Holly

Holly finally had her kids a couple weeks ago. She had a rough labor, in fact, Fran had to come over and help deliver them. We don't think her cervix was opening all of the way and the first kid got stuck. One of the reasons this may have happened was because she had a prolapse throughout the entire end of her pregnancy and her insides were hanging out of her vulva when she layed down. Her ligaments just couldn't hold her heavy load in. Perhaps there was some scarring from this.
This is the first time I have had to help get a kid out and wasn't sure how to help without tearing the cervix. I had my hand inside of her for a couple of hours massaging it seeing if it would open more. It felt very tight like it wouldn't be very elastic and I was scared to pull on the kid hard thinking the cervix might tear. Fran got here and got them out right away. There is a bit of technique to it and now I know I can be a bit more forceful.
Of course, after all that trouble, she had 2 boys. I was hoping she had quads in there because that would explain the prolapse but there was only 2. They are the cutest little guys we have ever had here though. They are Nubian/Alpine crosses. The first guy was the biggest with the second being considerably smaller.
Holly decided she hates her first born. Not just indifference but hate. She won't feed him and if he comes close to her she bites him and flings him away from her. Poor fella. For the first few days I put her on the milk stand to let him eat several times a day but then she didn't really have a lot of milk and she started to develop mastitis. Now Flower goes to the milkstand a few times a day to feed him. She is such a piggy she doesn't mind at all as long as there is food around.
Since he has no really mommy he follows us around and when we leave the barn area we have to sneak out so he doesn't run through the electric fence. We were going to butcher these two with the other bucks but the boys have friends down the road that have decided they want to keep them as land clearers and pets. So now Bubba (abandoned kid) and Cow (Holly's favorite with black and white spots) will have a new home to go to in a few weeks.
I'm not sure how much longer Holly will be in this herd. We are going to be making some difficult decisions soon.

Lavender

I need to get a better picture of her. This is from a few weeks back. She is so pretty and such a good girl.

Kool-Aid mustache?

I've heard of Kool-Aid mustaches but what about a Kool-Aid Goat-T? Apparently Flower likes fruit punch Kool-Aid. The boys left their cups out on the picnic table and Flower finished them off. The picture really doesn't do her justice, her mouth was really red.

Introducing...

R.J. and TY! Flower had her babies today around 12:30p. She had two stinky, stupid boys. RJ stands for Rastus Jr. and ty is just because. The first pick is of me crossing my fingers for girls and thinking pink. The video at the end is dark but worth it I think.

When??

Her due date was yesterday, her udder is full, her vulva is puffy and she is mean as hell. When is she gonna pop some babies out?

Flower is due!

Thought I would share my misery. Flower is due today and doesn't look like she will be ready to go for another week at least. (sad face) Guess it's time to hook up the baby monitor and start waking up in the middle of the night to check on her. At least I have due dated this year. I bet it cut down on at least 2 weeks of sleepless nights.

Mad Goat!

Our beautiful, loving, friendly Flower has an evil side. It is weird, she doesn't like certain kids. She has been around our boys and a few of their friends and been very friendly. A couple of months ago my nephews were here and she attacked them. At the time we blamed it on a peanut butter sandwich that they had just eaten. Thought maybe she could smell it on them and was trying to bully them into giving some to her. Well, today the boys had some friends from down the road over and Flower attacked one of them. Ian says he doesn't like peanut butter so that is out. When Donavan was petting her she kept ignoring him and was staring at Ian the whole time then when he turned his back... Flower attacked! She was headbutting him and trying to knock him down. This is our sweet bottle baby that drives us nuts trying to cuddle with us, this is the sweet girl that tries to sit in my lap. Very Odd.

I win!

Charity finally, really went into heat today. I loaded her up this morning and took her to Fran's, who, by the way was extremely gracious to let us trespass while she and John were not home. (Thank you) Charity was not as put off by Rastiff this time around. They got along quite nicely and did the deed for sure 2 times maybe 3.

Charity is done, Flower is done, and I'm beginning to believe Cole took care of Holly. So there it is, I WIN.

