Saying Goodbye

We've been releasing our 2012 kids to new homes this past week.  On one hand, we are very proud of the quality of our kids.  They are healthy, strong, happy and so very friendly.  On the other hand, well.....they're our babies.  We trimmed their hooves and administered Rescue Remedy to some of them, patted them and kissed their little noses.  We did our best to ensure they went to good families, but it was still a bit hard to take them from their mommas and the barn they grew up in.  We even sold one of our does in milk because we couldn't keep up with so many right now.    She wouldn't go anywhere at all with the new owner (a stranger to her), but once I started leading her, she just came submissively wherever I led her.  Out the gate.  Into the waiting car.  Trustingly.  I thanked God I really liked her new owner, and that she was going with a barn buddy.

I know we are still learning and gaining experiences with our dairy goats, but I'm not sure this part of the season will ever get easier.  If you've bought a goat from us, just know that they were very, very loved.  And that tomorrow I'll be sitting in the barn with the (very few) goats that are left for a long while, praying that your new additions will be just as much a blessing to your homes and lives as well.

Starry Night

In the midst of kidding and disbudding we ended up on a little side road through some tough situations.  But first, here is a picture of disbudding.  I hate disbudding.  The wee kid is screaming and there is smoke (burning hair).  But I will say that within seconds they are off and running around like nothing happened at all!  I think they don't like being confined, it's not necessarily just the disbudding process.  We use the Rhineheart 30X.  Disbudding is a management issue and good goat owners disagree on whether to do it or not.  We disbud.  And I'm glad my guys consider it a "man's job".  My job is to give them some tincture I made ahead of time for pain relief, but honestly I'm not sure they really need that.  But it sure makes me feel better!

Having eight kids was a challenge; last year we only had one doe kid.  But thankfully all of the mamas birthed their kids easily and during the DAY.  Score!

Starry Night was a surprise.  Here she is with her brother and sister.  As you can see, she is easily a third the size.  She weighed 1 pound (yes...ONE) 12 ounces at birth.  We were waiting for her mama to pass the placenta and suddenly she began pushing again.  And out this little wee black doeling came!  I (and her mama) immediately gave her up for dead; my friend and daughter however displayed courage and heroics and revived her.  Lesson learned for me!  Every life is precious!

Starry Night spent every moment she wasn't being handled under a heat lamp.  We decided to keep her in the barn as the temperature was moderate and she could hear all of the goats around her.  She had a sweet little nest box that my 12 year old son built.

My 14 year old daughter took charge of the little darling.  She learned to tube feed and for the first 4 or 5 days tubed Starry Night around the clock.  I remember waking to feed my own newborn baby (born during the same month!) and seeing my daughter and husband making their way quietly to the barn in the dark.  We made sure Starry NIght got some colostrum and a little bit of Fastrack.  But three days after her birth her breathing became labored.

As it turns out, we were encouraging her to try a bottle at that point and I think she probably got some dribbles of milk into her lungs.  I think she developed drenching pneumonia.  We treated her initially with penicillin (with advice of another goat owner, who apparently got the same advice from her vet), but learned that what she really needed was a sulfa drug to dry up her lungs.  We gave her five days (full dose) of Di-Methox, and true enough, it calmed down her breathing and we were over the hump.  So we thought.

One morning her head got floppy and her eyes clouded up.  We immediately pulled her off of milk and used just plain water with baking soda.  We added B complex because of her eyes clouding up, and two days later she, again, looked like she was doing well, even getting up and wagging her little tail.

So we decided to try her on some milk again, just a wee bit (like 2cc) in water.  We left her in good, capable hands for a much needed break and road trip, but hours later she just shut down and stopped breathing, and died.

There were a lot of tears, for sure.

We learned a lot during this time.  If you are not part of a yahoo or other goat group, I would highly recommend you find one you fit with.  The people in our group were a tremendous support and I am so thankful of all of their help and loving encouragement.

We gave Starry Night a burial place of honor next to the other animals that we have loved and lost.  Such is part of keeping animals, but we trust God in all things regarding them and are thankful for His comfort.

Kids 2012

The kids are here!  All of our mamas delighted us with normal births that occurred during daylight hours (grin).  You can see them soon on the Kinders for Sale page.

And yes, it's very difficult to get photos of these quick guys and gals!  They love to run, jump and play!!

A Congested Udder

Poor Splat.  The girl's udder was ginormous just for one kid, and although I milked her out a bit on day three, I waited until day six to try again. Two lessons:  one, I needed to milk her out sooner than day three to save better milk for the antioxidants to freeze.  And two, I should not have let her go that long before trying to relieve the poor dear.

In any case, trying to milk her out on day six was terrible!  Her udder was so swollen I couldn't even get a grip on her teats!  I worked on her for a while (staying low on her teat) and managed to get her milked out about a third of the way before we (she and I) were both *done*.

