March 2018 Ebony Has Midnight Babies!

Ebony had two kids!  Twin Bucklings.  I LOVE the colors and one even has blue eyes and moon-spots!

 

Birth Story: 

When we put the goats in at dark I could tell Ebony was in labor.  She had a long string of discharge coming out and was acting off.  My awesome husband helped string a heat lamp out to the barn.  This winter has been the coldest one since we came to Oklahoma and the forecast for the night was 28 degrees F.  I don't like the idea of a heat lamp in a barn (fire hazard), but I also don't like the idea of frozen babies! 

Every hour I went out to check on Ebony's progress.  At midnight I climbed out of bed and went out to find her pushing and ready to deliver.  She took her sweet time as I sat shivering in the new hay I put out just for her.  I was very grateful for the heat lamp and tried to stay under it with her as much as possible. 

Around 2am I decided I had to help her.  She had been in active labor with little progress now for 2 hours!  I reached in and could touch the nose and found a little hoof.  I pulled the hoof out slightly as she had a contraction. Then I found the other little hoof and pulled it when the next contraction hit.  This was all she needed.  The baby had tried to come out head and shoulders first and had blocked the opening.  With the new adjustment of pulling the legs one at a time, the kid slid out on the next contraction. 

He was a beauty!  But he wasn't moving and barely breathing.  I had a towel waiting so I quickly cleared his nose and mouth as best I could then I rubbed him in the towel to dry him so he wouldn't chill.  Under the heat lamp, his mother inspected him and finished cleaning him. 

The next baby was born within 10 minutes of the first.  He slid out so fast and was so very tiny!  He was also not moving.  I picked up the lifeless body and knew I had to get air into him fast.  I took him out and spun him as best I could- keep in mind he was the size of a kitten!  The gunk flew out his mouth and I immediately wrapped and rubbed him in the towel.  Ebony smelled him but didn't clean him like she did the first.  I wondered if this meant he was not going to live. 

I sat with momma and kids for about 30 minutes, waiting for them to eat their first meal.  Arrow, the first born, drank from his mom, but Juneau, the second born, couldn't even stand up.   It was just too cold so I wrapped them both up and took them in the house. 

The next morning, I took the babies back out to Mom, but she wasn't well.  She had not finished delivering the placenta like I thought she would and laid shivering.  We rushed to the vet in an effort to save her!  The vet said she had hypothermia and did a ultrasound to make sure their were no undelivered kids.  With some shots of steroids and some medicine for infection, she pulled through, although she was very week for the next few days and gave very little milk.  Both kids had to be bottle fed until she gained her strength.    The vet also looked at Juneau and told us to keep up feeding him, but he was so tiny- just 1 pound 10 ounces- that he would be very fragile for a while. 

Juneau didn't stand up for his first day, but was making attempts on the second day.  His mother did not accept him for the first 2 weeks. 

His name:  Juneau, was given by my daughters because he was so small.  Last year our runt was named, Alaska Star.  So this year they named our runt Juneau because we have been studying States and Capitals.

March 2018 Chicken Cat

Our cat found a great place to keep watch for mice that try to sneak into the chicken feed.   However, the roosters don't appreciate her guard duty.

March 2018 Chicken Update

Hatching Season is well underway.  We started incubating and hatching in January this year and have quite a few already growing out. 

 More and more keep hatching so we combined the bigger birds with the smaller ones.  At first the big ones were a bit mean, so we put a divider up so they could see each other but not peck!  After a few days, the big ones broke through the divider and accepted the little ones into the little flock.  It was pretty cute to see the teeny chicks peeking out of the feathers of the half grown ones!  What are big brothers and sisters for anyway! 

The Columbian Rock parents.

Below are our Black Copper Marans.  We sold the pretty rooster- so he is gone, but not before hatching a bunch of his chicks.  He was a mean rooster who liked to charge the fence every time he saw us.  He had a really pretty brother, but it was eaten by the hound.

 

To the left here is one of our Cream Legbar Girls.

February 2018 A Bit of Ice

 We didn't get snow this year.  It got cold and stayed cold a long time, but no snow.  These little icicles are the closest we got.  They look pretty on my bird feeder, but I would rather have a white blanket to let the kids play in. 

February 2018 What a Mess!

We bought some hay that was not good quality for our goats.  The round bales were mostly straw and sticks.  The goats dug through it to find pieces to nibble, but most was discarded and inedible.  After going through 4 bales, this is what was left behind!  It took me days to clean it up. 

I also learned the sad and hard way that poor quality hay is very hard on goats.  This winter my goats have been plagued with more parasites and ills than the last 2 years combined!  It is one thing after another.  Upon thinking about it....I bet it all stems from the poor diet of this crummy hay!   I feel awful that I didn't just discard the hay when it was first delivered.

Never Again!!

January 2018 Fostering Dogs

I went on a puppy craze at the beginning of the year.  I've never owned a dog, and I wanted something to love.  We decided to foster dogs to find out which breed and size would be best.  Here are a few of the puppies and dogs that have been fosters or temporary residents (meaning they just showed up and we kept them until we located their owner) that have found our little hobby farm from just January to April of this year. 

