More fuzzy babies!

At five days old, Dharma's babies were happily scampering about, so we decided they could be let out of the birthing stall.  I usually do this at around three days, but because Sprawl couldn't walk, we held off a bit.

Turns out it was really good timing.  We heard sounds coming from the pasture that afternoon, and upon investigation we found Maharani had quietly given birth around 2pm to twins.  We each grabbed a baby, dried them off, cleaned out the birthing stall and installed the new momma and babies.  She had a boy and a girl, and just like Dharma's babies, they are both fuzzy.

When all the excitement was over, we found Sprawl, Spunk and Spot piled up outside napping after their first afternoon in the pasture.

I especially love Spot's ears.  She looks like a little bunny.

We continue to give supplemental bottles to Spot and Sprawl. 

Kid Update

I think I'll keep posting updates about the babies, especially Sprawl, here, so check back periodically for new information at the top of the post.

We've been feeding Sprawl every 3-4 hours today.  Here he is at the 5:30 feeding when I got home.

Here he's snuggling with the most awesome housemate ever, who's helping take care of him while I'm at work.

Therapy time.  At each feeding we let him try to walk on the pebble walkway or dirt, both of which he manages better than the hay covered concrete of the birthing stall. Oops! 

He's walking/standing better today.  We believe he'll be walking within a couple of days.  He's very vigorous, and has already learned to come running towards ankles.

Sprawl has two sibs.  This is the girl, Spot.  She's got daddy's long ears, with a big, dark-colored spot on the back.  (You can tell we're being very thoughtful with the names here.)

We still need a name for the other boy, seen nursing in this photo.  We'd like to keep the alliterative theme going.

Dharma's fuzzy babies

Back in January I took Dharma over to my goat-partner-in-crime's for a little goat-on-goat action.  I'd missed getting Dharma bred in 2010, and didn't want to miss another breeding season.  So when I failed to catch her again in heat, I made arrangements for her to go on an extended stay with the buck of our choice. 

She obviously came into heat after just three days of exposure to the buck.  We left them together for three weeks, which should have caught two heat cycles.  Goats have 150 day gestation periods, so I calculated out the first day to watch for labor signs as June 17, with a likely day of June 22.  The days came and went...  No babies... 

I had to conclude that she, as well as Maharani, were in fact not successfully bred this winter. Since they were both obviously pregnant, beginning to resemble extra-wide loads, I had to further conclude that they had gotten themselves knocked up by the Angora buck after we moved to new pastures at the end of February.  We share a barn and pasture with a big beautiful Angora buck, a couple of Angora does and their babies, and several sheep.  Well, my girls decided that they liked this big, fuzzy buck, and perhaps they'd like some fuzzy babies of their own.

So based on moving day, I recalculated the earliest possible day they could possibly deliver as July 22.  Sure enough, Dharma at least didn't take long to make friends with the new hunk in her life as she delivered triplets, two boys and a girl, this morning around 3am.  My housemates heard the commotion; I slept through it all.

And they are fuzzy.  One of the boys has long ears, not a La Mancha trait at all. We have fuzzy babies with some dairy conformation characteristics.

One of the boys, the darkest of the three, was having trouble standing, which meant he couldn't effectively nurse. Luckily I had frozen extra colostrum and milk from Dharam's first lactation two years ago.  We thawed the jars and my housemate began feeding the boy on three hour increments while I went off to work.  After the last feeding this evening, the little boy looks like he might start standing on his own soon, and we can stop the bottle feeding. Dharma is a trooper and is taking care of all three babies.

Getting ready for winter

Last week's chance of rain had us scrambling to put things back under shelter, caulk the holes in the shed and getting the chimneys cleaned out and ready to use.  Some things we try to do all summer, like cutting and stacking fire wood,  but there is invariably a fall scramble to get everything done.


