Introducing ~ capra vie

We've already established that goats are addictive. Goats also make large quantities of fresh, sweet milk. In Ohio, USDA dairy laws prohibit the sale of milk and milk products, ie cheese, yogurt, etc from a non-certified and inspected location. We feel we make pretty good use of our excess milk, for example, by raising meat for our family. The hogs slurped down gallon after gallon, the birds enjoy a little bowl of whey or some cheese bits now and then and I've experimented over the years with soaps, lotions, etc but never had the motivation to market it on a bigger scale. One day a friend and I were gabbing at length (as we often do) and since we share a similar creative vision and the constant need for some sort of right-brained outlet, 'capra vie' was born.

 'capra vie' is a collaboration between our farm, Capra Lane in Greenwich, and one moon farm in Oberlin. Loosely translated to 'the goat life', capra vie helps support our belief that the 'goat' life is indeed the 'good' life and gives us an opportunity to inform and educate the public on the value and efficiency of goats on a small homestead and also to make them aware of the benefits of goats milk. And legal as well! Our cosmetic products are made with natural base and essential oils and our food products conform to Ohio's Cottage food laws with regards to processing and labeling.

'capra vie' will make its debut at the Oberlin Farmers Market on Saturday, May 25. We will attend 9-10 dates through the summer, the full schedule can be found in the coming weeks on the Oberlin Farm Market web page and we will be picking up a few isolated dates at the Wellington, Ohio farmers market as well, which is on Friday evenings through the summer. Scheduled dates (which may change) are 5/25, 6/15, 7/13, 8/10, 9/21, 9/28, 10/5, 10/26 for the Oberlin market.

Soaps will be at the forefront, made with goats milk, olive, coconut, palm and grapeseed oils. Offering unscented with oatmeal, coffee and honey, sweet fennel and blood orange and rosemary. Look for geranium with rose hips later in the season, all made with pure essential oils. 

Goats milk salves, made with natural butters and essential oils, offered in eucalyptus & bay, rosemary & pink grapefruit, also a rich whipped salve with frankincense essential oil. 

"Lippies" or "lip pies" made with goats milk, natural oils & butters, beeswax from our apiary and tangerine essential oil.

Solid lotion cakes made with goats milk, butters, oils, beeswax and infused with either blood orange or tea tree / lavender essential oils. 

Cajeta, a  lovingly and tediously boiled rich caramel sauce made with goats milk and sugar, excellent on ice cream, fruit or with a spoon, which is how I prefer it. . . 

And lastly, goats milk fudge, both savory and sweet.

Through the summer we will also be offering raw honey, fresh cut flowers, herbs and garlic, when available. At each market we will have a 'featured goat' with photo and bio from either the One Moon or Capra Lane herd and hope to bring a doe for a market visit as well. Dates are subject to change - 5/25, 6/15, 7/13, 8/10, 9/21, 9/28, 10/5, 10/26. In Oberlin, adjacent to city hall, from 9am-1pm.

Spring is the time of plans and projects... -Leo Tolstoy

Every year the cherry blossoms burst with great vigor, appearing suddenly overnight.  It usually coincides with the first day I pull the Zyrtec eye drops out of storage.

The honeybees worked tirelessly collecting pollen and zipping back and forth to the hives over the roof of the house. We watched the steady stream for a few minutes, a well-organized two way highway from dawn to dusk.

The girls are feasting on fresh greenery and giving our pocketbooks a little rest. Hay prices are horrendous and heartburn inducing. Knowing we have a large pasture brimming with clover we can ration the last remaining bales and force them to eat the 'free' food outside. 

These are our retained babies-  Maribel, Emmette, Lark, Sofia and Delfina. They quickly learn to be wary of the fence!

After a day of romping in the warm, windy weather, the growing kids look forward to dinner.

And promptly pass out.

Never need a reason to post togg-dumbo ears.

Well hello! Mickey was hoping to get his picture taken, his beard gracefully flowing in the wind.  Warm weather means that very soon I can shave the winter crusties off the boys. Their rut 'habits' leave quite the coating of grime. 

Whiskey waits patiently for the strip cup of milk. Otherwise she has little use for us.

