Monday, April 27, 2009

Getting Busy!

Wow! It's practically Tuesday and I haven't updated last week yet! Well first things first I guess. I'm sorry to say that Black and Tan did not make it through the week. Simon, our vet came on Monday last week and we decided to put her down. He said she more than likely was not going to recover. That same day we had 2 mommas give birth and gained 5 new baby goats. It was a hell of a roller coaster day.

I pretty much stayed out of the cheese plant last week. I was kept busy with all the new babies and chores. Also I had Wednesday and Thursday off!! (first days off in over a month!) Nate made a ton of cheese and the fridge was packed full by Friday. We had our last winter market Saturday in Orono as well as the Hope Fest at the University of Maine. We sold so much cheese! And the cheese was great! We were all so proud of our cheese and of the goats and the farm. It was awesome to see our customers' response and to meet new customers and tell them all about the cheese. It was also exhausting! Talking to so many people and staying so excited can easily ware you out.

This Saturday starts up the full time market season. We'll be in Orono and Brewer on Saturdays--every Saturday from now till they tell us to stop coming. We also have Orono market on Tuesdays I think. Then at some point a Bangor market starts up on Thursdays and if we feel like it, we can go to Brewer also on Friday. What a schedule! That's a lot of cheese and a lot of milk and a lot of energy.

Tomorrow (if I have time) I'd like to record a video blog update so keep checking back for that. In the mean time--watch out for the swine flu! But don't worry, eating pork from your local farmer is safe. I worry that the title of this flu bug is bad for our fellow farmers. Let's all eat pork this week! Mmmmm.

Saturday, April 18, 2009

A Lesson in Disbudding

Well another week has flown by here at Olde Oak Farm. We only had one momma (Sunny) kid and that was on Monday. We're already gearing up for our next wave of births which could start today or tomorrow if Clarece goes on schedule. We sold some of the kids this week and we're back down to 7.



This week I spent a lot of time with the kids. I've been feeding them 3 times a day and they are ravenous little eaters! Mostly. Jen noticed midweek Black and Tan (one of the kids) had lost some significant weight. She's been constipated and dehydrated. We aren't sure what the reason is, but we've been spending a lot of time with her and trying to get her re-hydrated and back up to good health. Also, when the goats are looking a little slow and not as vibrant as we would like, we will give them an injection of Vitamin B which gives them more energy and helps them perk up. We've given Black and Tan a few Vitamin B shots throughout the week and last night she drank almost a full bottle. 

 Go Black and Tan!

Wednesday evening was rough. Something I've sort of been dreading in the back of my mind ever since I learned about it. Wednesday evening we disbudded 8 of the kids. Don't worry, they are all doing fine now. ( It was probably more traumatizing for me in the long run. )  

If you are one of the folks who asked me if we cut the horns off the goats...Pay attention! Cutting horns is dangerous because they bleed a lot. Disbudding is much more humane. 

* So What is disbudding and why do we do it?? 
Disbudding cauterizes the growth plate of the budding horns on the head of a kid goat, which causes the horns to never grow. Scott used an electric disbudding iron--sort of like a curling iron in that you plug it in and wait for it to get nice and hot. Then he held it to the buds for 8 to 10 seconds each.  All the goats here are disbudded and it's a very common practice in most dairy goat farms. We do it for the safety and health of the goats. Goats are aggressive with each other. They rear up and butt heads. I've seen one specific goat in our herd plow another right in the side several times. With horns, it would be quite easy to tear an u
dder or hurt an eye. By removing the horns, we're giving them a safer environment and reducing the risk of injury to our herd and the milk supply. 

I will let Scott continue to do the disbudding until I feel comfortable trying it myself. We still have quite a few that will need it. In fact we're doing another round tonight. 

And one more note before I have to get back to work: We have started using the milk machine and we'll be making chevre (goat cheese) on Monday! Up to this point, we have been milking by hand and using it just for feeding the baby goats. Between the 7 ladies that we're currently milking, we have about 4 gallons of milk a day. By Monday morning we should have enough for a good sized batch of cheese! We're making the cheese in preparation for a market and a festival next Saturday.  Two
 weeks ago Nate made 75 little rounds of camembert that have been aging and growing the fluffy white mold that makes them so delicious. By the end of the week, the cheese plant will be bursting with cheese to sell!! 

