Memorial Day Fishing

What I love most about fishing:  watching my hubby help the kids with their fishing poles :)

Monday Morning on the Farm

Butterbelle has to be tied up while we milk or she tries to eat the goat feed!

Piggies enjoying breakfast

Awww.. say hello to the piglets!

So cute and perfect!

After-milking mayhem!  Poppet is balanced atop the milk stand!

Pretty flowers :)  My clematis that was supposed to grow on that support died :(

Bounce sharing his basket with a kitten

Piglets!

This morning when we went to milk Dan noticed Little Miss making odd grunting noises and he was wondering what was going on when lo and behold three little piglets came running to their mama!  So cute!  Photos soon.

Dairy Cow Milk Stanchion & Random Photos

That's what we've been busy with this weekend.  Relatively easy, it's not finished yet, we want to concrete the floor.

Ping decided to model it for us:

She's quite photogenic don't you think?  (Seriously, who thought I'd love goats so much!?)

Poor Poppet.  She has to be locked up for the night and doesn't enjoy it.  Working on a pen for her so she can be separated from mom 24/7.

The ducks are getting big.. and beautiful!

We have a nice variety. Three Pekins, two Rouens, three Ancona and two Welsh Harlequins.

Goodnight!

Udderly wonderful

It took us a while to figure out the whole milking thing with Ping. When we first got her, her milk tasted AWFUL! A really bitter, chemically kind of taste. I contacted the breeder we bought her from who was very puzzled about that, but later she contacted me and said she had tried the milk from her remaining goats and found their milk to have the same bad taste. So she walked her pasture and found a patch of wild onion growing that the goats had been happily munching. That seems to have been what it was, because after about 2 weeks Ping's milk tasted fine. It sure took a long time for that to get out of her system! Plus we had to keep Poppet separate from Ping overnight so we could milk her in the morning, otherwise Poppet (formerly Dora) would drink all the milk and leave very little for us.

Anyway, I thought I would post pics of her udder and Lillys as a comparison. Remember Lilly is an older goat, Ping is a first freshener two year old.  The photos were taken in the morning, when the goats had full udders.

First Lilly:

So she's not going to win any prizes for her udder, but her teats are nice hand sized teats and the orifices are nice and big.  The right side of her udder holds more milk, so she's kind of lopsided.  Easy milker, she stand on the stand without trouble as long as she has food :)

Okay, now Ping:

Comparing the two I'm sure you can understand why it took us some adjusting to milking her!  Her teats point out so far they touch her legs and her teats are tiny compared to Lilly.  With Lilly I can use my whole hand to milk, with Ping I have to use two or three fingers instead.  Her left teat is longer, but the right side of her udder holds twice as much milk as the left.  Now I'm not saying she's a terrible milk goat, far from!  She stand beautifully on the stand and her orifices are nice sized as well, AND I know the udder of a FF will improve with time.  We are very happy with her.  

And the result of the morning milking from Ping:

That's a 1/2 gallon jar.  Some of that is foam, so it's not as full as it looks... but is that awesome or what!?  As you can see, the right side of her udder stays lopsided even when empty.  I'm not sure if that will change next year or if that's how she'll always be.  Overall we're very happy with her.  She's quite sweet :)  (Sorry about the messy stand, since these were taken we have started leaving a small broom in there to clean off the stand before each milking.)

Our New Goats

Well, we finally settled on Alpines as our goat of choice.  We've been watching available goats for quite a while now, and when Ping and her baby became available we were very interested.  We went to pick them up today and they are BEAUTIFUL!  As you can see above though, we definitely need a small livestock trailer.  Though the trip wasn't bad and both animals lay down most of the way.  I feel sad for the lady who sold them though, I have become quite attached to Lilly in just the one week we've had her, after a year it would be especially hard to have to say goodbye.

What is it about goats?  I never thought I would like them as much as I do.  They seem somewhat vulnerable, yet they are so funny.  They can be very loving, I know Lilly is, and I expect Ping will be very similar.  Oh, the doeling is Dora.  She's very pretty, but our kiddos have decided her name will have to be changed, I guess none of them were very big Dora (the Explorer) fans, LOL.  

Anyway, here are pics of our new goats, we're already in love!

Dora and Ping

Ping

Lilly investigating the new additions

So beautiful!

Goat milk!

We have spoken about getting a goat for quite a while now.  At first after we got Butterbelle I thought I didn't want goats anymore.  Then my oldest DD turned out to be lactose intolerant.  A friend has goats and offered us one of her goats on a loan until December so we've taken her up on the offer.  Lilly is an Alpine, and she is an incredibly patient and good natured goat.  So we Dan set to work building a goat stanchion.  Have I mentioned how amazing my hubby is?

The beginning of the stanchion.

Almost done

I went to go have a chat with Lilly to tell her how the stanchion building was going

The head gate parts

It will eventually have a clasp to hold them together, for now a bungee will work

Complete!

Feed bucket installed, just the right size for a goat :)

Well... we had to test it out, right?  LOL!

The first milking, which actually went pretty easily!  Did I mention how patient Lilly is?

I love this photo!

Dan gave it a try as well.. he's probably going to need a bit more practice, LOL!

Now all we need is a milking stool :)

I'm quite pleased with how the stand worked, and how relatively easy the milking was.  Of course Lilly is a pro at it by now, and very patiently stood there and put up with our bumbling around.  We will be milking her mornings and evenings, and our friend says we could expect about a gallon a day from her.  We're going to be building another stand for our friend, she doesn't have one yet.

Butterbelle does not seem to like the goat very much... or maybe it's just food envy since we fed Lilly from the bucket we normally bring Butterbelle's grains in.. so for now Butterbelle is residing in pasture 2 with the pigs, while Lilly is in pasture 1 on her own.  They can all have a meet and greet through the gate and get to know each other.  Goats are so incredibly social and Lilly comes running each time someone is in view.  We love her!

We are still searching for our own dairy goat, still deliberating on what breed we want.  We're definitely leaning more toward Alpines, but we're considering Nubians too because they're a dual purpose breed and their milk apparently has the highest fat content of any goats.