I am SOOO far behind I'm catching up!

I know, I know, I haven't posted since the end of January.  I know already!!  :)  My excuse is the same as always, busybusybusy...

We've been setting up the breeding pens and trying to decide who goes where.  That's when I discovered I have 12 breeding pens a 13 does all due around the same time....How the heck did I manage that?  Anyway, not all is lost.  I'll make room somehow.  Once the kids start coming won't have time for anything!!

We've got a sick one right now too.  RMT Hot Pants is not doing very well.  She is thin and weak and doesn't want to eat so I've been drenching her with water and molasses and hand feeding her Calf Manna and anything else I can get her to eat.  It's been a tough go and she's still not out of the woods.  Time will tell.

On a brighter note, all the does and the bucks are looking really good since I started giving them protein tubs.  Big round tubs full of molasses and vitamins and minerals.  They lick away at them and get the nutrients they need to keep them healthy all winter.  And, I have finally decided I've had enough of horns.  I've been banding the horns on all the goats, (not done yet), and they will eventually fall off.  No pain, no burning heads.  I still will not disbud little goats and I will not hack off horns as goats horns, unlike deer antlers, have nerves, blood vessels and feeling.  Banding is a very effective and humane way to remove horns.  I am tired of injuries, dead babies, goats caught in the fence, destroyed fences, you name it.  No more.  It'll take a month or more for the horn to fall off but once they do, healing is fast and painless.

Now, back down to the barn to check on Hot Pants...

That'll teach me...

So, just to set the record straight, I would like to publicly apologize to my husband for comparing him to a Pygmy goat in one of my posts.  He does not look like a Pygmy goat at all.  He is much taller and has a lot less hair and no horns.  I also need to apologize for calling his Boxers idiots.  His Boxers are not idiots   They are not that smart.

Never thought he'd actually read this blog!  :)

Having said that I can now get on with my post.

First and formost, we, at BJS, have acquired 4 new goats from a breeder in London, Ont.  They are registered Miniature Silky Fainting Goats and I am really excited about it!!

 This is Riding Mountain Treasures Shadow, registered Foundation doe.  In 2009 I actually brought this doe in from Manitoba and sold her to the breeder that I have bought her back from.  Make sense?  No?  Well, when I sold her I was not thinking about breeding Mini Silky goats but this year I thought about it and it just so happened the breeder had her and 3 other mini silkies for sale.  Shadow is now 2 years old.

 This is San Sujos Poncho, registered buck.  What a sweetheart!  He is very friendly and doesn't smell too bad.  Beautiful coat on him except for the part where another buck was chewing on him.  He comes all the way from BC and he is 2 years old.

 This is Crooked Post Goats Gumdrop, registration pending.  She is a tiny little doeling, born in May of 2011.  Poncho is her sire and her mom is next, Twilight Acres Sweetpea.

 As promised, Twilight acres Sweetpea, registered Foundation doe.  Sweetpea is 4 years old and extremely friendly.

So that is our new babies.  My registered Foundation doe, Esme was already bred to my Nigerian buck, Captain, when I brought these babies home so we'll just have to wait and see if her babies can be registered too!

The rest of the bred does are starting to look the part.  All of them are getting quite round.  Time to get those pens ready, Dear....

My Girls are getting round!

So I'm walking around the goat yard this afternoon looking at my girls.  I have 29 does and all but 12 of them are bred (I hope).  The majority of them are beginning to get very round.  Pygmy does are especially funny that way.  It's almost like the day after they are bred they blow up like balloons and stay that way until the little ones are weaned.  I mean, they look like they all swallowed a spare tire.  And waddle!!  Short little legs, big round belly (sounds like my husband), waddle, waddle waddle.  And if you laugh, they know what you are laughing at and will give you the worst stink eye you ever saw.

The Myotonic does are not showing as much.  Some of them never show much.  Some get huge but it's a more gradual thing with the Myotonics.   More lady like and dignified, as it were...

Pygmy does are like, BLAMMM!!!  BABIES COMING!!!  LOOK OUT BEHIND!!!
Myotonics are more like, hmmm, well, there might be a small change some time in the near future....hmmm....