Twice more that day I went out to milk and thankfully by that evening she was looking (and I bet feeling) much better.

One of her teats was giving me some clumpy milk however, that would stop up her flow and I had to gently strip it all out.  Uh oh, I thought.  I tested her for mastitis and thankfully that was negative.  But I still had to deal with the clumps and the fact that her udder was not in primo condition.

This is what I did, other than milking her out multiple times and gently getting those clumps out.

I made a herbal batch with 8oz molasses, 4oz seaweed, 1/2TB of my ImmuniTea herb mix (with immune supporting herbs), 1/2 TB powdered ginger, 1/2TB marshmallow root, and a chopped up raw garlic clove.

Then I added warm water to the mix, to make a slurry consistency.  I gave Splat some of the mix as I was milking her. To it I added a strong herbal wormer, some probiotics, vitamin C and a teaspoon each of Diamond Yeast and dolomite.

Onto her udder, I massaged her first with warm water with Thieves essential oil, and then with a comfrey salve.  It's a nice consistency and gives my hands a better grip.  After milking, I massaged her again with UdderMint Balm, which has eucalyptus (amongst other things) in it.

All to say, at the end of the second day, things are looking much, much better.  The clumps are almost all gone and there is still plenty of milk.

As I say, lessons learned!  I will be more careful with my doe's udder next kidding.  Only three more does to go this spring!

First Kid of 2012

Splat gave us one beautiful black doe on the evening of the "Supermoon", May 5th.  Her name is Luna Perigeo, Italian for super moon.  She is super friendly and fun to play with!

Post Kidding: The First Couple Months

If the kidding has been successful, and the mama and kids are all doing well with nursing, after a few days I'll let them all join the herd under my watchful eye for a little bit, working over the next week or so to let them all have full access to one another.

At that point, I'll give each kid a probiotic boost with Fastrack if they didn't get some at birth.
I will also be paying close attention to my doe's udder to see if the kids are nursing on both sides evenly.  If not, I will start milking her out on one side or the other to keep them even.  I won't have to separate the kids from her during this time (other than when she's on the stanchion).  Last year my poor doe was definitely heavier on one side and I was just too inexperienced to figure it out.  Whatever milk I get during this time I will freeze and save for potential kidding problems with the other does.  And...I can always make soap with it all if all bares well.

After two weeks,  I will start separating the kids from the mama at night, so I can milk her in the morning before letting the kids back with her for the rest of the day.  That is how I like to milk, once a day, until the kids are weaned and sold.  It works out great for me in terms of time management.  I have no desire to bottle feed if I don't have to, and I haven't had problems (yet) with kids bonding to me with plenty of attention.  The one problem I did have last year was one kid chewing on the teat of my doe, so you better believe I'll be watching  like a hawk for any similar issues and will bottle feed before releasing them to mama to take the hunger edge off (if not removing a naughty kid altogether; those teats are valuable!).  Otherwise, I'm happy to keep the kids on mom.

About that time, I'll start the kids on our wormer schedule.  I've been using Molly's Herbal Wormer for years and so far am happy with the results.  I do think the key to using any herbal wormer is consistent, diligent use--we worm our animals (even our dogs) every single week with it.

Within that first week, the kids will all be disbudded, and I will begin to offer up our kids for pre-sale and take deposits.

At 3-4 weeks, we will wether the bucks unless someone intends to buy a buck (and has fully paid for him at that point).   Because our soils are horrible, I'll also give all of the kids a dose of selenium/vitamin E gel.  And of course, they will all stay on the weekly worming schedule as well.

All doelings and bucklings will be registered with KGBA and ready to go at eight weeks if their weight looks good.

Then the kids will hopefully all leave the property to go to happy and good homes after getting their tattoos done and hooves trimmed.  At that point we'll begin milking twice a day until (1) we dry them off for the winter and don't want to milk in the cold barn or (2) the does are two months from kidding again.

That is the "plan" (smile).

The Kidding "Plan"

I say "plan" because my real plan is to have four does kid easily and completely without any assistance from me other than an encouraging, "you, go, girl!"  But I also know from the experience of others that sometimes things go awry, so I want to be as prepared as I can be.  In all things, however, I trust God to work it out for all of our good, so I have peace in the fact that I am still learning and growing and finding my own way.

The first thing I plan to do is to be there when my doe kids.  That means paying attention to the due date and keeping a working baby monitor on so I can hear what's going on from the house (which is very close to the barn).  Plus I have six children who are constantly in and out and will be watching for *changes* in the barn as well.