It was Rog's turn to save a stray. After swerving to miss this young female painted turtle on the road near our house, he jumped out, scooped her up and placed her in the bucket he had conveniently sitting in his truck,

Off to the wetland she went. After a few minutes of cowering in her shell, she poked out her nose and started weaving thru the cattails. This means its my turn! I save kittens, Rog saves reptiles...I'm thinking ...stray steer or maybe a horse??

The last goat births of the year...

Goats, like humans, have a habit of nesting as they prepare for their babies to arrive. We usually see them scratching up the straw bedding, creating and destroying pile after pile. They create nests for their bulging bellies, nests for the new babies to rest in. As they get closer to the arrival of the new babies, they finally settle down and relax a bit.

When the expectant momma goat gets up to feed, if we're lucky, we get a quick glance at her eggs to make sure they are healthy. For such large animals goats lay pretty small eggs. Sometimes we have to shuffle around the straw to find them. This is a saanen goat nest, so the eggs are very pale. Alpines generally lay darker brown eggs, sometimes gray colors too.

 

Marigold is getting agitated as she lay on her eggs. Goats are ruminants so they release a lot of body heat. they are excellent nesters and keep their eggs very warm in preparation for hatching. When she feels the eggs start to stir, she will get up and let the eggs hatch without interference, ready to take care of her newborn kids. 

Goats, unlike chickens, have no use for an 'egg-tooth' so they use their specially designed hooves to tap-tap-tap and gently break through the shell. Those long legs are itching to get out of their confinement, its not uncommon to see the eggs roll and flip as the babies are hatching out. 

Often as the hatching kids get really restless we'll see the eggs burst open into many small pieces and the goat kids will use their butts and tails to speed up the process of hatching.

Finally free! Momma goat will usually quickly clean up the eggshells so as not to leave any evidence for predators. Plus the calcium in the shells will help them gather their strength after sitting on their eggs for five long months. A second egg hatched soon after, probably stimulated by the movement created by her twin sister hatching out beside her. Now its time to celebrate, twin girls just in time for Easter!

Happy April Fool's Day!

Finito!

Hooray! 2013 kidding season is over! All in all, it was a good year, no hellish all nighters, a few late nights here and there but I think there was only one night I did not see my bed at all. A far cry from years past. Induction drugs are my friend. . .

As I said in my earlier post, 29 kids born, only one loss, a stillborn kid. The milkers are milking, eating and hormonal, as is expected. We are now working on establishing a milking order and teaching it to the stubborn hollering mommas. There is very much a 'me first' attitude going on in our barn right now.

The barn cam is a lifesaver. Our existing camera fizzled out this year and we had a flipping, static filled signal that was not very soothing at 3am. After trying two new cameras, we settled on a wired version that eliminated interference from our metal pole barn and transmitted clearly in all and any weather conditions. It did snow in my living room for a bit due to the not-so-sealed window, but beggars can't be choosers.

Goat TV- the next new reality show. Watching this from the warmth of my living room makes me so thankful! In years past, especially when we were newbies and weren't certain which labor signs meant immediate babies, we used to sit shivering for hours on end in the barn with foot warmers, gloves, ski masks, whatever it took. We would stack hay bales to nestle between them knowing they provided warmth. 

Mona Lisa provided my main 'worry' for the year. Several days shy of her due date she started lying around way too much and was walking extremely gingerly and stiffly, getting up only when necessary but her appetite was good. She wasn't too 'baby-big' so I wasn't quite sure what was going on. This was unusual behavior for any of our goats. Within the day she started swelling in one foreleg and one rear leg and they were obviously tender to the touch. Swollen feet in goats is never normal, even in pregnancy and can suggest ketosis. Lack of activity combined with swelling and visible discomfort made me induce her early and load her up with vitamins and supplements, as well as a steroid shot to help not only her swelling, but the lung development of her babies. She delivered two giant buck kids, around 11 lbs each, which is big, especially for a first timer. They are really wide and girthy and took me a bit by surprise when I tried to pick them up! Here they are on day two. She immediately bounced back after some pain medicine, her swelling has completely resolved and she is back to being one of the sweetest goats we have. She is dam-raising her buck kids this year. 

This picture made its way in again, it's just so darn cute...

This is the 'last' batch of colostrum we are heat-treating for the year. It takes about an hour of holding a constant temp and is a general pain in the ass. The excitement of being done with colostrum is rivaled only by completing the disbudding (de-horning of the babies) and the tattooing. 

