First show of the year

Saturday we spent a lovely day in London, OH at the annual Mid-Ohio Dairy Goat Association show. It was a beautiful day with plenty of sunshine and goat friends to catch up with.

We had an excellent day in the show ring! Cammile, a 4 y/o Alpine went GCH in both Ring 1 and 2! Emilene matched her efforts and was awarded GCH in Ring 1 and 2 as well, finishing her Permanent Championship and earning CH status in front of her name. Emilene also has the honor of being our first Capra Lane home bred champion.

Macy, above, had an impressive showing as well. It was her first time shown since 2009 and we really admire her conformation and milking capacity so we brought her along. She was awarded RGCH in one ring -  that means she will be coming along to more shows in the near future. Macy's yearling daughter, Mallory, who is also our first milking daughter to Capone, came along as well as a milking yearling. Both judges admired her overall correctness and dairy character and she received many complimentary evaluations through the day,  placing first in her age class twice. We hope to see great things from her as she matures...

Masquerade also made an appearance this year as a 4 y/o milker, having stayed home the past 2 years to complete her Weight Watchers program. She is still a little on the 'big-boned' side but has a lovely udder. Rog thought she 'rippled' and 'jiggled' a bit still, but she did great placing 2nd and 3rd against a group of nationally competitive Saanens.

In other news...the pigs are here! Since nothing goes unnamed here, even food, Harriet and Henrietta are settling in nicely. Still a but skittish but eating and drinking, basking in the sun in their pen. When we picked them up we received a thorough tour of the lovely and immaculate farm on which they were born. Learned that pigs can swim and are highly intelligent and can be quite dangerous. Now to acclimate them to our presence so they don't try to gnaw our legs off when we go in the pen...

They're borderline cute, but boy can they scream when you handle them. I was worried our neighbors thought we were murdering someone when we carried them from the truck to their new digs. We welcomed them home with some grain, fresh milk and some pear slices and strawberries. While watching them chow down it was hard not to notice that their little butts already look kind of like ham....

Also, its baling time! Time to figure out the new (old) baler we bought this spring. The goats are eagerly waiting for the alfalfa they've been sniffing all day from the front field. As long as the weather cooperates our barn should be filled with fresh hay very soon.

Lastly, check out my new 'art' project. This caught my eye as I was walking out to the barn and I was struck with the desire to bring it in the house and hang it on the wall. Honeybee art at its finest! This pattern somehow appeared on the lid of one of our hives and I'm not quite sure I can explain why it looks that way. Striking, isn't it?

New articles about goat meat

Getting Your Goat

http://www.7dvt.com/2012vermont-chevon-goat-meat

Getting Your Goat Can Be Tough - Producers Lag Behind Consumers

http://www.greatfallstribune.com/article/20120425/LIFESTYLE/204250308/Getting-your-goat-can-tough-producers-lag-behind-consumers-?odyssey=nav|head

Just Clearing Some Things Up

Over the past several years I've entertained various questions about goats in general. What is sometimes surprising is the source of these questions. Independent of the 'asker's' upbringing, level of education completed and family life, we've fielded some real doozies! As expected, when placing sale ads for animals you sometimes attract some questionable characters.

I'm looking for a billy goat to milk.  I'm going to tie it to my porch so it can play with my dogs and share their food. When will it start making milk?

There are some strict criteria for even getting an email back from me. 1. Grammar and punctuation (or lack thereof) should be, at least, marginally acceptable. 2. If you can't afford gas to get the goats, or to fix your car to get the goats, or pay to register the goats, you can't feed the goats and certainly can't provide appropriate veterinary care when necessary. 3. Don't ask me for a champion milker producing 2 gallons a day and expect to pay only $75. 4. Be a responsible animal owner. Buy a book. When purchasing goats, don't ask me 'what do they eat?' And don't seem surprised that a ruminant requires hay. And don't expect it to mow your lawn, they really don't care for grass.Those are the big ones.

Then there are the questions we field over and over again. Some you expect, because I, too, was raised without any general knowledge of farming or livestock and probably asked some of these same questions before. Some are just silly.

Will goats eat anything? Even tin cans?

They really prefer pizza. In Manhattan. 

Mine like 'Cool Ranch' flavor better.

