Hobby Farm Count up by 8!!!
It has been a VERY busy few days......
"Big Mamma" our oldest goat-- had triplets!!! She had a very rough delivery. Her first girl came out fine, but the 2nd one (BOY) was breech, so had to be helped out (literally) as did the 3rd girl. Big Mamma is really done having babies-- and that is so sad because she is a GREAT mamma-- she takes SUPER good care of her babies even when she herself is NOT doing well. After 3 days of some molasses, penicillin, and red raspberry tea she seems to be doing MUCH better.
Then yesterday morning we had a nice leiserly breakfast of pancakes and when we finally made it out to the bard (after 1 early monring check) we found "IC" had triplets out already!! She gives birth SOOOOOO easily, however does not take real good care of her babies, (they were being cleaned and fed by "Bailey"). She had 1 girl and 2 boys.
So that means we have 3 girls (KEEPERS) and 5 boys--the hard facts are on a "hobby farm" you don't keep boy goats. Unless you need a buck to service your girls (which we will keep 1 of Baileys boys) but they cannot have a sister on the farm or it could cause problems. Some would keep and eat their bucks...and that is "okay" but now that we have the Boer / meat goats that wouldn't make much sense, especially if you saw the size the dairy goats get in 1 year vs. the size boer goats get in 1 year.... no compairson. So the children know and understand (finally this year) that we must not get very attached to the boy goats..... as a matter of fact we are not even bottle feeding them but letting them on their mothers... to help us not get TOOO attached and also to free up some time-- we have a LOT to do this time of year and bottle feeding 8 babies 4-5x a day is a LOT.
"Big Mamma" our oldest goat-- had triplets!!! She had a very rough delivery. Her first girl came out fine, but the 2nd one (BOY) was breech, so had to be helped out (literally) as did the 3rd girl. Big Mamma is really done having babies-- and that is so sad because she is a GREAT mamma-- she takes SUPER good care of her babies even when she herself is NOT doing well. After 3 days of some molasses, penicillin, and red raspberry tea she seems to be doing MUCH better.
Then yesterday morning we had a nice leiserly breakfast of pancakes and when we finally made it out to the bard (after 1 early monring check) we found "IC" had triplets out already!! She gives birth SOOOOOO easily, however does not take real good care of her babies, (they were being cleaned and fed by "Bailey"). She had 1 girl and 2 boys.30 minutes later-- "Bailey" went into labor with 2 boys. She too is a great mamma-- she needed just a BIT of helping pulling a stuck baby out (as she did last year) she gets the hoofs out and then gets really tired. But the 2nd one came out very fast and easily.
So that means we have 3 girls (KEEPERS) and 5 boys--the hard facts are on a "hobby farm" you don't keep boy goats. Unless you need a buck to service your girls (which we will keep 1 of Baileys boys) but they cannot have a sister on the farm or it could cause problems. Some would keep and eat their bucks...and that is "okay" but now that we have the Boer / meat goats that wouldn't make much sense, especially if you saw the size the dairy goats get in 1 year vs. the size boer goats get in 1 year.... no compairson. So the children know and understand (finally this year) that we must not get very attached to the boy goats..... as a matter of fact we are not even bottle feeding them but letting them on their mothers... to help us not get TOOO attached and also to free up some time-- we have a LOT to do this time of year and bottle feeding 8 babies 4-5x a day is a LOT.
So that is our update--- busy busy busy.... this is a SUPER busy season for us-- but in 8 weeks things will slow down... bottle feeding with slow down, and a lot of re-arranging of animals on the farm will make life simpler-- but while there are new babies-- and new mammas they need help and extra "goodies".
Are we done? No, we still have 2 pregant goats (last years kids-- whom we did NOT want to be pregnant--and we MUST watch carefully) one due any day now in March and one due April 18th(ish).
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