence for rotational grazing in the back pasture in the spring. The guy from my local feed store delivered the fencing and posts on Monday, and when I finished setting the posts yesterday I had to go there to pick up some vaccines and other things they'd ordered for me. He recognized me and asked about the fence, so I told him I was exhausted because I'd just finished setting all of the posts. Oh, you should have seen his face! He actually sputtered a little and his eyes got big. I guess he doesn't come across many women who tackle these jobs. When he was here to deliver the fencing he told my father-in-law that he'd have to take my husband out to show him this really great way to build a chicken coop, and my father-in-law said, we'll you'd want to take her. And the guy said, "No, him because he'd be the one building it." My father-in-law laughed and said, "No, she built that" and pointed at the barn. :) How satisfying. So now he probably thinks I'm this manly he-woman who does fencing and builds stuff. So be it. I'm just home more than my husband, more motivated, and capable. So why not me?!

On a side note, I have to tell what Ayden and I found a couple days ago. We've been getting eggs very consistently of late, at the rate of about 7 a day, which isn't too shabby for 14 hens just starting to lay in wintertime. Unfortunately, they've been pretty consistent in their mission to lay eggs all about the property. Ayden of course loves this, and said, "Mommy, its fun to have Easter egg hunt every day!" But when gathering the eggs consists of scoping out the entire goat barn (even found one in the middle of the floor with 6 goats milling all about it!), crawling on my hands and knees under the back porch steps, and fishing through the bushes, I knew enough was enough. On our last egg gathering operation, we finally discovered the mother load. Sixteen eggs under the guest bedroom window. Sixteen. Thank goodness it's been cold out and they were just as fresh as if they'd been in my refrigerator. I've float tested all of them and every single one of them was less than 3 days old. After that episode, I decided it's time to teach my chickens where chickens are supposed to lay eggs. In the chicken coop. So far only one Wyandotte hen would lay in the nest box, and she'd leave it for me in the same box every morning. So now I'm having to keep the chickens locked in their run for a week or so until they get used to laying in their boxes. I feel bad for them, but its just gonna have to be that way. Between them and having Harmony shut in the kidding stall at night and while I'm at work, I'm beginning to feel like a jailer! I'll be happy when everybody can be out running amok as God intended.

Two Thumbs Up: Goats Gone Wild

Here's a couple movies I've taken of the goats over the last month or so and forgot to post. This first one you can see Lucy hauling butt around the goat pen just because she can. I've never seen a goat move that fast! (That's me talking on the phone to my mother that you hear. I have not lost my mind.)


This one is really funny, it was taken 2 days ago when all my goats lost their minds. Well, except for Tierra who is so hugely pregnant that all she did was scowl from the door of the goat barn. I was home with Ayden and happened to look out the window and see Sahara and Louie slamming heads. Really weird considering Louie has expressed not even the slightest interest in the two new Nigerians, not even so much as a Hi-how-are-ya. Sahara was rearing up on her hind legs and beating Louie back, who I began to realize was chasing Sahara. And then trying to mount her. On her face. *sigh* Sahara was running full-tilt around the pen to get away from him, and then I saw her go over to Harmony (her daughter, mind you!) and mount HER! What?! I ran for the camera and was just in time to capture Louie advancing on Sahara, her butting him off, and then Louie doing a feisty little triple axle move in mid-air. Whoa! Did I mention that the whole time Louie was chasing Sahara, Lucy was chasing him? It was mayhem.


Unfortunately, all these signs point to Sahara not being pregnant after all and that she may have just gone back into heat. But apparently she's always been hormonal during her pregnancies and it is not unusual for her to mount other does at that time. She also had a healthy bit of goo swinging from her bottom, which can also be a sign of heat, but that, too, is normal for her during pregnancy. So we'll just have to watch and see if this all happens again in 18-22 days. If it does, and she is truly not bred, then Puck will get to show his stuff sooner rather than later! Bucklings are actually virile from as early as 7 weeks old and at that point need to be separated from not only their mother but their sisters. Heavens!

Why Did The Chicken Go In The Goat Barn?

Well, we have been quite the farmers today! I woke up excited to go check in the chicken coop to see if anybody else was gonna leave us some eggs, and I was not disappointed! I found one brown egg in one of my nest boxes (oh you have NO idea how satisfying that is!).

We did eat our first green egg yesterday morning when I did not have enough eggs to make omelettes. Can you figure out which one it is? I'll give you the hint: its the really yummy dark orange chock full of vitamin E from all that healthy sunlight perfectly spherically yolked egg!

