Small Farm, Permaculture and Farm Store

Celia's Kids

7/1/2013

Celia's quads. 3 boys and a tiny little girl.

Celia is mostly Nigerian Dwarf and Pygmy, though she might have a bit of Myotonic in her as well. She is a wonderful mother and last year raised triplets with no effort. This year she has outdone herself with quads, three boys and a girl. Two boys are full size, but the third boy is smaller and the girl is tiny, likely less than 2 pounds. She is healthy and robust though, and is managing so far to hold her own at feeding time, though with the boys being twice her size, she might not do as well in the future. The quads are under close watch to be sure they have enough to eat. If not, supplemental bottle feeding will be required, though the kids will be left with the mom. Thank you Celia, for your 4 lovely babies!

The boy on the right is very similar to his father and twice the size of his baby sister on his left.

Kids!

6/23/2013

The goat kids are starting to play and do funny antics, such as jump on their mothers and flip sideways as they jump off. The boys are very noticeable because they already are much more the show offs than the girls. Four kids were born between yesterday and today, a pair of boys and a brother and sister, all different with different markings. That is one of the nice things about miniature goats - you never quite know what will turn up. There are two more mothers due in the next two or three days and then the last of the pregnant goats will deliver weeks after that. She did not take with the first breeding and was exposed to an Angora goat later, so most likely is going to have an Angora/Alpine cross. These Angora cross goats are popular for their fibre, which is long and quite spinnable. It will be interesting to see what the chocolate box brings forth. Welcome to the Fat Ewe little goaties!

Terms of Endearment

6/18/2013

There is something very touching about a young man cuddling a baby animal. It endears one's heart to the males of the world and helps us realize that tenderness is not limited to the female species.
Weezies little boy, the black one, is not well. He is anemic and is being treated and is showing improvement. I am sure it had much to do with the fact that she herself was not well and was fighting the debilitating skin condition for the entire pregnancy. Although she is on the mend and is regrowing hair once again, the toll was taken on the little ones. They are precious and beautiful and helpless. It makes anyone want to love them. I do and so do these young men!

Weezie's Babies

6/18/2013

Weezie is a little Pygmy goat. Originally, she and her brother, were bought for pets for two young children. As time went on, the kids lost interest and the parents were anxious to get rid of the goats. By then they were about six months old and the cuteness stage was pretty much over, especially for the billy. He was interested in breeding the female. I am not sure he was her brother, but he did indeed breed the little doeling and they had a beautiful set of tiny twins. Weezie was a wonderful mother and the twins and she wandered the yard as they pleased. Because they are so small, the Pygmy goats do not climb over fences or onto vehicles as full sized goats do, and they eat less than half of what a normal goat eats as well. They still will get into gardens and love roses, so those precious plants do need to be fenced off, but otherwise, the goats also love weeds and will keep the yard clean of most dandelions, thistles and other pesky plants.

The billy lived with the pigs and a few other little goats came to live at the farm, so he jumped the fence and bred Weezie again. Pygmy goats are not seasonal breeders, but can breed all year round. She had twins again and was again a wonderful doting mother, but the toll of raising two sets of twins in a year made her susceptible to mites. She had a terrible, unresponsive case of mites that winter. She was treated with everything the vet recommended and barely responded. She had another set of twins in the spring and then developed what the vet said was an autoimmune skin condition and advised she be put down.

I did not want to lose Weezie. She is my pet and my favourite goat, so I concocted a potion of garlic, oil, borax, copper sulphate and water and sprayed her every few days. She was improving. She delivered two tiny babies, a boy and girl, healthy, but maybe two pounds each. I then gave her an Invomectin injection and some vitamins to build her blood up to help her nurse the twins. I am so happy to report that the mom and babies are well and Weezie is growing hair back where she had none for almost a year. I am not saying she is 100% cured, but she is on her way to recovery. I am so glad I did not give up on her. I love that goatie and her babies!

Pygmy Goat Kids

5/29/2013

Silver medium haired mother, two years old, and her newborn twins, a boy and a girl.