There's a reason for fall cleaning in addition to spring cleaning.  I need this kick in the pants, I mean opportunity, to organize and put away all of that stuff left laying around out of doors while we work on projects.  Trimming goat hoofs and making new garden trellises means that bags of screws, drill bits, etc., are often left left wherever I used them last in one mad attempt after another to squeeze one more activity into my day, and now we have the seasoning of reckoning at hand.  I've even cleaned out the garden cart!


We're not the only ones getting ready for winter; we found this praying mantis in our bathroom earlier this week, happily munching on a resident crane fly.  The first year we were here we had a mantis take up residence behind the African violet on the bathroom shelf.  There's no plant there now, but this guy seems just as happy hanging out by my deodorant or on the bathroom mirror.

So going down the list, chance of rain scare not withstanding, we have maybe a cord of wood put by, the yard raked, about half the tools put away, fall veggies planted and chimneys cleaned.  We still need to finish roofing the new goat pen, finish organizing the tool box, built a compost bin, organized the garden tools and pots...  I think I'm losing the battle.


Of our babies born this summer, well some of them are almost all grown up, with some surprises.  The triplet doelings are doing superb, and have put on enough growth that they should handle the cold without any problems.  And those twin boys from Pi?  Well, turns out one of them was a girl too!  

Brack, 3 mo old wither from Pi

Bess and Mary, 5 mo old doelings from Maharani

Unfortunately, it turns out that Pi isn't that great for milking.  Small udder, undeveloped teats even after nursing for three months, so we swapped her out with 3/4 La Mancha doe from Quest Enclave, who is Pi's actual owner. In exchange for wintering at our place, I can milk Bean until it's time to dry her up halfway through her next pregnancy, sometime mid-spring.  Already Bean is an obliging, sweet goat who is giving us about a pint of milk each morning. 

Bean, newest addition

More babies!

 In total we hatched out seven baby chicks between the two mommas. I wasn’t sure what the babies were going to look like, given that we had four varieties of chickens involved, but it looks as though we have two Ameraucanas, one gold-laced, three silver-laced and possibly one blue-laced Wyandotte types.  It’s great to see that they take after the individual varieties so strongly even though they are mixed parentage.

This week also yielded more goat babies!  This was Pi’s first pregnancy, and her birth was over almost before it even began.  I got a quick call that she was in labor, and six minutes later a second call that we already had one baby.  By the time I made it home from work twenty minutes later, everything was over and we had two cute little bucklings.  

We do not need these boys for breeding stock, so they will be wethered (neutered) and sold as pets/brushers.  They’re super cute with elfin ears.  Being second (?) generation mini-manchas, they’ll stay a manageable size, about 70 lbs when full grown. I prefer the minis because I can handle them, even with my torn sacrum ligament, and they don’t overwhelm my nieces and nephews.  We'll try again next year for some doelings out of Pi.

Last week kicked off the Tour de Fleece/Tour de France.  I’m part of Team Spinning Spinderellas.  Organized by Steph, our goal is simply to spin everyday the riders are riding.  Most days I’m spinning in the evening while the family watches tv.  I started with this delicious batt from Rowen.

Yesterday was the monthly spinning Saturday hosted by our fiber guild, and several of the team members joined in the air conditioned meeting room to share what they’ve done so far and get in a solid three hours of spinning.  Alas, I forgot my camera, but Birdsong posted a pic of the pile of finished yarns on the floor.  I started spinning a roving by Steph, "Gonna Nail That Catfish to a Tree."

More spinning today at Tin Thimble’s spinning Sunday!

Of course, between the heat and the spinning, some things like gardening have fallen to the wayside, at least for the moment.

Chickies!!

This post is two weeks old, will get a newer post up soon!  So much more to share.

We have some new additions to our laying flock. Two of our hens became broody, and so we set them up in a couple of dog crates for some quiet solitude, and three weeks later, voila!  We have baby chicks.  So far we have three from the first hen, Smoke, and one from the second hen, Ash, though I'm not certain that Ash is done hatching babies just yet as she started 3-4 days later than her sister Smoke.