One down...

... and maybe 2 to go. This morning Flower was sniffing Charity's rear end and trying to hump her so she took the trip to see Rastiff today. She hopped right in the car like she does it everyday and drove me nuts on the way over. I have the seat covered with plastic so if there are any accidents its not that bad, but Flower was all over the place like a puppy. She is such a character. Rastiff and Flower are just a match made in heaven. They were blubbering and snorting at each other through the fence and boy was her tail wagging! The deed was done 3 times ensuring Rastiff's nastiness was smeared all over Flower for the ride home. To take advantage of that fact, she made sure to rub up against every available surface while in the backseat. And then, for her last thank you to me for taking her to see her new beau, she peed on the backseat after removing the plastic,of course, mere yards from the driveway. Yea, Flower!


I say maybe 2 to go because maybe Charity got bred on her visit to Rastiff. I have to keep my eye on her to see if she goes into heat next week. And maybe, just maybe, Cole got the job done with Holly on her previous heat. Fingers crossed.

What to do...

I don't know what to do with these does. I can't tell when Charity is in heat. I thought I could tell when Holly was in heat (like yesterday), then today nothing. She was real interested in a buck rag yesterday, today she couldn't care less. She has discharge from her vulva like usual but she never did really holler super loud like she usually does, but what gives?? Oh, btw, a buck rag is a rag that has been wiped all over a bucky buck and stinks to high heaven, (or smells delightfully sexual if you happen to be in the caprine family). Charity wasn't interested in the rag yesterday but today is a little more curious, I don't know, I'm about to give up!

Still not a whole lot going on around here. Cole is still battling some kind of illness. One day his poop is hard the next it is a bit soft. I;m still working on it. It is not as bad as it was though. He has to get better by next week though so I can put Holly back in with him to make babies!!

I've always been pretty surprised about not ever seeing any mice around our place. With all of the animals and animal food you'd think I'd see them once in awhile. Well, the other night Kiska came running through the living room with a very good size mouse dangling from her mouth still alive. The boys got her outside with it and then I had to admit that maybe the cat is not as useless as I thought. Though I have been coming around to that thought recently because of some mole carcasses and innards I found at the front door. Please don't tell Kiska, we have a love hate relationship.

We have a rabbit living under our house. Once again a rabbit escaped from its cage 4 feet off the ground. She has taken up residence under our house and has somehow escaped the jaws of Ama now for a week. We have tried to catch her but she is too wily for us. We need to get a wild animal catching cage.

We are getting 3 eggs a day now. Again none of them are from the chickens that are put up in a chicken yard and get fed everyday. I don't feed the ones outside of the pen, they fend for themselves. So I think it is definitely time to thin our chicken population once again. Besides we are already out of whole chickens in the freezer.

I am still looking for a car. I have to take the rental back Wednesday. If anyone knows of a Honda or a Toyota for a good price let me know!! Car shopping bites.

Lil Bit

This was a very sad weekend for us. Lil Bit passed away this weekend. I guess you could say it was a freak accident, but of course we feel awful. We miss her so much.

Charity and Cole

We got our new Alpine goats yesterday. They rode in the back of the truck with their heads stuck through the back window into the cab the whole way.

Charity is a registered French Alpine about a year and a half years old and is milking about 1 gallon a day (well, I milk her). She doesn't know what to think about the dogs, she didn't have them at her house, and she 's not too sure about the other goats either. Girls are brutal, and though, Flower seems to be trying to make friends, Lil Bit is trying to be a big bully. I'm not sure how the pecking order will end up, Charity isn't real timid and seems to be holding up fairly well.

Cole is a purebred American Alpine and is our new buck. I am going to breed him with Holly and Lil Bit. His head is bloody because him and his brother were head butting before we picked him up yesterday. He is definitely acting bucky. He is snorting at the girls and acting very macho. As you can see in the picture the girls are very interested. They haven't gone out to graze yet because they can't seem to pull themselves away from him and they're not even in heat right now! Little Hussies!