Goats

I wanted to blog this story last Friday, after it all happened, but time got away with me. Now I almost don’t feel like blogging it at all. But I should update, it’s been awhile.

The goats are settling nicely. I was milking 2x a day and getting about a quart each time. That was until last Wednesday rolled around. I went out at 6 a.m. during my morning routine to let the goats out from their stalls. I walked in to find a stall full of very unusual droppings. It was HORRIBLE. Firefly had diarrhea so bad. To make a long story short I spent 2 days on the phone with people who know a whole lot more than I do. After 3 shots of various things and a good long talk with her previous owner we discovered that it was the hay I chose to buy. Firefly was used to dull, boring grass hay. I bought her alfalfa hay which is a MUCH richer hay feed. Yes, it is the one that is recommended by just about everyone to feed a doe in milk but her previous owner didn’t. She felt it was too rich and the goats overate. Well, sure enough, Firefly was in heaven with this stuff and overate!!! She was miserable. She would moan and strain and hunch over. Needless to say her milk production went down drastically. She is back up to her norm but as of Saturday night I now separate mom and baby for the night. This is merely for selfish reasons and that is so that I can get more milk. During the illness Butter discovered that momma had 2 spigots out of which she could drink which pretty much left me with NO milk. Prior to this Butter only drank from one which left the other for me to milk.

Sure, they weren’t happy to be separated but the crying only lasted 15 minutes or so the first night and as of last night it lasted a measly 5 minutes or less. This morning I got nearly 1 ½ quarts of milk and it seems to increase a little daily. I had decided to only milk at night then since Butter drinks from both teats all day long. It works out nicely.

Here are a couple nice pictures of the goats and farm. The first is a picture I took just this evening of our barnyard. You can see the chicken coop to the right and the chicken run across the whole picture. Next is the woodshed and the building on the left is the barn. Behind the chickens you can see Firefly and Butter; Butter is running across the yard, her ears even flying up. The next 2 pictures are close-ups of Butter and Firefly.