For those of you not in the know, hens do not need a rooster present to lay eggs, but those eggs are not fertilized.  Because we do have a rooster, the eggs we collect each evening have the potential for hatching a baby chick, given the right conditions.  Those can be man-made, but a broody chicken is the easiest way to go.  Once a hen has accumulated a nest of eggs, if she is broody she will sit on the nest, incubating the eggs and rolling them over.  Upon hatching, she will begin to teach the chicks how to hunt and peck at food, even mashing up larger food to feed to the babies.  Unlike other baby birds, they are up and following mama within a day of hatching.

We have four varieties of chickens in our flock.  Our rooster is a gold-laced Wyandotte.  Among the hens I have silver-laced and blue-laced Wyandottes and Ameraucanas.  This means that all of the chicks are mixed varieties, though they are exhibiting  certain plumage patterns already.  One looks Ameraucana, one looks blue-laced, and two look silver-laced.  It'll be interesting to see what they look like as they grow up.

We finally named the doelings Mary, Bridget and Bess, three great queens from the British Isles.  Bess is the large, pale doeling.  Bridget is the mostly black doeling and Mary is the calico, which somehow in our minds most closely resembles plaid.  They are friendly and playful, loving to run the length of the pasture in the cool mornings.

Of course, all of the animals, plants too for that matter, are telling me quite clearly that the world is heating up outside.  The plants are wilty, and all of the animals are taking it easy in the shade.  Everyone has access to lots of water, and when it really heats up we'll set up misters to help keep everyone comfortable.

Speaking of plants, I'm trying out a new system for tying up tomatoes this year.  Using a simple A-frame made of 1x3 lumber and a piece of electrical conduit, each tomato is tied with a piece of twine around it's base and up to the conduit.  Every couple of days I simply twist leader (main stem) around the twine.  That's it.  No finding scissors to cut bits of string, or oops, the stake fell over.  Just another twist around the twine.  All the tomatoes are tied up in just a few minutes, and they look fabulous.

I'd heard about this method, and need to give kudos to this humorous youtube video for the clear explanation about the twisting.

The beans are finally sprouted and climbing up their poles.  You can even see the painted lady heirloom beginning to show it's beautiful red flowers.

Triplets!

Our first dairy goat, Maharani, delivered triplets girls Thursday evening.  Just hours after putting the final touches on the new birthing pen, her mucous plug broke, and we were officially on baby watch.  This being Maharani's second birth, it didn't take things long to progress.  I thought I had plenty of time to run to the feed store on the corner, but when I came back, it was to immediately set stuff down, wash my hands, roll up my sleeves and jump into delivery mode.

Her water broke just as I entered the pen, and then we went straight into hard contractions.  My husband said something was coming out, but it didn't look to be a hoof or head.  We changed positions, and I determined it was a front elbow poking out.  I looked at my husband, said something like, "Here goes nothing," and gently pushed the elbow back inside.  This is the first time I've tried to turn a baby, and let me just say, it was amazing, cool and freaky all at the same time.  Things were progressing too quickly to do more than rotate the leg back against the body of the baby and let it come out in a modified birth position.  Goat baby 1!!  Goat baby 2 popped out in the standard diving position twenty seconds later.  Goat baby 3 quickly followed, toosh-end first and still encased in her amniotic sac.  We ripped open the sac and cleared the mucous away from her mouth, and she mewled too.  

Aha!!  Three goat babies!  You never really know for sure how many babies you'll get from a goat.  Twins are typical, but it's just as common to get singles or triplets.  After last year's single boy from Dharma, I was hoping for at least one girl, and twin girls would even better.  I'm not sure I can share just how elated we were at delivering three (count 'em, three!) girls. 

Everbody was up and nursing withing twenty minutes.

