A goat milkstand for a friend

My hubby built this goat milking stand for a friend.  She needed one a little sturdier than ours though, since she wanted it for boer goats, and for doing hooves, worming, etc.  So DH put sides on it, and used 4 x 4 posts for the legs.  That should hold them nicely!

Pig housing revised

After losing some piglets which were possibly squished or otherwise abused by our boar, we decided to give our two sows each their own secure quarters.  The pig shed got split down the middle and we built two pens for them.  Bubbles (the boar) got to free roam in the larger pasture.

Little Miss, down to only one little piglet

Ping and her beautifully lopsided udder.

Sweet Ping

A couple of hours after milking

Two days later, right before milking

She stands quite nicely for us

Although her udder is lopsided, she is giving us about a gallon a day, so we're not perturbed.  We asked some "experts" about it, and they assure us that all is well and there's no issue.  She just won't win any udder beauty contests, ha!  But for the FF that she is, it's a nice sized udder, and her milk is delicious, she co-operates quite well on the stand, so who am I to complain?

Spring time bursting forth at the seams

Hills with watermelons and summer squash

 We're trying hills for our squash this year.  Our sons have planted a large watermelon/melon garden this year, it involved a lot of hilling, but they cheerfully got the work done.

Various crops coming along nicely

Sharing a cool drink of water

Sheer beauty

Very protective!  We found they had nested inside a hole in the fence pole.  So sweet.

Boys and bugs

 They just go together, don't they?

The long wait is over!!!

We went out this morning to milk the goats, and look what sight greeted us!  Butterbelle had her calf all on her own, without any help.  Mom was doing well and baby was nursing well.  We're going to leave them for a few days before trying to milk.

So beautiful!!

Butchering Day

Time to butcher!  Our Cornish X chickens were ready to be processed.  We set up some stations beforehand to make things go a little smoother.  We had a slaughter area (not pictured), then a dunking station, defeathering station, gutting station, cleaning station and then the cooler boxes to put the final product in.  Our family is pretty good at working together.

Everyone helps - even the littlies.  They can do the final plucking and making sure everything is clean.

Implements for gutting and cleaning (mama's job!)

The biggest job is the plucking.  Many hands make light work!

Dunking station to help loosen feathers before plucking begins.

It was a LOT of work, but it was good to have our own homegrown chickens in the freezer.

Milk Stanchion Complete

Never-ending projects! Our "to do" list is a mile long!

DH and our oldest son started the concrete work in the milk stanchion. We ran out of concrete and had to stop for the night.

In the meantime, I realized I was off on Butterbelle's due date.  I re-calculated and realized she is due anytime between June 6th and `12th.  She looks uncomfortable and spends a good deal of time just laying down.

Her udder is swollen with milk.  We'll eventually have a calf!

Goat Shed and Pen

Well, to say Poppet did not enjoy being crated every evening would be an understatement!  So we set to work building a shed (Senz style!) and pen so we could have her penned up 24/7 to wean her off Ping and milk her morning and evening.

Building the pen

Of course the goats all had to inspect it

Happy helpers :)

Lilly loves me.  Dearly.  I'm going to miss her when she has to go back to her own goat mama.

The completed shed and pen.

Of course the first night and the next day there was a whole lot of "crying" from little Poppet.  Ping wasn't ecstatic about the whole idea either... but Poppet is over 3 months old and eating hay and grain just fine.