 I mean look, just LOOK at the belly on this doe and she's not even bred!  Just imagine, if you can, the size of the bellies on the bred does!  It boggles the mind.

Seriously though, kidding season will be upon us soon and it's time to get prepared, well, as prepared as one can be for the arrival of new life.  It is always a wonder to me.  Every spring, the same thing happens.  New babies are born to does who, for the most part, created little lives last year.  BUT, the new little life is always different from the last.  Each one is a wonder upon itself.  A new colour, a new pattern, a new attitude.

Construction will, once again, start in the barn, where we build four kidding pens in each of 3 horse stalls and 2 pens in the small stall at the back of the barn, giving us a total of 14 pens.  Well, I have actually, 17 bred does.  How the heck...ok, so it's going to happen this way.  One doe will be placed in each pen with the exception on the middle stall which will be divided into 3 kidding pens.  One doe will go into each smaller pen and 3 does, younger ones, will be put into the larger kidding pen making room for the extra doe on the first stall.  (I know, confusing).  Anyway, there are still two more does to kid, you say.  Why, yes, there is.  Oh, darn!
Well, it just so happens that I was a forward thinker, for a change.  The last two does are not due to kid until the following month.  Late April or May.  So there will be room in the barn for them.  Ha!! 

But first, I need to convince my wonderful husband that he needs to, once again, put the barn back together.  GEEZ!!  He just took it all apart back in August.  He's not a goat lover, like me. In fact, he pretty much steers clear of all the animals except his two idiot Boxers.  But every now and then, I do require his expertise in some areas, like, say, making kidding pens that won't collapse on the kids.  He's good at that sort of thing.  :)  And since it needs to be completed before the middle of March I better get busy convincing...

MINIATURE SILKY FAINTING GOATS!!!

We just got some great news in the mail today!  Registrations from the Miniature Silky Fainting Goat Association for Esme and Dessie.  They have both been approved for foundation status!!!  We had applied for registration for Zeusy too but his hair isn't long enough.  That's ok, we'll just have to get a really good little buck.  So exciting!!

Oops! A booboo!

Dessie, my little Pocket goat doeling, has a booboo in her left eye.  It's all red and yucky looking.  Noticed it last night when I was feeding.  Well, I caught her and tried to look at it.  What a joke!  She was having no part of that.  All I could see was that it was red all around and looked like she had a marble in there instead of an eye.  Ok, so she likely poked it on something or it could be pink eye.  Pink eye is very contagious.  So, I treated it with Polysporin eye drops.  That was a whole new wrestling match that I'm pretty sure my little 15 lbs doeling won.  I did get the drop in her eye but I had way more bruises that she did.  Then I let her go back to her mom for the night.  I didn't think, at that point, it could be pink eye as it came on so suddenly, we've never had a case of pink eye here and there are no new goats in the pasture.  She was fine in the afternoon and then BAM!  So I came in and looked up pictures of pinkeye in goats.  Nope, doesn't look like that.  

So now, two days after starting the write this and not having time, her eye still has some red in it but it is getting better.  Chelsea is home now so she can hold the little devil.  I have been giving her 1 cc Pen Pro and drops in her eye and there is definite improvement.  I'm thinking she'll be right as rain in a day or two.  I'd like to know what she did to herself but she's not talking!

Two posts in less than a week??

Beautiful little BJS Ophelia has finally gone to her forever home with Anne and Ed of Dunnville, Ontario.  She will be joining their small herd of Percy, Mowbray and Alexander.  Ophelia is one of the many kids born in Mar and April of 2011 but for some reason she was never chosen to go to a forever home until now.  Everyone seemed to pass over her even though she is cute and colourful and quite little for her age.  At last she can run and play with kids her own age with no big bully goats to push her around and she will get the best care in the world as Anne and Ed take wonderful care of their little herd and love them dearly.   YAY  Ophelia!!

In other farm news, it's poring rain right now.  It's better than snow.  Well, not much but at least we don't have to shovel it.  I spend altogether too much time shoveling stuff to be shoveling snow too. 