Toby Bear!

 
  We almost kept this little guy.  Our friends got him for Christmas and it wasn't working out for them.  They gave him to us right after we contacted the foster agency here in town:  Saving Tails Animal Rescue or S.T.A.R.   When STAR found him the perfect home, we let him go, hesitantly, only because Kayla was showing signs of being allergic.  Yet, that still didn't stop her from loving on him.!     

 

 

 Chicken Thieves! 

 

This large dogs found our home and the Hound just couldn't resist biting into one of our roosters that like to jump the fence.  I chased him into the woods and pried the chicken from his mouth, which amazingly lived!  We took the hound to the pound (sniff sniff) after trying to find the owners. However a week later....guess who shows up again?  And this time he brings a friend! 

 

 So I took both dogs into my house because they wouldn't leave the chickens alone.  I called the pound and told them I didn't want to bring him in again and asked them to call the owners and give them my contact information so they could pick up their dogs.  They did this and the owners called within the hour.  They were kind people and very apologetic.  They picked up the hound and asked if we wanted to keep him!  ha ha.  He was a great dog, but a chicken killer non the less.  We passed on keeping him.  They also said the pit-bull was not theirs. 

 

Later we found the owners of the pit bull.  Her name is Molly and she was a sweet heart- full of crazy energy.  My oldest wanted to keep them both, of course.

 

 

 

Puppies!!!

Big balls of cuddly LOVE!  These guys were a huge hit with my girls while they stayed a few days with us when another foster had to go out of town. 

Boe and Sassy!

Puppy Mill Dogs.  These guys were so timid when they first arrived.  But warmed up with love and patience.  They really liked my kids.  Boe is a daschound mix and Sassy is a Toy Fox Terrier mix.  Boe was adopted by someone in Kentucky and had to be shipped.  Sassy is still here, for now, and is our only foster dog at the moment  (April 2018)

December 2017 Christmas Tragedy

Two days before Christmas little Two Spot took ill with pneumonia.  We had a cold, wet storm come through, and he got what I thought was a little cold, but by morning it was life threatening.  We took him indoors and he stayed in a dog crate in my kitchen for two nights.  I thought he might pull through when he got some energy back and began to eat and drink on the second day and walk around.  But Christmas Eve he seemed to go down hill and refused to stand up or leave the crate.

Christmas morning I checked on him before turning on the Christmas tree lights and awakening my daughters to see what Santa and brought.  Two Spot was alive but weak.  He looked at me with wet eyes.  He did not raise his head.  I pet him and tried to get him to drink, but he didn't want anything.  Still, he looked peaceful, almost smiling, like he was saying, "See, I made it to Christmas morning."

I heard small voices, so I left him and soon was preoccupied with delighted children, Christmas music and the opening of gifts and presents.  After the last gift was unwrapped and the girls settled into playing with their treasures,  I slipped into the kitchen to check on Two Spot.

He was gone.  He had passed away while we opened our gifts.  He had only lived long enough to hear the sounds of his only Christmas morning.

My heart sunk.  I felt tears on my face.  And I wondered why my girl's joy was now going to be interrupted by grief.  My girls had been hoping for this little guy's recovery.  He was one of their babies.

Instead of a Christmas miracle, the girls dressed warmly and went outside to help my husband bury the little buck.  They didn't cry loudly.  Just a few quiet tears of wonder and heartache.  My oldest hugged me strongly and sniffed away her hurt when she returned inside before going back in to see her gifts.  

All before breakfast. 


As I pondered all of this, I couldn't help but think about the true meaning of Christmas.  The marvelous gift of our Heavenly Father to each of us born as a baby predestined to die for our Salvation.  The gift of his son was a sacrifice that was going to end with the death of our Father's only Begotten.  Our Lord and Savoir Jesus Christ, our greatest gift. 

And in our small grief, we remembered. 
Merry Christmas Two Spot...and Thank-you.

December 2017 Merry Christmas Goats!

Cowboy helped Frost remove the extra horns.  I couldn't take any great pictures because all the goats wanted to "taste" the antlers!

Too Big!

November 2017 Harvesting Turkeys

Harvesting a Giant Tom Turkey!  We set out to pardon this big boy but then he started having breathing problems.  After researching I found out that this breed often grow so big that they will suffocate if not harvested in a timely manner.  We had put off the harvest too long and I was afraid we would find him deceased in his pen, all his meat wasted, so we said our good-byes and we had a butchering party. 

 

 

Yes, it seems weird and even wrong, but my girls actually enjoying the plucking and harvesting, the blood and the feathers, and Thanksgiving tasted good, even though I really missed the gobbling and strutting outside of my favorite birds.  This big boy weighed in at 40 pounds after being dressed!  He would NOT fit in the oven.  He is resting on a large cookie sheet there. 

 

The feet made good stock.