There is not much cuter than a new born Pygmy kid, except two of them! These twins are female and male, a buckling and a doe or doeling. The buckling is on the left, a little bigger than the his sister. Mamma is a beautiful silver Pygmy and the sire was a longer haired Pygmy/Nigerian Dwarf billy, also called a buck. The mamma is very protective and would not let any other goat, dog or human near her new borns. She had them protected in the dog house behind her and when they were doing well, and were cleaned off, she moved them forward into the shelter. Pygmies are hardy little creatures and are up and nursing within minutes. As a matter of fact, the boy was first born and he was trying to nurse while his mother was still birthing his sister. These twins are the second pregnancy for the mother. Her first offspring was a little girl, and she had a single baby 3 days ago. Soon the other goats who are pregnant will be having kids too and the goat yard will be a lovely play area for the kids, who love to climb on anything, including other goats, and to run and jump. Most of the goats will be for sale, along with their kids. Females are $150 and males are $100. They can go to new homes in a few days for those who want to have bottle babies for pets. Bottle fed kids become extremely tame and friendly and are so much fun. Do you want one or two?

The buckling. His colours are very striking.

A Day on the Fat Ewe Farm

5/19/2013

The Muscovy ducks are sunning themselves on the warm and humid afternoon. The weather brought the small mosquitoes out and they are vicious, biting right through jeans.

Andy, the farm carpenter, has built a rain and sun shelter for the sheep. This will have a half plywood back for a wind break and a tarp over the entire structure except the front. The livestock panels have to be wired together to stabilize them, but the shape makes the structure wind resistant. Even when we had a near tornado last summer, none of these structures budged.

Andy also worked on the Tajmacoop, a three season chicken coop. The upper compartment has three perches for the birds and they are housed by plywood on all sides except the bottom.
For winter, bubble foil wrap insulation will cover the structure, straw bales will line the bottom and sides and two heat lamps will be installed. There is also an insulated chicken coop, but the floor is not insulated and the feet froze on some of the birds that did not perch.

The goats were allowed out in the main yard today. Yesterday several small poplars were felled with the skid steer and the ground was torn up for terraced gardens. The goats were out and the llamas thought they would visit too.

Jade, the 8 month old Maremma, surveys the situation from the top of the hill.

The Fat Ewes are very pregnant and are out in the pasture for the first time. They are in electric net fencing, which has to be moved every 2 days, but it keeps them safe and sound.

Zeb thought he would help me set the electric fence up, but got his hoof caught and broke three wires, of course.

The goslings and ducklings got their own hoop coop complete with a little shelter and a heat lamp. They were scared stiff, but eventually at the grass and played in the water.

You would think, that with the new found freedom, the goats would head for some of their favourites, like the caragana, lilac or poplar leaves that are just emerging, but nope. They head straight for the grain. Grain is like heroin to them. One taste and they are hooked and must have their fix. Fortunately, the bags were all tied with the anticipation of this episode.

I had to separate the male Llama from the male alpaca immediately. Stanley was hurting the alpaca quite badly, biting him and knocking him down. They are terrible in fights. The alpaca wanted nothing to do with the Stanley though. Stanley stood and spit at him for a while, just in case. Willa is in the foreground supervising. And that was today at the Fat Ewe Farm!

Weezie's Last Chance

4/3/2013

The vet says Weezie has to be put down. I love her and don't want to do that. She is not even three years old and is pregnant. She has a skin condition of some sort, the vet thinks perhaps an auto immunity thing and it is not treatable except by steroids, which also cause abortion and will be life long. Weezie did not even cost fifty dollars and here enters the economics of farming. The veterinarian fee is quadruple her worth. To be viable the farm has to make ends meet.
So, I thought, why not try some holistic treatment as a last chance. Administered with love and prayer and intent, it cannot hurt. I mixed up 3 ounces of Neem oil, 10 milliliters of tea tree and the same of garlic essential oils, 2 tablespoons of borax to emulsify the Rice bran oil and boiled water, about a half liter each to make 1 liter in a spray bottle. I sprayed it on Weezie's owies. She did not like it one bit. Garlic essential oil stinks, man it does! It even stinks through the glass bottle and sealed in a plastic bag. It does keep mice away, I have noticed, and is purported to keep bad spirits away too, but I cannot vouch for that one.
Then I got the bright idea of spraying some on the dogs down their backs to see if the fleas would run away. They immediately went to roll in the snow and try to wash the stench off. Neem oil is not a pretty scent either and tea tree is quite strong. Neem is used as an insect repellent and so is garlic. If I spray them once a week, I am not sure they will forgive me and they do stink, but will the fleas stay away? We shall see. I also dust them with diatomaceous earth in the summer. The idea is the flea belly is soft and when contacting the sharp particles of the crushed dead sea shells (made into a flour, but apparently sharp), the underbelly gets sliced and the critters dehydrate and die.
Though the vet found no critters on Weezie, I cannot help but think that some microscopic thing is responsible for her hair loss and skin thickening - a fungus or a mite or a something and it will not like the neem, garlic and tea tree. The rice bran oil is a to smother the skin with the good stuff and the water to help it penetrate . This is day 1. Weezie will get sprayed until I run out and if there is improvement, I will mix another batch and spray her until she is better. I love that goatie.