Next on the agenda was a road trip... to pick up another goat! I got an email from Laurel Haven saying that they had a buckling available at a reduced price because through a series of unfortunate events, they were unable to have him disbudded as a baby and now he has horns, which is a big no-no in the dairy goat world. She was planning on weathering (castrating) him and selling him as a pet, but she said he's so conformationally sound that it just killed her to do it. He's her first kid from a flashy boy by the name of Sharpie, who's a whole kettle of fish and then some. I was planning on buying a buckling from her in the spring, and I really wanted one of Sharpie's, so... its a match made in heaven! Louie has reached the point in his life here on the farm that he's finally gotta be separated from the girls since they'll be starting to give birth in a week and I don't want him messing with them or possibly re-breeding them. He's got horns (almost all Angoras do, apparently, I'm not sure why they aren't disbudded, too), so a little Nigerian Dwarf buck with horns would make an ideal pen-mate for him. I'm not sure what to do with Lucy... the whole reason for Louie to be here is to breed Lucy, and they're best friend's so I hate to separate them. But on the other hand, if I put her in the buck pen with Louie and the new Nigerian buckling, there's always the chance that the wrong buck will breed her and I'll end up with a Nigora baby. That's not so bad, but completely defeats the whole purpose of having Louie here. So we'll see. I guess I'll just have to consent to taking her on dates with Louie when she's feeling amorous.

Anyway, we packed up the family and made the 2 hour trip to Laurel Haven and picked up my little guy, and on the way there finalized his name. He had not been registered yet, so we got to pick the last part of his name. The first part is of course Laurel Haven because that's the herd name he was born into, so his full name is now Laurel Haven's Lucky Puck. It was a tossup between Puck and Bugaboo, and Puck won. I suspect Bugaboo will resurface as a buckling or weather name in the near future, though. :)He's a cute little fella and is handling the move like a champ. This is his first time away from his mom (I feel so wrong taking a baby from it's mother you have no idea), so he's inevitably going to cry for a few days. He's already let us hear what he's got this evening, as he's locked in one of the new stalls in the goat barn while everybody gets to know each other through the slats. I also want to give him some time to adjust before I set him loose out in the pen to discover electric fencing. It's been quite an experience for them all that first day, as everybody but Tierra had never experienced it. Tierra took one look at it and said, "No, I'm good."

In all the excitement of installing Puck in the goat barn, I stumbled upon a really fun surprise. I had placed a large dog carrier in the corner of the other stall last week just incase Harmony or Sahara would want a place to hide. When I grabbed it to move into Puck's stall, I saw this behind it. It was a perfect little hollowed out nest in the corner of the stall with eggs in it! (Notice how dark green that one egg is...fascinating!) Apparently some chickens have been sneaking in here and laying for heaven's only knows how long! I burst out laughing and ran to get Dustin and Ayden. Just then a brown hen came in and plopped herself down ontop of them. I told Dustin that he should take a peek inside the carrier to see if anybody had been in there, and he found 6 green eggs in there, too! So apparently my chickens have been quite busy and just failed to alert me to that fact. The brown chicken then got off the clutch of eggs in the corner and parked herself on the eggs in the crate, and here's her picture doing just that. As a mother myself, it feels so wrong to take a chicken's egg when she obviously wants to sit on it and make some babies. But, considering the fact that she's left them each night to go roost in the cozy chicken coop, I know there are not any babies in those things. I did finally take her eggs when she left the carrier, and I even placed the smaller cat carrier in the corner of the coop with some nice leaves in it for any chickens who'd prefer to lay in that. I don't care where they lay them, as long as I can find them. Right before we left to go get Puck today we noticed that one of the black hens was copping a squat in one of the nest baskets in the coop, and sure enough there was a perfect little brown egg when we got home! So, in one day we were able to gather... are you ready for this?

A DOZEN EGGS!

