Weaning Maria

I had about 2 weeks of going out and milking 4 times a day for 6 oz. of milk a day if I was lucky. So I decided it was time to wean Maria. But how? With three goats, it's impossible to separate mother from baby without having a screming goat somewhere.

So I decided I would have to find a way to control when Maria nursed. The most obvious and convenient way I could think of was to tape the ends of her teats so that Maria couldn't get at the milk. I had some "Coach" sports tape from when one of the dogs had a wound that needed to have gauze pads taped over it. This tape is very soft and breatheable and tends not to stick to hair or skin as badly as other tapes. So, what the heck I said. And that's where my experiment with taping teats as a kid weaning technique began.

I started out on a schedule of milking at 7 am and 4 pm and taping the teats at 12:30 pm and 9:30 pm. This gave Maria the hours of 7 am to 12:30 and 4 pm to 9:30 to nurse, or a total of 11 hours. To start out with, this gave me about 12 oz. of milk a day. I'm gradually moving the times together, so that Darcy spends more and more time taped, and Maria is slowly getting less and less milk. Right now, I milk at 7:45 and 5:30, and I try to tape at 11:45 and 9, though that doesn't always work out. I got 3 1/2 cups of milk today--almost a quart.

This doesn't sound like much, but I'm very happy with this production considering Darcy almost died after the babies were born. Also, she does have more milk. It's just Maria is drinking it. If we get too much more than a quart a day, we'll have to start making cheese and yogurt. Shame :-).

First milk

With Darcy's having triplets and then getting sick, she hasn't had any extra milk. Now that she's down to one kid and recovering, we've been "attempting" to milk her for several days. Up until yesterday, the pickings were so slim that we fed the dribble or two to the dogs. But yesterday, we finally got enough to make it worth while to filter it. I had that nearly 4 oz. of fresh, unpasteurized goat's milk on my oatmeal. Totally delicious!

New pasture opened

Darcy has been really ill the past couple of weeks, so I've been pretty tied up with that, but I wanted to post about the new pasture we've opened up. Our tenant Shon is pretty good with fencing, so we've hired him to fix our existing fence and fence in some of the woods behind the pasture. Last week, we officially opened the gate to the new pasture area.

This wouldn't be pasture for a lot of species, since it is packed full of ligustrum and wild blackberries, but these are favorite foods of goats, so they're just pleased as punch. One advantage of having woody browse available for goats is that woody shrubs are full of tannins, which act as natural wormers.

I'm just tickled pink, because the rye grass finally came up and the goats have all the browse they can eat in the new part of the pasture. The fence line has also been straightened out, which results in probably 1/4 more area in the old part of the pasture. Steve and I basically just drove in a bunch of "T" posts the first time and sort of hung the fence off of it...not the best fencing job known to man.

On another note, I've managed to sell Symbol's babies already (they leave next week), but I haven't even advertised Darcy's babies yet. Because she had so much trouble with her health, I was afraid they wouldn't grow as well as Symbol's babies. I supplemented them with cows' milk and gave them preventive coccidistat, and I think they're likely to be weaned before Symbol's--should have advertised them first!

Banding Thoughts

Sunday, my friend Janet Cooper came over and showed me how to band the 4 male kids that were born 4 weeks ago. I've always dreaded doing this. I've had dogs and been a member of the dog community since I was 14 or so. From time to time, you hear rumors of people who dock tails or crop ears on puppies by using a rubber band, and this is portrayed as a completely inhumane and irresponsible practice, with horror stories of infection and gangrene.

But with livestock, this is looked at another way entirely. With dairy goats, male kids are sort of an unfortunate side effect of the biological processes needed to stimulate milk production. With meat kids, an intact male that lives any length of time will be too gamey for any but the most hardened taste buds. At the same time, there is no way that farmers could charge enough for these kids to make it financially viable to have them put under by a vet and castrated in the way we do with dogs.

So I was resolved to the necessity, but I was dreading the effects. And indeed the first 24 hours or so were pretty sad. It was clear the babies were uncomfortable--they walked stiff legged and spent a lot of time lying down or getting up and lying down and getting up. And they didn't do their normal climbing and jumping.

But 48 hours later, it's clear that they're pretty much back to their normal spirits and activity level. So it wasn't as bad as I thought.

Baby feeding woes

So Darcy's been being a butt-head about not wanting to feed her babies enough (Symbol's been a champ). I bottle fed them for a couple of days, before calling out the cavalry, Janet Cooper, aka Darcy's breeder. Janet showed me how to hold her still so the babies can get what they really need, Mom's milk. I hate to do it to her, but I hate to have starving babies even more.

New arrivals

We've had an eventful few days around here, but I guess I should start at the beginning. This summer, we bought a Nubian buck, Jesus.

We sold him recently, since I didn't want him around to taint the milk, but Jesus left us some little blessings, kids who were born this Sunday and Monday.

Darcy, our 3/4 Nubian, had her babies Saturday night or Sunday morning. Anyway, we went out Sunday morning and there they were. I learned my lesson from that and checked Symbol all through Sunday night. Here are some pics of Darcy and her kids.

They seemed reluctant to waste their first day sleeping, but they had a really hard time staying awake. I've named the girl (left) Maria, and the boy on the right Pedro. Does Maria remind you of anyone?

The third kid I named Pedro. This is Darcy and her babies this morning.

Monday morning, Symbol obligingly went into labor when I was outside checking her the first time after it got light. Monday morning was cold. Regardless, I managed to get some good photos of the births in progress.

This is kid #1's front feet. I haven't named Symbol's kids, because I feel like they're less likely to become pet wethers than Darcy's kids. She kept trying to clean Darcy's kids throughout the process.

Symbol cleaning kid #1. I had to keep dragging her back over to him from where she was trying to mother Darcy's kids.

While kid #1 was reaching for his first meal, kid#2 was already on the way. He was breech, but he came out much more quickly than his brother.

Symbol cleaning kid #2. She got him about that clean, then I grabbed a towel while she tried to clean Darcy's day-old kids.

Reaching for their first meal.

Symbol's kids, 2 days old.

Spring Sprang but now it's Summer

It's hot, hot, hot. I find myself getting out of bed at the crack of dawn to escape the heat. The blueberries are covered in unripe fruit and the elderberries are blooming everywhere.

Steve is in love with the Mimosa between our house and the woods. It is completely covered in pink powder puff blooms, and it looks like something from a fairy tale or a Japanese wood cut.