I plan to call my goat friends to come over when she is kidding, and if my doe has any trouble getting the kid(s) out within 30-60 minutes, I plan to (a) not panic and (b) make sure I have someone with me.  If I can't have anyone there with me, then my goat books, laptop and google will have to suffice.  Freaking out won't help anything, right?

Once the kid(s) are born, I'll wipe away the sack from their nose and mouth, and give him (or her, but to be clear, we'll call the kid "him") to the mama.  If he isn't responding well, I'll give him a gentle upside down swing to help clear him.  Hopefully the mama will start licking him right away to stimulate him further. I'll cut the umbilical cord short and dip the stub into a small cup filled with iodine.  Once mama is up, I'll help him if necessary find her teats and insure that he is getting some colostrum.  If he's lopey at all, I'll give him a 5cc SQ injection of Bovi Sera, mainly because I do not vaccinate other than for tetanus, and I'll offer a pea sized amount of Fastrack probiotics.  A bit of selenium/vitamin E would be good, too. He'll be banded around the neck with mama's name and which baby number he was, too.

For the mama, I'll have on hand some molasses water, and I may give her 10cc SQ of Bovi Sera as well for a boost if she needs it.  If anyone had to "go in" to help get a kid or two out, I would give her some penicillin as well.

Hopefully that would be it! I'd leave the babies and mama alone in a clean pen alone for a few days and just check in on them regularly.  I plan to take some colostrum from the mama for a couple of days to freeze in case I need some for the other kids upcoming.  Last year we were successful with our kidding and I'm hoping for another good year.

Preparing for Kids

 Some kids from 2011

There are a lot of pregnant females around our home and yard.  For one, I am overdue with baby number seven, and my four Kinder does are due to kid starting in two weeks.  Here is how I've been preparing for my goats to kid. This is only our second year of kidding, and so we are still learning.  I also know that everyone has *their* way of doing things, whether it's with goats or honeybees or whatnot; we're just trying to see what works for us in the environment we are in, and we're thankful for lessons and grace when we make mistakes.

About a month before, I gave my goats a tetanus shot.  They've never been vaccinated before but my confidence with tetanus has waned due to the pasture conditions we currently have (and are working to fix).  And because our soil condition is so poor, I supplement also with a bit of selenium and vitamin E (5ml, gel).  We raise our animals as organically as possible, but we also have to work around less-than-perfect conditions too.

I began feeding my does a cup of organic goat grain in addition to the alfalfa hay.  I'm not sure I won't lay off the alfalfa next time towards the end; I wonder if it's too much protein at this point.  The goats are just now getting access to wooded forage (finally!), and I always have free-choice minerals(MannaPro, and Diamond Yeast Culture) and baking soda on hand for them all. Once a week, year round, we worm all of our goats with an excellent herbal wormer (from Fias Co Farm).

I kept records of when breeding occurred, so I have a good idea of when kidding is due for each doe.  This helps me to be sure to stay home, so that I can be available to help if necessary and to encourage just with my voice and presence (which IS necessary in my mind).  I have a baby monitor that I will put into the barn so that I can hear if anything is going on, from the house.

I have phone numbers of goat friends ready, and a birth kit assembled.  I know I can't have everything for every imaginable need, but I do have some supplies on hand:

• towels for drying off the kids noses and helping to stimulate them
• molasses to add to drinking water for the mama for extra nutrients
• scissors, iodine, and a small cup for cutting and dipping the umbilical cord
• a working flashlight (if you have children around, you may understand that not all flashlights are working when you need them....if you can find them...)
• betadine, rubber gloves, and lubrication in case the birth process needs assistance.  In that same vein, I have penicillin ready to give to the mama if I do go need to assist.  I hope I never have to assist!
• garbage bags for the afterbirth; I don't want it hanging around attracting predators and really don't think my doe needs to eat it
• neck bands to keep track of kids
• a scale is fun to weigh the kids with
• B12, bovi sera (10 SQ), and nutri-drench in case my doe needs a pick-me-up at any time
• syringe tube or bottle (to supplement or to feed 2-4oz, every 2-4 hours if necessary), bovi sera (5cc), and selenium/vit E if the kids are weak or unable to nurse.   I might give the kids a pea-size amount of Fastrack to get their guts going, too.  I'll be watching them closely especially for the first few days to a couple of weeks.

Ahead of the birth-date, I'll have the stall for the kidding completely clean, and a little kid hut hideaway ready.  Also, although I am usually hands-on with all of my goats, I make it a point to regularly touch and handle the expectant mama's udder too, especially if they are first-timers.  

Next, I'll post our plans for the actual kidding and afterwards.  Unless, of course, I have a baby myself tomorrow (smile).

Welcome!

Welcome to our new blog spot, where we will share with you about our Kinder Dairy Goats.  Children, dogs, hens, ducks, rabbits and honeybees may occasionally show up also!