Riley really wanted to see.  He's not quite sure about the need for any more babies...

So, we've got the light brown with white undersides, the black and white, and the calico.  Everyone needs names.  Suggestions?  I'd love to have some kind of theme...

Daylight Savings Rant

Last fall during the bi-annual time change, a friend of a friend on facebook posted something to the effect that daylight savings time was a relic of farmers and farming practices, and since farmers are a minority of the population, Day Light Savings should be removed.

As a homesteading/farmer type of person, I immediately and vehemently objected to his statement.  After all, he wasn't the one who was now milking goats in the dark because of the sudden time change at, nor any of the other chores that must be done before and after work.  My work hours certainly didn't change just because the time on the clock did, and instead all of our diurnal actions are shifted for this bit of tomfoolery.

So why do we have DST?  DST as a concept was suggested as early as 1794 by Benjamin Franklin, and was adopted in the United States in 1917 by an Act of Congress.  The basis for DST has always been energy savings, the idea being that people will consume less energy if they are maximizing their use of daylight hours. Unfortunately, studies don't bear out this assumption, but countries around the world continue to follow this principle.

Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia:

The practice is controversial. Adding daylight to afternoons benefits retailing, sports, and other activities that exploit sunlight after working hours,but causes problems for farming, evening entertainment and other occupations tied to the sun. Traffic fatalities are reduced when there is extra afternoon daylight; its effect on health and crime is less clear. Although an early goal of DST was to reduce evening usage of incandescent lighting, formerly a primary use of electricity, modern heating and cooling usage patterns differ greatly, and research about how DST currently affects energy use is limited and often contradictory.

Who really benefits from DST?  Well, the pool and BBQ industry fronted the biggest lobbying checks that got the US Government to add an additional 4 weeks per year of DST, with three weeks in the spring and one week in the fall beginning last year.  Those don't sound like farmers to me!!

So tomorrow morning the sun will not rise until 7:15am and I'm back to milking in the dark in order to get to work on time. 

DST or not, spring is just around the corner, and I have the evidence!

Goats in the sunshine

Flowering quince

The rosemary is beginning to bloom

As is the calendula

And the lilacs are preparing to spring forth!

It's Getting Better All the Time

In this case we're talking about the state of my lungs.  Many of you who saw me at Stitches know that I was suffering from a third round of this bronchitis/cold thing, and let's just say that things got worse before they got better.  So finally giving into common sense, I've been home for several days and broken out the honey-lemon-garlic syrup I should have brewed up weeks ago.

I've used this recipe to good effect many times before, often avoiding or reducing the suffering.

1 cup honey

juice and zest of one organic lemon

3-5 cloves garlic (if they're all big use 3, if small use 5)

1-2 sage leaves

Blend all ingredients together and let sit for 2-4 hours to homogenize.  Strain using a large mesh strainer and put into a small bottle.  Sip 1-2 tsps every 1-2 hours.  If blended right it should taste like a lemon drop.  Soothes throat stuff, coughing and kicks ass against most invaders as raw garlic is anti-bacterial, anti-viral and anti-fungal.  I think this recipe originated from one of Christopher Hobbs' herbals, though it could belong to someone else...

In one of my rare public appearances this week a coworker came by to carpool from my house for a conference in Sacramento.  "Wow, I know you said you lived on the Bear River, but you really do live right on the river!  It's right there!"  Yep, I really do live right on the Bear River, and the most recent rains have finally brought it up to a decent winter level of flow.  I think that both Rollins and Combie Dams have been holding back on the outflow to refill the reservoirs, which is not good for the health of the river, so I'm very glad to see the level up finally.  This is the view of the river from my "backyard".

She also met all of the chickens and goats.  She particularly loved the goats. "They're so friendly and attentive, just like dogs."  Well almost like dogs.  They don't play fetch very well, but they do like being petted and scratched, with a few key differences.  Goats like having their necks, chests and rumps scritched and rubbed, whereas a dog or cat will like their jaws, tops of heads and ears scritched and rubbed.  With goats, scratching of the head is usually a sign of trust as they  don't want their horn area messed with.