Saturday, April 11, 2009

12 and Counting




I took some time out for pictures during a nice, quiet afternoon this week...








This is Pleasure--Momma number one this year. 









Well we're about one third of the way through the kidding season now. 6 goats have had their babies and we have 13 or 14 more to go! The count right now is 12 babies, 8 girls and 4 boys. What a week! Chips (an all white goat) kidded on Tuesday and had a single black and tan girl. Prudence kidded on Thursday with two brown boys. Thursday night I got up to check on Amelia a couple times overnight. She finally kidded after quite a lot of pacing, laying down, standing up, more pacing...  She also struggled quite a bit; it was a tense atmosphere in the barn. Her second baby came out backwards which can be problematic because they can get stuck. Thankfully everything went alright and both kids are happy and healthy. 

After the morning excitement, we checked in on all the ladies and decided it looked like we wouldn't have any more births before Saturday and probably not until Sunday. So we all got busy and ran errands and went back to work on other projects... Until...

Nate and I ran errands and got home for chores right at 5. When Nate took hay down to the ladies barn, he spotted Mystic with a kid half way out! By the time he got my attention and had her separated out from the rest of the herd, she was pretty tense. Scott and Jen were about an hour away and didn't pick up when we called the cell phone.  So we tried to calm ourselves down and focus on Mystic. She followed Amelia's example of laying down and getting up and pacing. Finally, she settled down enough to focus and push. 

After the morning's lesson on kids coming out backwards, I noticed the feet that were coming out were the back hooves. I panicked a bit, but continued to help Mystic by rubbing her and talking to her while she pushed and I pulled. After the hips came, it was mostly a matter of helping to pull out the rest of the gooey, slippery mess that is a baby goat. The second kid came very soon after. Thankfully, she came out correct with two front hooves and the head first. Finally, I was hoping we were done...but no. A third baby came. Backwards again! And this one was much bigger than the first. By this time Mystic didn't have much trouble pushing. I prayed there wasn't a fourth and hooray! No fourth goat came! We were all done and Mystic was actually interested in her babies this year. (I've heard that in the past she hasn't wanted much to do with them.) All three are girls. The first one was smaller and will probably live, but she's had a rough start so far. We're giving her extra attention right now.  

What an adrenaline rush! I don't think I calmed down till after 10 last night, when we finally sat down to some pizza around a camp fire. Ahhhh. I was in bed, nice and exhausted by midnight. 

All to wake up again at 6:30 this morning. Chores took about 2 and a half hours to milk and get everyone fed. Shortly afterwards Sunny decided she'd like to have a baby too! Hers was a relatively simple and straight-forward birth, except she decided she wanted to do it standing up. Whew! One good sized girl and she looks just like her momma!  

That's it for this week. If I have some time in a day or two I will post more photos of babies! 


Sunday, April 5, 2009

Finally! Kids are here!



Wow! We finally had our first batch of kids last night. Pleasure kidded around 4:30 in the afternoon. She had 2 girls and a boy. They came out quick! I couldn't believe it. I was feeding the girls and I turned around and Jen already had one out. 

When they come out they are very messy and gooey. We let the moms lick them off a little then we wrap them in a towel and rub them pretty vigorously to get them warm and dry and to stimulate them as much as possible. You want to hear them cry. Then we let the momma lick them some more to help inoculate their immune systems and their rumen. We heat treat the colostrum (first milk from the mommas) and feed it to the babies in bottles. We do this to make absolutely sure the milk is safe for the babies. Also, some of the goats aren't the best mothers and wouldn't care to feed the babies. By hand feeding the babies they develop an attachment to us which will make it much easier to work with them throughout their lives. 



So the season has finally officially begun! We were up early this morning to milk and feed the babies. We're keeping an eye on Chips today. Next up is Mystic on Thursday and we have 5 scheduled to kid on Friday! So by next Saturday, this place will be mayhem! Stay tuned...