With a Heavy Heart I Say Goodbye to Weezie

3/26/2013

Weezie, aka Louise, was one of the first animals on the
Fat Ewe Farm. She and Leroy, her boyfriend, were hand raised by a family with small children as pets. Leroy soon outgrew the children and as billy goats do, he began to be a little pushy. The family decided to get rid of their pets and The Fat Ewe was fortunate enough to scoop them up.
What a delight they were, comical, talkative and small. Pygmy goats were the first goats on the farm and it was not long before they were loved and cherished.
Weezie had two beautiful babies and was a wonderful mother, while Leroy went to live with the pigs. Leroy was quite enamoured with Boris, the boar, but Boris found him a nuisance and told him so. Still Leroy would try to force his intentions upon poor Boris. Leroy loved Weezie though, and jumped the fence to tell her so.
She had two more beautiful babies, who also left the farm for new homes. By then, new goats had joined The Fat Ewe Farm, more Pygmies and a few Nigerian Dwarf goats, plus a boar goat. The boar, Terry, could get out of her pen and would go everywhere, so she was sold.

Weezie got sick that winter. She was a little run down from raising kids non stop for a year and came down with sarcoptic mange, a terrible condition where mites burrow in tunnels under the skin. It took quite a while to cure her, but by summer she was her old self and gave us not two, but three beautiful babies. We lost one when a plywood board blew over onto her, but Weezie's boys went to new homes. That is when this trouble started, the new sickness. Her udder was a little crusty, so I treated her for mites again and put coconut oil on her udder, which smothers mites and keeps the skin soft too. This did not help, so over the next while, I tried other remedies and she only got worse. Finally, today the vet came and took a skin scraping and blood sample. The prognosis is poor. Apparently Weezie has become allergic to something in her environment and has a skin condition similar to eczema. She could be treated with steroids, but would abort her babies and the treatment may or may not work. The vet recommended that she be put down, because she is suffering. She stands alone and shivers. Although she is not thin, she has lost her robust nature and no longer plays and cajoles with the other goats. My poor Weezie. I do love you so and it breaks my heart to say good bye. Thank you for two lovely years and your beautiful babies. You will not be forgotten, dear Weezie. I am so sorry we could not make you better. Bless you.

The Woes of Feeding Critters

3/17/2013

I love my little goaties, even though they pick through their hay and eat the best parts first. Then if they have stepped on the hay, they do not eat the rest, so lots is wasted. There are some sheep in with the goats and they are not quite as fussy, but will pick the best out too. I don't mind feeding the sheep and goats. It involves hauling toboggans of hay unrolled from large round bales at this time. Until the bale forks come for the skid steer (and that is a long story as to why they are not here), this is the method that I must use. There is no way to move those big bales, only to unroll them vertically and haul the hay. The little goaties get a lot of their hay on the other side of the fence along the fence line, because they can stick their heads through the fence and eat the good parts and NOT step on the rest.

The problem is, when I felt sorry for the horses, I let them out, thinking they would run to the bush to eat the good things there, but no! They ran straight over to the llama's side and they now dominate them, not allowing them to eat at all. The llamas are going to starve if I do not get the horses out of there, but I cannot open the gate wide enough. They came on their own by traipsing through the deep snow all around the perimeter of the farm yard, but they won't go back. I want to lock them up again and force them to only eat their own hay. It was not as though they did not have enough, either. Their feeder was always full, but it was more work than eating it off the ground as the llamas do. Piggie horses.

I am waiting for Willa to jump the fence into the goat's side, because the goats are pregnant and they get premium alfalfa hay in this last two months prior to delivery, while the horses get a taste of the good hay and then get standard grass hay. You know the old saying about the grass always being greener...?

So, because there is so much waste feeding this way, I must do it twice a day, or the animals just walk on it, poo on it and waste it. Instead of 4 hours a day, yesterday, in the bitter cold of minus 20 with a windchill factor making it feel like minus 25, and snowing on top of that cold, I spent 6 hours out feeding and watering. I do need to get busy making soap for the farmer's market too. Tuesday is shearing day and the goats and sheep will be moved around. Hopefully some one will be able to open the gate by digging out the frozen snow and ice and the horses can go back home.