That little goat Finn, that was born last June to Dharma?  He's a big goat now, as tall as his mom but still has plenty of room to grow.  He's all leg right now and I expect him to end up about 20% larger than his mom by the time he finishes growing in another year.

Maharani was bred on New Year's Eve to my friend Joanne's buck Glimmercroft Stormfront, a third generation miniature La Mancha.  It's very easy to breed these medium-sized goats.  We watch for the girls to come in heat, snap them onto a lead and have them jump into the large dog crate in the back of the car.  A twenty minute car ride later and they are flirting with the buck of choice.  We stand around and shoot the breeze while the goats do their thing.  Three rounds is considered successful and back home we go.  

You really know you've had success when the doe doesn't come back into heat, as was the case with the little black doeling Pi.  This was Pi's first time, and she didn't have a very strong heat at New Years, so even though the deed was done, it didn't take.  She was very much in heat two weeks ago, so DH ran her over (I being sick) and there's no question about it this time.

Goats have a gestation period of 5 months (150 days), give or take 5 days either way, so we're expecting our first kids of the year at the end of May, and Pi in mid-July.  We haven't bred Dharma just yet, so we'll have some late babies this fall.  Then I'll be posting more pictures like this one of Dharma giving birth to Finn last June.

Goats are like water

What is a stanchion? It's a stand for securing a goat (or sheep or cow). I use a stanchion for hoof trimming and milking. I'd been using a friend's stanchion. It worked well enough. It got the animal up to a height easier to milk, and had cleats for tying the back feet to prevent kicking. However, the neck guide was great in theory and didn't work so well for my mini goats.



So before building my new stanchion I took a look at design variations at the library and online. I particularly liked this one from Fias Co Farm, with a keyhole neck gate design. Best of all, the plans were in an easy-to-print pdf and included shopping details. It took one afternoon to build, with DH doing the keyhole neck cuts with the jigsaw.

I have two changes to the original design. The first is the addition of cleats for tying hind feet. (It really isn't any fun when your goat sticks her hind foot in the milking pail, although the chickens enjoy the treat of resulting contaminated milk.) The other is height. 14" legs might work for a full size goat, but this is just to low for easy milking on my minis.



You can see that Maharani approves of the mini-feeder attached to the front.

So does this Western fence lizard. I'm not sure how he got in there, but he was really happy to be let loose back on the ground.



A discussion with a local forester with UN experience in Africa had this story to share. After spending LOTS of money to revegetate a particular area, my friend approached the village chief to discuss the goats which were rapidly eating all of the new plantings. "If we don't contain the goats, all of this work will amount to nothing." "Ah," said the chief, "you have to understand. Goats are like water and are not easily contained."

What does this have to do with the price of tea in China? Well, goat fencing occupies a lot of my husband's time, as goats are particularly adept at exploiting any weakness in a fence. So this story has become our new mantra. Goats are like water...

A busy summer...

A friend remarked today that her autumn sense is tingling. Yep, the lessening daylight and lowering incline of the sun in the sky, the desire for handknit socks in the morning and an extra blanket on the bed at night. Next we'll be chopping wood... Fall is just around the corner, which leads me ponder, where has summer gone?


The garden has been prolific, probably something to do with all of the chicken and goat poop and bedding that I mulch the beds with. The winter squash, which turned out to be a kabucha and not an acorn, has taken over one side of the garden. Several kinds of tomatoes are slowly ripening, and the eggplants are in super production mode. In particular, the fairy tale eggplant is doing magnificently.