The Not-Quite-But-Possibly-Truly-First-Egg

Today while I was stuck at home babysitting Ayden again, I decided I am at least going to have something to show for this day other than a paycheck. So when he went down for his nap (thankfully feeling much better) I bundled up and headed out to the chicken coop to build my now-egg-producing-poultry something nice to lay their eggs in. I had bought some white baskets from the dollar store about 4 months ago to use as nest boxes, but so far they'd just been stuck up on a high shelf in the chicken coop waiting for me to install them. Recently one of the black hens has taken to roosting at night way up there perched on this precarious stack of baskets. Often I have looked at those baskets and idly wondered, "Could there be an egg in there? Nah." Well today when I took it down lo and behold, there was one filthy brown egg nestled in 4 months worth of chicken droppings. Ewwww. But it still brought a smile to my face seeing something so precious that my chicken had left for me. It gave me warm fuzzies thinking about her jumping up about 8 feet to get on that shelf and then thinking that basket would be the perfect thing to lay an egg in (yea me for thinking like a chicken!) and then crawling inside that stack of baskets and laying her egg. Granted, in filth, but an egg nevertheless. I have no idea how old this egg is, and I may do the egg-in-water test to determine how old it is. What you do is pour a bowl full of cold water and gently place the egg in it. If it sinks to the bottom and stays there, it is about three to six days old. If it sinks, but floats at an angle, it's more than a week old. If it sinks, but then stands on end, it's about two weeks old. If it floats, it's too old and should be discarded. Go ahead and try that with your store bought eggs and you might never eat them again!

I was able to accomplish an unholy amount of remodeling while Ayden took his nap. I took down 3 shelves that were previously installed high on one wall of the coop, and re-purposed them as shelves to screw the nest boxes onto. Since they love to sleep in naughty places, such as up on one of the shelves in the shed-side of the coop, I went ahead and put a couple nest boxes up there. If they're gonna be pooping all over my side of the shed they can at least lay me some eggs while they're at it. I filled their nest boxes with dry leaves (which were very hard to find considering it's been raining for 2 days... devotion is me out there picking leaves one by one from the top layer of leaves strewn about my lawn). My mother suggested I make the nest boxes more tempting by putting a hard-boiled egg in it to get their little eggy motors running (note the large brown egg in the nest. That thing looks so tempting even I would like to lay an egg in it). Porcelain eggs are ideal because they cannot accidentally break the egg out of curiosity with a well placed peck and then discover its wonderful yummy contents and thus become egg eating monsters. Alas I have no porcelain eggs. I riffled through Ayden's toy box looking for last years Easter eggs and managed to find the fake plastic egg that came with his kitchenette set from 2 years ago along with a fake strawberry and a hard red ball. Chickens are not that smart... so why not?

Fake plastic egg.

Fake plastic strawberry.
;)

And Then The Chicken Said, "What the Heck Was That?!"

Well, yesterday I got a call from Ayden's school saying he was running a fever of 101 and complaining of stomach pains, so I had to go pick him up early. The rest of the afternoon and evening were spent watching my sweet child listless and puking. I had to cancel my massages for today so I could stay home with him, and I am really glad I did because he's even hotter this morning, though thankfully no more puking. We lounged in bed until almost 9:30 this morning, dozing and cuddling together. Eventually I knew I'd have to get up and go do my chores, especially since the chickens were locked in their coop. I made it out there at about a quarter till 10, and I had some pretty restless chickens glaring at me through the chicken wire divider in our coop. As I bent over to scoop some feed, one of the roosters crowed right in my ear and I swear I could feel my ear drums rattle. Wonderful. When I opened the door they came flooding out over my feet in a great poultry escape move. After they'd gone boiling out the door, the coop was eerily silent. I headed toward their little door in the corner, but something caught my eye. Something distinctly round and pale green nestled in the paper shreds.....

IT'S OUR FIRST EGG!!!!

According to my figures, over the last 7 months we have spent roughly $88 on chicken feed, $8 on a brooder lamp, lets say $40 on electricity to keep their heat lamp on 24/7 while they were chicks, $50 for them as day-old chicks, $50 for their feeder and waterer's (small chick sized ones and large 1 gallon ones for when they got older), $80 for chicken wire and hardware to enclose their run and separate off half of our shed to function as their coop... am I forgetting anything? Probably, but lets just run with that figure. So that means that this egg cost me somewhere in the neighborhood of $316. I'll let you know if it is made of solid gold when we eat it.I know he looks feverish, but heavens his little rosy cheeks are adorable.You can see the difference in size to these awful store bought eggs. They will get bigger as their little eggy organs further develop.

Dropping The Ball

My mother just pointed out to me that I have yet to post only the most adorable picture of my child EVER. I remember saving it for a very special blog, because it's just so cute, but apparently that never materialized and I failed to post it altogether. Oops! Well, here's to rectifying that. :)
It really shows how truly tiny my two new Nigerian Dwarf goats are. Keep in mind that Ayden is only 3 years old!