Breeding season is well under way.  Some of the girls have already been bred and are back out with the herd.  Cinda, Rhea, Sprocket and Aura have all been bred.  Not too sure about the rest as  not all the girls make it obvious when they are in heat.  So we just have to wait and see if they get the boys all worked up.  If not, then maybe, just maybe, they are bred.  Oh!  I can't wait for kidding season!!

Now, a word about hunting.

I don't want to offend anyone here....oh crap...maybe I do.  BUT, I don't like hunting.  That is not to say I think no one should ever hunt anything.  Of course you should hunt if you will starve to death if you don't hunt.  (Can't really see that happening in Campbellville but there you go.)  I also believe that it is more humane for a deer to be shot than to starve to death in the winter because there are too many deer and not enough food.

But, I've got a really problem with those macho men (and women) who head out to the back 40 and plug anything that moves with their trusty shot gun.  You see, we live on the edge of a forest that is about 200 acres and even though it is private property I've been hearing shot gun blasts and the occasional rifle crack out there all day.   RIFLE???  Did I say RIFLE??  Yes, I did.  Ok, so right now and for the next 3 days it is hunting season in our neck of the woods but it is hunting season for SHOT GUN and BOW ONLY.  No rifles are allowed.  There's a reason for this.  You see, a shot gun will make a very big noise and shoot a whole bunch of pellets or one good sized slug at a great velocity toward the intended target but you had better be fairly close to that target or the shot is going to run out of steam and flop on the ground like a wet noodle.  The range of the slug depends on the shot gun type, the slug type and many other factors.  I won't go into them here because it would bore most goat owners to death and the ones it wouldn't bore already know what those factors are.    Anyway, my point is shot gun hunting is allowed for 5 days in the fall to help control the deer population in a humane way and most innocent bystanders are relatively safe in their own back yards during the shotgun season because shot guns don't shoot very far.  You need to be fairly close to your target.  However, a rifle is a different story altogether.  A .22 caliber rifle can shoot a projectile, namely a .22 caliber bullet about a mile and a half.  That's not to sat you could shoot flies off a pigs back at a mile and a half.  You'd be lucky to hit the pig but accuracy is not he issue.  Sudden death from a stray bullet is.  Let's say Joe Mean the hunter is back in the forest behind my pasture hunting wolverines with his trusty .303.  Well, first off, Joe Mean is an idiot because there aren't any wolverines in Campbellville but aside from that, let's say he sees something move in the bushes and decides that must be the allusive wolverine he's been tracking.  So...BAMM...he shoots but he misses.  OHOH.  Where the heck did that silly bullet go?  Let's say Joe Mean was facing MY direction when he fired his trusty .303.  Let's say I'm just out standing in my field (pun intended) and THWACK!!  I take one right between the up rights.  Well, DAMN!!  How the heck did that happen??  Joe Mean was a mile back in the forest.  Unh hunh....and how far will a bullet travel?  So you see my point.

So I get to listen to BLAMM  BLAMM  BLAMM all day long, my dogs are going completely nutso cus they know something is in the forest and they can't get to it to shred it like an old paper towel, and I get shot between the ears.  No, I'm not a fan of hunting.

I would think most hunters are safety conscious, know their fire arms and know their targets.  I would expect that most hunters would not shoot at something unless they were 100% sure that what they are aiming at is what they are allowed to shoot.  I expect that most hunters are responsible citizens that leave the alcohol at home when driving to their desired hunting spot.  I expect that most hunters would not hunt on private property that has NO HUNTING signs posted every 50 feet or so.

And I expect I'd be wrong on all counts.

Hunting in the forest behind us is illegal.  Why?   It's private property and I know the owner well and know he would not give anyone permission to hunt back there.  

Hunting during off season is illegal.  Why?  Kind of obvious, isn't it?

Hunting with rifles in this area is illegal.  Why?  See above concerning distance.

Three strikes, you're out!

If it looks, smells and sounds like an idiot, it's probably an idiot.

Written with sincere apologies to all the responsible hunters that are given a bad name by idiots.

Pictures of BJS Iris and her broken horn.