At my last posting, we had a baby boy goat. Well, he's not so little anymore. He easily weighs 45 lbs and is nearly as tall as the smallest of the minis. If he were going to remain a boy it would be time to separate him from the girls. Instead, Finn is undergoing a procedure that makes my husband cringe to talk about, but the rough part is already over and Finn is handling it like a trooper. We plan to look for a home for Finn, not really needing another browsing animal, but he is pretty adorable, with the same sweet temperament of his momma, and so we find ourselves tempted to keep him anyway.



What else? Well, at the beginning of summer, a friend and I took an intensive spinning class, and I'm now the proud owner of a Ladybug by Schacht. It's small enough to fit under my craft table and take to knit night or spinning events. I used it to spin this green sock yarn which won first place in the novice spinning category at the fair. Woo hoo!


The fair. That took a week of my life, and it was immediately followed by the land trust's annual benefit concert, which took another week of life. Then there was the week of recovery... And that was about it for August.


I've been knitting all summer, some baby items for new arrivals and a tank top that I hope to finish this week. With the whisperings of cooler air, my fingers are itching to do more knitting and spinning, and get warmer projects finished up.

Birth of Goat - Part 2

So much for twins! Just one good size, sturdy boy.



It was a bit of a rough birth. There's was lots of goo (sorry Sharon) and then a foot, more goo, then a second foot. Troy was at her head, comforting and encouraging from that end. I tugged out one foot, then another, and then we got stuck for a bit. Finally a tongue, nose, big push and pull, and we had the head out. The rest of the body slides right out after that.



Sorry no pictures during this phase; we were kinda preoccupied! We hung the baby upside down to encourage draining of the amniotic fluid from it's mouth and nose, then onto the pad in front of mom. We helped mom clean up the baby, so that she spent less time cleaning and more time bonding. Also, if it were a cold day (and not over 100°F), this would minimize chilling time while wet.


The little guy was quick. Not even ten minutes and he was nuzzling for a teat. It took a bit of trying on his part - fingers, my pant cuffs, everything seemed like a good place to nuzzle, including my own dairy case. Sorry guy, no milk there. Up and standing and nursing within twenty minutes is excellent.


It's been an hour. The afterbirth is delivered, baby is dry, mom's had a treat, baby and has nursed and mom and baby are having some quiet time now. They are quietly talking to each other. It's really cute. The baby has the same white spot and lip markings as mamma.

The Birth of a Goat - Part 1

We're on baby goat watch today. Dharma has been showing all the early signs of labor today. Typically goat births are uncomplicated, but it's always best to be on hand. Even if everything goes smoothly, you can assist by helping to clean off the baby, ensuring less clean up time and more bonding time for mom and kid(s). Also, making sure the kid(s) successfully nurse within the first hour is very important. All that aside, it also means that humans are part of the kid(s)' very first experience in this world.


Don't know much about goats? Well, the doe (female goat) has a five month gestation, with typically a five day variance from the day of conception for when she'll typically birth. Unfotunately, Dharma had been living with a buck several months prior to her coming to live with us, so we didn't know her exact date of conception, and have had to rely on her general condition (and girth) to indicate when she was due. All the signs pointed to the end of June, and we've been preparing since the middle of the month.


As each doe and birth is different, she could show all, some or none of the signs. Thank goodness for us we are getting some warning. This morning we had several indicators that suggest that she'll give birth today. Her tail ligaments are softening, resulting in a limp tail, though that has since disappeared since this morning. Her udder, which has been developing for the last several weeks, now has colostrum which I was able to squeeze out this morning, a very strong signal that birth is imminent. She also had some amber colored goo oozing from her vulva, which is amniotic fluid. They can leak a whitish fluid for several weeks prior to birth, but amber is another imminent signal.

Knowing the wait could be many hours, we set up a comfortable station where we can sit adjacent to the pen, and turned the other goats into the nearby pasture. She mews if either of us leaves the area. I'm sitting here with laptop, camera and knitting, being a constant presence. We go in the pen periodically to take a closer look or just provide comfort during this strange time.