But truly, they're really damn picky. High quality alfalfa hay - sneak in some older bales and they promptly pick through it and toss it on the floor. Once on the ground you may as well call it 'bedding' because they wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole unless they were on the verge of starvation. They prefer leafy things over grass, ie clover, weeds over most grasses. There is truth in that they are excellent brush clearing tools and will plow through thistle, ragweed, poison ivy and multiflora rose. But remember, you are what you eat, or in this case, the milk tastes like the food source. Let me tell you, ragweed does not taste so good in my coffee, and this is why goats milk gets a bad name - poor dietary management. And please, adult male in Delaware last year, my goats don't want your greasy fair fries. Nor do they want the cup from your lemon shake. Next time I'll feed goat berries to your kid...

Our first year with goats, I lovingly chopped up some extra veggies from the garden only to have the little buggers snub me, one by one. Some are more daring than others, they generally like sweet potatoes, apples, raisins, carrots, sweeter things, kind of like us human types. Squash, corn, bananas, cucumbers, legumes are hit or miss. Tin cans, paper, plastic and baling twine (dangerous!) are definitely not on the menu.

Ewwww...you drink goats milk??

No, we work our butts off then dump it in the lawn. Of course we drink it! When  you take the care to make sure you feed the animals properly, strain out any hair or debris and just be 'clean', it tastes great. We've slipped it past many an unadventurous palate and many children without a fight. I won't go on about the health benefits and ease of digestion, it can be easily googled. And its getting late. 

Where do they poop?

Goat berries. Compact, neat, little, if any odor. No piles of stanky manure here... (not my hand, by the way)

This one caught me off guard. Ummm, on the ground? 'You mean, they just lay in it?' Yes. 'Well don't you milk them?' Yes, aaaand? 'And you drink it after they've been lying around in shit all day?' Newsflash - you do too!!! No milk is 'born' at the grocery store.

So are the ones with the beards boys? Why don't they have horns?

All goats get beards. we just prefer to clip the girls to make them look prettier. The boys look more masculine with their beards plus it gives them a media to decorate with their own urine during rut. Who are we to deny them the pleasure of shaking their pungent, soaked flowing beards? We remove the horns for safety, theirs and ours. Not pleasant for either of us but it is responsible animal husbandry. Don't call me cruel. Cruel is having a horned goat trapped in an electric fence or letting horns tear through your herdmates udders.

Look at that belly- she is pregnant right?

A big, wide belly is evidence of a large, healthy rumen, the goats fermentation vat to process their food. Pregnant goats can sometimes require a 'wide load' sign and are just gigundous. Others hardly look pregnant at all, even with multiples.

Well I still think she's pregnant...

Nope, definitely not. Those are her kids right over there. 

Are you sure you got them all?

Yes, positive. She's fine. 

Well, her udder is really full, it looks like it hurts, you should probably milk her.

Milking time is in 3 hours. That is a normal appearing udder, she is a productive milker, I assure you, she is fine. 

Whoa, look at the udder on that one, it must be sick!

Uh, that's a buck.

So in review...........................

Don't worry, it won't eat the whole thing. Maybe just the handle.

Well, it looks the same, so hair must be just as good as hay.

Fingers are very nutritious and the meat makes for excellent butterfat content in the milk.

Please! Help me outta here! He tried to milk my scrotum again!

Earth Day

Ok, I admit I had no clue it was Earth Day until I saw the news last night. But it was fitting, we spent the whole day plowing, moving, grinding and remodeling...the Earth!

This is a newly plowed field in back of our house. Its a small area, in the past we've cultivated nothing more than ragweed in this area which causes me much misery each fall. This is where we spread a lot of our goat manure after cleaning stalls, so, theoretically at least, the soil should be great. We have big hopes for a small area of sweet corn, squash (to keep it from taking over our main garden), melons, kale (for the goats) and pumpkins. After having my first pumpkin success last year the dreams are getting bigger. Rog asked me- what are we going to do with all these pumpkins? I asked - how are we going to keep all that weeded sufficiently? Should be a disaster...

We also are trying to finish up our feeder hog pen. The project was aborted when the sheet metal for the roof started blowing away and we decided it wasn't important enough to risk decapitation. So, yes, we are getting piggies...since we don't have enough to do already. But piggies will drink a lot of milk that would otherwise get dumped in the lawn, they will eat a lot of pumpkins (a natural pig de-wormer, I learned) and they taste really good...

Mmmmm...bacon

Partially finished pig house. Strategically placed on the southeast corner of our property so we cannot smell them!

