4 down, 10 to go. . .

Macy finally delivered 2 healthy kids this afternoon around 3 o'clock after a long night of pacing and restlessness, I'm pretty sure she was just messing with her owners. . .

The buck kid is already spoken for, the doeling will likely remain here with me, depending on what kids are born from Elina and Emilene next weekend. I'm excited to have Capone's first daughter born and have high hopes for her. 

Rog has already had enough of kidding season. . . I probably should not remind him we have 10 to go.

You're not my mom! Kaelyn loves the goat babies and enjoys helping to dry them off.

More New Arrivals. . .

The kid pen is filling up! Yesterday brought the arrival of two more Saanens, one doe and one buck out of our first freshening two-year-old Serafina. Serafina freshened with a beautiful udder with a large area of attachment and tremendous foreudder extension. We will be retaining the doe kid, the buck kid will be offered for sale.

 

 Congratulations to Una Moon! She is a brand new goat owner, seen above with her lovely pied French Alpine doe kid. She and her parents were able to spend the day with us yesterday and had a lengthy introduction into goat ownership and helped us out tremendously, kidding a total of 5 new babies from Serafina and Luna.  This little doe will be joined by a Togg wether, and Una plans on him becoming the next champion in goat agility and pack training.

Luna gave us triplets again this year, Una's pied doe kid, a very tall Sundgau doe kid, and a cou blanc buck kid, shown above. The sundgau doe and the buck kid will be offered for sale, as we have already retained two of Luna's daughters in the herd.

Just waiting on Macy, she kept us up all night watching for her to go into active labor. Thank goodness for barn cams! Today we prepped the next group of does for kidding, they are dairy clipped and ready to go. Elina, Emilene, Lunetta, Francesca and Minney will kid next weekend. Hopefully the weather reports of a colossal ice / snow storm and extremely cold temperatures will change by then.

Kidding season has begun!

January 22, wind chills of -15 degrees, what a great day to spend in the barn waiting on babies to arrive. It was a long, rough day and not the greatest way to start the 2011 season. First I'd like to thank my dear friend Tiffany for spending the day with me and helping out, as Rog was away most of the day for a school event.

Masquerade was showing signs of heavy labor and was straining for about 25 minutes with no progress so I decided to go in and check out what was happening. Unfortunately, I felt a breech kid with both rear legs forward and one front leg back. The umbilical cord was wrapped around the kids pelvis and one rear leg and based on the coloration and necrosing surrounding sac tissue it was clear it had been dead for at least a day, which was why she wasn't having strong contractions and was not progressing normally. After successfully rearranging the kid (a doe, naturally...) for delivery, she started contracting again and a second kid was trying to work its way out at the same time. Massey safely delivered a large, healthy doe kid who is thriving and no worse for wear. Massey is doing just fine.

Here is Luciana, Luci for short, enjoying the luxury pen in our basement in her warm sweater. She'll be a spoiled house kid for about a week as we are not expecting more until next weekend. Hoping for a smooth weekend of uneventful births from Luna, Serafina and Macy...

Laying Hens

For the past few years we have raised Golden Comet laying hens and our family and friends have enjoyed the farm fresh brown eggs. As they have gotten more popular with friends and co-workers we've decided to increase the size of our small flock to include Plymouth Barred Rocks and Ameraucanas.

This is really not helping my bird phobia! Maybe the blue and green Ameraucana eggs will convince me otherwise. Rog is in charge of poultry and eggs, local sales only, $1.50 a dozen.

Sales and Reservations

A $50 deposit is required to hold the selected kid until 4 weeks of age. If the first choice kid / sex is not produced, the buyer may apply the $50 deposit towards a second choice kid, or the money will be refunded. If the buyer should cancel or fail to pick up the selected kid, the deposit will not be refunded. For boarding  / delayed pick up after 4 weeks of age, contact us for fees. Balance is due at the time of pick-up. This also applies to sales of adult animals.

We reserve the right to retain any kid as a herd replacement.
We are unable to ship at this time.

Dairy wethers will also be available for 4-H-ers. Price is $75, and wethers will be disbudded, vaccinated, castrated, tattooed with scrapie ID and will also include a scrapie ear-tag and basic goat care instructions. We can raise them to weaning for an additional fee, space permitting. Contact us via email for details.

We will have a few adult milkers for sale after kidding, including 2 Alpines, 1 Togg and possibly 1 Saanen. Prices TBD after freshening.

Welcome!

Welcome to our newest endeavor - the Capra Lane Farm blog! Here we will share kidding updates and photos as they arrive,  notices regarding sales of kid and adult animals, showring results and general news from the farm. Beekeeping news and hints from our hives at Nikiforow Apiary, as well as info on goats milk products, from cheesemaking, to recipes to soapmaking. Your comments, stories and feedback are always welcome...

We have been raising registered purebred French Alpines, American Alpines, American Toggenburgs and American Saanens since 2007. We got off to a surprising and interesting start when we received our first goat, a Nubian wether, as a wedding gift! Since I was sure he needed a friend (or two...), within days we added twin French Alpine does to the farm. Luckily, my husband had some experience working on a large dairy goat farm while growing up in Grafton, and I am a big animal lover, so we adjusted to being ‘goat people’ rather well. A pair of bred Toggenburg does soon followed, and with plans for a new barn in the spring of 2008, we added two Saanen kids and two more Alpine kids to our small herd.

 

Since that time we’ve taken advantage of the many resources available, books upon books, our goat friends, yahoo goat groups, and dairygoatinfo.com, and have worked hard to keep a very healthy and happy herd. We try to attend a handful of Ohio shows each year with the help of family and friends.   

 

In 2011,  we will freshen 14 does in Jan-March.  All kids will be raised on strict CAE prevention, bottle-fed heat treated colostrum and pasteurized milk. All kids will be disbudded, tattooed, vaccinated and supplemented with Bo-Se prior to sale.

We are hoping to attend 5-6 regional shows this year, have our first linear appraisal session and to become more involved in our local organizations.

   
Please contact us for additional information, for kid reservations, visits and general questions at capralane@yahoo.com

Visit our website at www.capralane.com ...