We had one contraction at 2:00pm, and some more goo (sorry Sharon), but we're still waiting. Did I mention Dharma's a first timer? We could be here a while. At least it's a condusive situation for knitting.

Trimming Goat Hooves

I've been to five local hay and feed stores looking for a hoof trimmer suitable for small goat hooves - most locations were out or were for horses. I finally picked up a pair of trimmers today and we trimmed the goats hooves.

Troy and I worked in tandem on this project, one person trimming, the other holding the goat steady and provide reassuring petting and butt scratching. As you can imagine, and see in the video, the animal does not like having it's foot picked up anyway.

The overgrown material is similar in composition to our fingernails, and it doesn't hurt the goat to have the excess material removed. In fact, if not removed periodically, it can lead to foot and leg problems as well as increasing the chance for diseased feet. Sheep are more prone to hoof rot, especially during the rainy part of the year, but this could be an issue in goats too, if left untended.

Each goat was praised and fed special treats for enduring the much needed pedicures. This will be the last hoof trim for Dharma until she delivers in the next 2-4 weeks. This guy has great videos about birth and possible complications too!

Milk drinking fools

No, I'm not referring to my husband. I'm talking about my chickens.

For weeks they have watched the evening milking. Black hen in particular would stand around, intently observing for upwards of ten minutes. This is a very long time in chicken time. I wasn't sure what the fascination was. Had she watched milking before? Could she smell the calcium in the milk?

I'd heard about feeding chickens old milk and yogurt, or failed cheese. So when Maharani put her foot in the milking jar, rendering the milk unclean for human consumption, I decided to put some out for the chickens. I was in no way prepared for the chickens' enthusiasm for this treat.

They now expect some everyday. They wait at the stanchion, eyeballing the goat, and get excited when I walk by with a mason jar. Nevermind that it may only be my water jar, I'm followed right inside my studio for anticipated treats.

Sorry there's no sound on the video, but enjoy the antics of my milk drinking chickens!

Happy Mum's Day

I'm not a mom by the standard definition, in that I've never given birth. And yet, I've done the mom thing, as much as anyone can who hasn't gone the pregnancy/birth route. Being significantly older than my full-blooded sibs, I've had my share of diaper changes, 2am teething screaming, being thrown up on, kissing scraped knees, bedtime stories, helping with homework and school projects, etc. Granted, I wasn't their primary parent, but to say I was only their big sister is a misnomer.

And then there's all of the animal babies I watch over. We raised our cat Jilly from the tender age of two weeks old, when she was found orphaned from a feral litter. Eyes just opened and still baby blue, with one ear still down and the other half up, she weighed just two ounces. Bottle feedings every three hours, baths, taking her with us everywhere, and making sure we had enough formula (wish I had dairy goats then!), clean bottles, baby wipes and the basket warmer.



Since then we've had several rounds of baby chicks. Thank goodness they don't require bottle feedings every three hours! The latest group is now five weeks old and have been moved out of the brooder and into a cage with more head room. They're almost completely feathered now, and have just begun spending days outside.

And in June, one of my goats, Dharma, is due to have her first set of kids. We're unsure on her due date, but we think it will be at the end of the month. Will that make me a grandma? I don't think so, but it doesn't stop me from sending animal pictures to my mom for her wallet. And she never fails to ask about the status of all the animals. I've even heard that she brags about them to her friends!

Here's some much requested pics of the goats. Pi is the smaller black one in the foreground. She's a year old, and will be bred for the first time this fall. Maharani (left) is my current milking doe and the alpha of the herd.


Dharma is my new girl, from the same breeder as Maharani, and though you can't quite tell in the bottom picture, is starting to protrude from the sides. After her kids are two months old, they will begin to be weaned and then Dharma will also be milked every day. Of the three, Dharma is the most attached to humans. She'll follow you around like a very needy dog and loves to be petted.



Did I mention she has the sweetest face?