We also did some bee management this week. Rog installed the observation hive at the park and also successfully captured a swarm in our backyard and has installed it into a new hive for our apiary. The early spring has made for busy bees...the hives are already loaded with honey and young bees. We may be splitting more hives sooner than we think.

Hmmm... why does he always do these projects when I'm wearing black?

Bursting with joy

It's a big day here at Capra Lane. Bigger than the new tractor...bigger than having 4 does kidding simultaneously...bigger than putting away the dehorning iron for the year...bigger than having everyone finally learn the milking order...

We have DSL!

We have (kind of) entered the 21st century in Adario! Seriously, you people that are blessed with civilization have no idea how frustrating the last 6 years have been. We have spent fortunes on long distance(!) dial-up. We've suffered with $85 a month satellite "high-speed" internet that went out with the rain, snow, wind, clouds, birds, butterflies and really wasn't any faster than dial-up. And Richard Branson can suck it. Virgin Mobile's Mifi device will be the subject of my next target shooting practice. We've had it for about a year, delicately balanced on our windowsill to catch a signal, moving it in various locations through the house. It worked well for a few months, just enough to suck me into a contract, then it would flick on, flick off, freeze up and made checking email a 30-60 minute process. Countless 'trouble tickets', replacement devices and failed customer service calls later and I'm happy to kiss the damn thing goodbye.

So, the Ontario office staff of Century Link are now my heroes. The corporate office had been giving us the run around for the past 5 years or so as to why our neighbors have DSL but we are too far from the home office. So thank you, to the sales rep and tech guy that thought this seemed as stupid as I did. It took a few weeks to sort out the logistics but it is finally in place.

 Hopefully no more bouts of wanting to go 'Office Space' on my computer in the near future. Who am I fooling??? I was close to shooting it almost every day. Looking forward to getting some work done at home and not having to drive 30 minutes to Panera or Starbucks to use their WiFi and buy expensive coffee. We finally get to discover YouTube in more than 5 second buffered intervals. Maybe I can download an Ipad app without letting it run overnight or try to use ITunes to its full potential. The possibilities are endless. And do you know how long it took to upload the photos on this post?? Just as long as it took to take a sip of coffee...amazing! Maybe since blog posts are no longer an all-day affair I'll get my ass in gear and update more frequently....

Yep, even this guy beat us to the punch.

A birth on One Moon Farm

Congratulations to Miss Moon and family! Sunday marked the birth of twin doe kids by her yearling doe, Capra Lane Zofi Arrow Moon. These are the first kids born under the One Moon Farm herd name. Zofi did an excellent job during the kidding and is looking forward to being spoiled on the milkstand.

Living the goat life

The kidding craziness is settling down now and we’re trying to settle into a routine. Some of the 1^st time milkers insist on rushing the gate at every opportunity and we’ve turned goat wrestling into a daily event. Typically we settle into a routine, which the goats appreciate, as far as milking order, coming when called, etc. But with milkers for sale that have not yet been picked up, we’ve hesitated to enforce it, as the order will be changing again as they move out.

Catalpa, Lola, Matilda, Serafina and Petunia have moved on to new herds, Stella and Willow will be moving to Kentucky very soon. Although we’re happy to re-home some of our excess milkers, ironically, now we have to buy milk! Lots and lots of milk! The girls had been providing us with about 12 gallons of milk per day, which the kids are just demolishing. Buying cow’s milk regularly now to supplement helped us realize what everyone is complaining about- milk prices are definitely high. We are able to sneak a quart or two from the goats every now and then for ourselves. We just decreased the frequency of milk feeding and started the babies on grain and it’s awfully cute to watch them chew on one pellet of grain for hours on end. 

 

Most of the available kids are spoken for, we still have Saanen babies available out of Masquerade, Serafina and twin bucks out of Hilary. Also, one Togg doe kid out of CH Elina (aka ‘Queen Bitch’of the barn). Additional photos available on request.

This year we will have market wethers in Ashland, Huron, Lorain and Crawford counties, best of luck to the 4H’ers!

The does are certainly enjoying the unseasonably warm weather and feasting on the new growth clover in the pasture. Its amazing how milk production skyrockets with a day or two of sunshine. It does look more like May around here than March, hopefully the new growth, budding trees and perennials will be saved when the next big freeze comes…we all know this won’t last! It is northern Ohio after all, where picnics can be followed by blizzards in the blink of an eye!