Goat Keeping

3/3/2013

4 Angora goats and Walter, the Cotswold ram

Sherry, Nigerian Dwarf/Pygmy cross

Miniature Nigerian Dwarf

Foreground is a sick Mother Theresa, on the dog house is Celia and the boar/Pygmy cross in the back left

Little goaties are very personable animals. They are curious by nature, robust and full of life and fun, but they are not easy to look after. Goats, more than any domesticated livestock, are unhappy kept in pens. Their nature is that of a browser, not a grazer, and they eat above the grass level usually, given a choice. When forced to eat grass, they pick at the leaves, trample a whole lot and once they stomp on it, they will NOT eat it plus they eat only the leaves off the grass stems, wasting a great deal of hay. Weeds are better to feed them, and twigs and branches.

Winter is very hard, since most hay is grass hay. They like alfalfa hay, but will only eat the tiny leaves and waste more than half of the expensive alfalfa. They need several supplements to fulfill their nutritional needs as well. A goat mineral, formulated for the area in which the goats are kept, is necessary. The soils need to be tested and then a general formula made to supply what is deficient. Without adequate levels of selenium and copper, goats can die and may also abort or produce off spring with a condition called white muscle disease, where the kids are floppy and cannot support their weight. Additional injections of selenium often help, but not always.
Males tend to get urinary calculi when fed grain. Goats are ruminants and thrive on forage, when it is the right kind, not grain. Grain is like candy to them, as it is to humans, and is converted to sugar. The fermentation of the the grain in the gut can cause bloating and goats cannot burp rumen gas, so they can bloat and die. Baby goats need to be introduced to grain slowly to prevent this, but natural forage feeding and no grain is best. To combat urinary calculi and keep body salts in line, goats should have free choice baking soda, both the males and females. Baking soda alkalizes the body, which grain causes to be acidic. Forage does not cause acidity because weeds are basically quite alkaline. Humans benefit from baking soda for this very same reason, to combat acidity in the body and return it to the alkaline state of health. Grain and sugar based diets are the ripe breeding ground, and acid system, for disease, whereas an alkaline system of green and coloured vegetation fights disease.

Goats also require salt and iodine. Mineralized salts that are free flowing and not in a block, are necessary to provide adequate amounts. Licking a block will not ensure the goats are getting all they need.

Goats who are pregnant often suffer an influx of worms upon delivery and should be wormed a week or 10 days before delivery and the day after. The Famacha eye test is a great predictor of the state of anemia of the goats. The whiter the inner rim of the eye, the more anemic the goat. A healthy goat should have a hot pink to almost red inner eye and does not require worming. A goat carrying an intense worm load will have a light pink eye. When the eye is white, it may be too late to do anything and the goat may die. Vitamin B shots should be administered along with a full spectrum wormer and then 10 days later repeated. Goat pellets are made from genetically modified grains and are full of pesticides and herbicides as well and should not be fed.

We are formulating a wormer from herbs containing a variety of herbs and garlic. The wormer can be made into a small ball the size of a large jaw breaker by mixing it with oatmeal and mollasses and hand feeding one to each goat daily for 2 weeks. The mixture will not kill worms, just make the environment inhospitable and the worms tend to leave to find a more suitable host. When chickens are kept with the goats, they will pick through the droppings and devour the worms, helping end the parasite cycle. Goat worms are not transferred to chickens, thank goodness. In the meantime, some of the goats seem to have become immune to the chemical wormer, Ivomectin and are not improving. We used Valbazen, but it cannot be used during pregnancy because it causes abortion or unstable fetuses. Currently, Mamma Theresa, a normally very hardy Pygmy, is suffering from a resistant worm overload. We tried Panacur and will redose her on Tuesday, plus give her a vitamin B shot to boost her blood and pray for her to recover. She is also pregnant and just not doing well.

Another goat has a skin condition that has not responded to antibiotics or antifungals, so a skin sample must be taken to the vet for analysis. She too, is pregnant, so caution must be extended. In addition to the wormer, feeding pine tree needles helps evacuate the worm population.

Goat babies cannot get a chill so we breed for kidding in June. That way the weather is warm and the kidding is done in the pasture, naturally, with no fear of frozen babies born in the dead of the night. Still, a good goat herder needs to be ever prepared with towels, tubes and needles to assist delivery and help the weaker kids.

So, goats are fun, yes, but likely the most difficult livestock to rear naturally. Are they worth it? You tell me.