Cold Snap

The weather here has taken a turn for the colder. Our last milking was pretty cold. We use Bag Balm on the goats teats to stop them from getting chapped. During out morning milking, the Bag Balm was almost frozen solid, it took some scrapping to get enough to use. So, we took it home with us so it would be warm for the evening and that worked out pretty well. I'm sure the goats appreciated it being warm and easily spreadable instead of the frozen mass we were using in the morning.

Is everyone else doing something similar or just making do with it nearly frozen?

We are still keeping the Billy Goat separated during the evening time and I'm hoping that it doesn't die of the cold. The others all huddle together but he doesn't have anyone to huddle up to. I'd hate to have yet another goat, that isn't ours, die while in our keeping.

I do think the Billy Goat has done his job. All the goats seem to be getting fatter and fatter, and that isn't from the amount of hay we are giving them. The only questionable one is the injured one. She is moving around pretty well but we're not sure if she was stable enough during the time the Billy Goat was interested in her or not. He has lost all interest in them now.

We are planning on tapering off the milking and letting them dry up beginning at Christmas. Hopefully that will take about 2 weeks so when Winters Burden is fully upon us we won't have to deal with the milkings anymore. We'll just have to keep them fed which seems like much less of a hassle than milking them.

New American Gothic

Our milking this week went without incident although we've made a new observation. The Billy Goat is tired and losing interest in the women! He no longer runs over to the corral where we keep them, I had to put the collar on him and drag him over. At the end of the day, he was plenty ready to go back to his own pen. I guess that those Nanny's are getting old hat after a month or two, he is ready for something new. Maybe that are starting to make "Honey Do" lists for him...Whatever the reason there isn't that excitement anymore.

We are getting snow now and it is starting to cool down enough to stick to the ground. That means more and more mud until it really gets cold and starts to freeze. We've had some big rubber goat milking boots for awhile now, but a while back we got some coveralls. Helps keep all the goat off of us. I really like them and recommend that everyone get a pair. I no longer feel so contaminated after I get home from milking the goats. I got a picture that reminds me of the American Gothic painting that everyone has seen. I feel about as happy as those olden day farmers appear to.

One thing about that I've started to do when I'm milking is that I no longer need to close the gate between the milking area and the feeding area. When the goats are done milking and I let them off the stand, they jump down and go over to eat. I can then let 2 more in to milk them. I used to close the separator gate to keep the goats that are done milking from coming back into the milking area. I don't have to do that anymore, the will sometimes come to the line and look in, but I just have to give them a steely gaze and they don't dare cross into the milking area. Once in a while I'll have to kick one if they get daring, but it has worked pretty well and eliminated having to keep opening and closing the gate. We went to the movies the other night and I saw a preview for "The Men Who Stare at Goats". I'm going to have to go see it to see if I can get any tips for staring them down.

Another use for Goat Milk.

A while back Diane was at a family auction, no not a place to pick up new family members for cheap, but where each family member brought something to auction off to raise money for family activities. She got a bar of goat milk soap that one of her distant relatives had made. The person was quite secretive about it and wouldn't divulge much information, but apparently she makes a tidy sum of money from it.

This got me to thinking, that with some of our group complaining/whining/bellyaching about the taste of the milk and instead of just drinking it, pouring it down the drain, or giving it to chickens, this would be a great use for that milk and earn them some extra money. Doing a quick search brings lots of links but not much of it was straight forward so here are some links that should tie it together for those that want to try.

All soap is made using a lye/water solution, since we have the surplus goat milk, it needs to be a lye/milk solution. This link describes how to go about that How to make goat milk/lye solution. That seems to be the only difference in using milk as opposed to water so once you have that, you can proceed with the other steps. Here is a easy recipe for the beginners Soap recipies. Once you have got that down this sites seems to have some good additional information, plus many more links to resources Soap making site. To get real fancy you could make your own soap molds.

I suppose that once you have whipped up some lovely goat milk soap (which goes for over $5 a bar) you can run over to Oh! Sweet Sadie and sell it at their shin-digs.

Bum Leg

Here is a picture of the injury that is still plaguing our goat. She can't seem to bend her leg past that angle yet, but even this much is better than it was before. As she keeps moving on it, it will continue to limber up.

The other thing this goat is trying to recover, is her dignity. All the other goats, but the white one in particular, are pushing her around all the time. She tries to eat with the rest and they will butt her away. She will hobble over to another spot and the white goat will follow her just to keep her from eating. She doesn't quite have the mobility to be knocking heads with them like she used to. I've also noticed that one of the little brown goats seems to have it in for her. I've seen that little brown one come flying across the pen and crash right into the injured goat to keep it from eating. I think that it is getting it's revenge for when the injured goat was healthy and kept knocking the little goats around. The other day I did see this injured goat start the fighting, she got knocked over, but it looks like she is starting to feel good enough to begin mixing it up again.