Rosie grew a massive leg! Kaelyn is beat from helping care for 29 babies, licking their chins and  catching any milk dribbles. She finally gave up, crawled under a blanket and passed out on the couch and Rosie, the opportunist, climbed on her living heating pad to relax. Which is what I want to do now, right after I feed dozens of hungry kids. 

Good night!

Journal of a Goat Birth

All is quiet in the barn. We rushed out after seeing some heaving, pushing, rearranging and nesting on the goat cam while sitting warm and comfy on the couch. May is showing signs of impending labor. 

The Capra Lane herd enjoys private birthing stalls, complete with infrared heaters when needed, comfy straw and pine shavings that they quickly shred and nest into piles. Also they can take advantage of the tube gates to work off stress and bash their neighbors and hog all the 'good' hay. Here is May, a first fresehener getting down to business. 

There is no glamour in goat birthing. I prefer gloves, a long ghetto gangster puffer coat to catch fluids and goo, waterproof boots and layers. Also a luxurious seat to rest on. A milk crate will do.

What's she hollering about?? We're hungry! M-a-a-a-a! Starving!

Almost there, May...Front feet and nose is a perfect birth presentation. They do twist themselves around on occasion, which is a lot more work for both me and the goat. Today, smooth sailing!

Snip the cord, check the breathing, clear the airway of any mucus, then the kid is passed along to the doula (thanks, Ma!) where it is promptly cuddled, dried, cord tied off and cleaned with iodine, then placed under the heat lamp until we're sure no more kids are coming. 

Its a girl! Standing up in just a few minutes looking for food. Into the 'neonatal care center' (my basement in a box, don't judge!) they go for feeding and rest. 

We raise our kids on a CAE (caprine arthritis encephalitis) prevention program, which means we pull kids from the dams at birth then raise them on heat-treated colostrum and pasteurized milk to prevent transmission of disease. This also means the kids think that we are 'mom' and turn into clingy little boogers very quickly, they are very sociable and tame. Its a lot more work, we try to dam raise some pre-ordered meat kids to cut down on the workload, every little bit helps!

Final Kid Count

Lunetta - twins, doe retained, buck sold

Masquerade - twin does, one retained, one sold

Luci - triplet bucklings, all sold

Luna - twin does, all sold

Elina - twins, doe sold, buck sold

Macy - triplets, one doe retained, one doe sold, one buckling sold

Emilene - triplets, one doe retained, two bucklings 

Cammile - single buckling, for sale

Sage - single doeling, retained
Esmerelda- single doeling, sold
Mona Lisa - twin bucklings
May - single doeling, sold
Cassiopeia - twin sundgau doelings, one for sale
Mallory - mixed twins, both sold
Charlotte - twin cou blanc doelings, sold

29 kids for 2013!

Week in review

I'm pretty good at following instructions. We ate it. Promptly. 

Raw cow's milk camembert. Beautiful rind. Beautiful smell. So far, so good...

Beautiful center. Yay!!! You can see it aging from the outside in, softening gradually. Sweet, mild, perfect with fruit. Now to tackle it with goats milk. . . 

We ate camembert. We ate caerphilly. We ate apples. And berries. And nuts. 

And grapes. And prosecco. And slept. 

The spring-like weekend reprieve was enjoyed by all. Kaelyn played monkey-in -the- middle for a while, then she remembered she is nearly 11 and stopped in the middle and swung her head from left to right.

As it does every year, early spring brings plenty of mud, which does not provide good traction  for  a trailer loaded with  2+ tons of hay. 

Boys and their toys. Keep trying and trying, mud is flying everywhere. The result was a discussion to widen the barn driveway and add a turn-around. 

Mama? A single doe kid visits with Kaelyn before moving out to the barn.

I inadvertently left Tinder out of my last post. She is fine, coming up on her fourth birthday which marks her second year with us. She tolerates company a little better now but still stays close to me, smothering me.

May and Mona Lisa propped up on each other soaking up rays. They are struggling through the last few days of pregnancy, Mona Lisa may get induced soon, her feet are swelling a bit which is much less forgiving in hooves than it is to human feet!

It's not over yet, the blue skies and warmth can be deceiving. The next burst of winter misery is lingering nearby. This weekend will end our kidding season, then we start focusing on hay and garden prep work. The fun just never ends around here!