Wide Loads Taking Over

I thought my pregnant girls deserved a blog all to themselves, seeing as how they're just bursting with baby flavor. Tierra and Harmony are due on the same day, February 5th. What are the chances of that? Especially considering I bought them both pregnant from different farms. Harmony has been very obviously pregnant since the first time I saw her. Her little belly bulges on both sides, and she's definitely carrying her babies high up, compared to Tierra who has never really gained and inch side-to-side, but who's belly just gets closer and closer to the ground each day.
About two weeks ago I caught Harmony standing up on the picnic table, and I thought I'd see if I could feel any movement in her belly. As soon as I placed my hand on her I felt a very distinct little pop against my palm. Whoa! A few days later as I was sitting outside in a lawnchair watching her and Sahara cuddling in a patch of sunlight, I could see Harmony's little bulging belly just jumping and bopping all over the place. The moment was so beautiful it almost gave me goosebumps. I think she must have some seriously active babies in there, and I can really sympathize after having been pregnant with Ayden. In my 9th month when I would do my kick counts (you're supposed to feel the baby kick at least 12 times in one hour) I would literally count 12 kicks in the space of less than a minute. The whole thing was absurd for me. I never minded until that space of about 12 hours when he was positioned just right to be kicking me right in the cervix. Ahhh! It felt like being shocked with a cattle prod, and I would have absolutely NO warning. Terrible. I'm sure Dustin and my mom remember that episode with me screaming every few minutes...

Moving on. Tierra, unlike Harmony, has not felt the need to stand still long enough for me to feel her babies. Every time I'd try to reach under her, she'd immediately walk away. I guess it probably has something to do with the fact that she's used to being milked and has decided not to let me get anywhere near her udder without the requisite grain ration. She knows I'm green at this and she takes advantage of me, I just know it. Thats ok, though, because this evening I gave her the scratching of her life and surreptitiously snuck my palm down to her stomach. I was almost immediately rewarded with a very distinct flutter against my hand, and after a few moments a few hardy kicks to my hand. YEA! It was the highlight of my day. I stood there stooped over her, frantically rubbing and scratching with my other hand until my poor back just could not take another moment. When I straightened up and took a step back, she looked at me with a "hey-where-the-heck-do-you-think-you're-going stare" and walked over and leaned against my thighs wanting more. So of course I sacrificed my own comfort and partook in a little more goat-lovin'.

Something interesting about Tierra, I've found, is that she seems to be carrying her babies way down low. I had my doubts that she was even pregnant because she is not an inch wider than when I first got her, but about a month ago I noticed that she's getting to be a definite wedge shape. Skinny neck to moderate sized chest and a steady slope downhill from there, ending with her ever-increasing udder. Another interesting thing happening with her is that all of a sudden it feels like I can touch my fingers under her spine right above her tail. You're supposed to feel for ligaments there, because when they seem to disappear, that means the birth is imminent. I've been practicing since I got her, but there for a while she was so fat that she had fat pads bulging on either side of her spine. So, I cut back on her grain and now she's slimmed down. I was reading on the Internet the other day that her spine popping up like that is a normal thing that can happen a few weeks before kidding. Two weeks ago I noticed that overnight her vulva went from being a perky 2-3 inches long to about 5. I'll spare you the pictures I took. I of course flipped out and thought she was going into premature labor and even had my mom come up and babysit her while I was at work just in case. The next morning everything was back to its normal size, and then three days ago I noticed that she had a small bit of orange goo coming out, which is another sign of labor, only its usually a very large amount. Nothing has happened since, and I am assuming that her body is just gearing up for the big event. Maybe it means that she'll have a very easy kidding since her body has been getting used to the idea this whole time. :)

Her udder is even starting to change. Even though she was in milk when I bought her, her udder was never much to look at size-wise. Lately, though, it has plumped up so big that it's even starting to bulge out the back. You can really see it in this picture. Pretty soon it'll be time to give her a shave on her udder and backside in preparation for the birth. I'm sure she's gonna love that. It can't be any worse than attempting to give Louie a pizzle trim (its what you think it is). *full body shiver*

A Week Of Pictures

I've taken so many pictures over this past week, but none of them are blog-worthy in and of themselves, so I thought I'd post them all. Just cause. :)

Louie, Lucy, and Tierra enjoying their new hay rack. Especially now that it doesn't fall off the wall whenever you turn your back.
















Ambrose sleeping on an o-so-cozy pat of hay on the front porch. What a farm cat.
















Sahara, Harmony, Tierra, and believe it or not, Louie, up to their eyeballs in forage in the back pasture. The two new Nigerians are finally settling in and becoming part of the herd, even following Tierra and the others out on their browse circuit. Chickens standing sentry on the back porch on a cold day.



















Louie, me, and Lucy on that same cold day. Louie came of for air for a moment from chewing on the button on my mitten long enough for Dustin to take his picture.