On the Mend

After the ravaging that happened to the herd a while back, the one goat that was seriously hurt is on the mend. She still has a leg that she is limping on but she has rejoined the herd and redefining her place in it. Being solo while she healed left an opening in the hierarchy and the little goats were quick to usurp it. Now that she is back and still not 100%, she is relegated to the bottom of the pack. I think when(if?) her leg fully heals she'll spend some time butting the little goats around and take her spot back, but until she has the stability of 4 good legs, she'll be stuck in the lowest spot.

We've decided to let the goats start drying up towards the end of December and hope to have them deliver in March. That puts the worst months of the winter out of the milking cycle so we don't have to deal with the cold and the snow as much. The billy goat is still with us but he seems exhausted. He no longer immediately gets to work when he joins the other goats during the day, he goes and eats first to build up his strength. Those demanding women are really wearing him out! The only questionable one is the injured goat. I'm not sure if her leg has been able to support those rough and tumble encounters, but she does seem willing. Only time will tell.

The milk production has been down, but stable, right around 30 lbs or so. This is almost a full gallon less then what we seemed to peak at during the summer months. Our sales pool has seemed to fallen as well. We've lost 1 person and the remaining have been cutting back somewhat. Ah well, we didn't really get in this to make money, just trying to save some.

Double Tragedy!!!

A Double Tragedy struck this past week here in our little group!

The first part of this tragedy is that Tuesday evening when one of the members was milking, they found that someone, or something, had killed one of our goats. They were getting set up to milk and found that one of the goats was missing. Not thinking much of it, they began milking. When it was the turn of one of the goats, it wouldn't get up, examining it she found that the goat was injured. Looking at the other goats she found that several more of them were showing marks of being attacked also. Looking around the area more carefully, she found the mangled body of a goat laying where it had apparently fought valiantly to defend itself from it's attacker. She immediately summoned some of the more animal savvy of our group to help care for the brave but injured goats that remained.

The second part of the tragedy is that the goat that was killed wasn't even part of our commune. One of our neighbors had a goat that they needed to get pregnant so they could milk her again. Since we have this billy goat on loan, they made arrangements to keep their goat with ours. The new goat had only been there for a day or two when this disaster struck! Mournful are they who lost their goat.

Our initial thoughts were that this was a Chupracabra, a fearsome creature if there ever was one! Luckily someone close to the farm came over and admitted that it was her dog. Whew! I don't know what we would have done to discourage a Chupracabra from returning. Animal Control came over and shot the dog spoke with the neighbor about the dog and their responsibility. Hopefully this will not occur again.

The real question that the people want to have answered is: Where was the Billy Goat during this time? We all know that a Billy Goat Gruff can handle a Troll, so a dog should be easy. Was he not Gruff enough? Was he scared of the intruder? Was he too busy doing the job we have him there to do that he didn't notice? Or was he in collusion with the intruder?

While most of the goats had some trauma from the attack, a few days in therapy has made them right as rain. The one goat that was injured seems to be doing better and is listed in stable condition. We are hoping that there will not be any complications.

Billy Goat Gruff

Someone in our goat group somehow found out about someone that needed to store their billy goat someplace for a while. Coincidentally, we need a billy goat because it is time to get our goats pregnant. Amazing how things work out sometimes isn't it?

One thing I don't think anyone realized, I certainly didn't, was how unpleasantly fragrant goats in heat can be. Unfortunately, the billy goat is even worse. Together, they really stink the place up. To help keep this as minimally as possible, we are keeping the billy goat away from the nannys during the night and letting them be together during the daytime. We want to keep them out of the milking barn as much as possible so it doesn't make an already unpleasant situation worse.

I'm not sure how anyone else is handling this, but when I milk in the morning, I do the milking as normal, letting the nannys eat as normal. But when I'm done, I kick(sometimes literally) them out of the milking barn, lock it up and take a bunch of feed over to the sleeping barn. I then get the billy goat out of his holding pen and let him loose on the unsuspecting, but always affable, nannys. For the evening milking, I put the billy back in his holding pen, dump some feed for him there so he can eat as he wants during the evening. I then proceed to milk as normal.

I'm not sure how long until we know if all the goats are pregnant but I'll let Trent worry about those details. He and Mike seem to be the brains behind this operation. I do know that the taste of the milk has not improved at all since the billy goats arrival. I'm not sure how much more it can deteriorate until my minions start an uprising over it.