Wow - I just came in from milking my two girls (Ori & Pepper). They blow me away on how much milk they give. Both ladies are feeding triplets yet they still gave me 60.4 ounces of milk this morning. Pepper gave me a full quart and Ori was at 27. I only milk once a day at the moment. The girls go back into their pen after milking and spend the rest of the day with their babies.
Speaking of the babies - they are so much fun to watch play. It's going to be a gorgeous day outside today so they should be running, jumping and doing the baby dance outside most of it. When you walk in the pen they are all over you. We have a few little toddler chairs in there and if you set down in one Dora is the first on your lap - then Snazzy, then whoever else can make it up there. It's kinda fun watching seven babies try to get up on your lap. They all crave attention - reminds me of puppy dogs.
I haven't written much on the farm lately (but I'll get back to it). We're getting ready for our First Annual Wether Auction tomorrow. If all goes well we're hoping to make this an annual event. It's mainly a sale for 4-H kids to get their show animals. We don't have a lot of Nigerian Dwarfs in the county fairs around here but we're hoping to change that. We have five breeders coming and bringing wethers all under one year old - should be lots of fun. Once we get this first sale under our belt then I'll post a webpage about it and start making plans for next year.
My kids always went every year to buy their 4-H hog at auction, so I thought why not do a goat auction. The only problem was I didn't come up with this idea until February and wasn't thinking about how young some of these boys would be. Oh well, we've come up with about 26 so now we only have to hope people will come to the sale. Next year we can schedule breeding so that babies will be ready for the sale.
Well - gotta go get busy - lots to do today to finish getting ready.
Hope you are having great weather wherever you are. If you are a follower of this blog - drop me an email and introduce yourself.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Wow - have we been busy lately.
Spring has sprung and baseball season has started. Quaid is playing on the school team and then will also be playing in the summer league at Warren.
We bought a new buck (like we need another one) from Margot in Muncie. His name is Dawnland Tabby's Maritimer E and he'll be five years old in June. He throws some amazingly colorful babies. Our wethers Zeek and Kai are babies of his. We were looking to breed with him again and Margot decided she had too much of his blood line on her farm so she sold him to us. We are looking forward to breeding him with our ladies and seeing what we get.
We sold three goats (Velvet, Zody and Repo) to a couple from Poneto for their kids for 4-H. I'm sure they will do great for them. They are mother (Repo) and kids. These two were the first born on our farm and although they are extremely special to us we think they will do great for their new family.
Disbudded Pepper's babies today. I hate disbudding day but feel it is a necessary evil. The subject of disbudding brings lots of opinions for and against. We disbud for the goats safety and for ours. Besides that, the kids are in 4-H and goats must be dehorned to show. It wouldn't be fair to disbud some and not all as that would leave the disbudded ones at a distinct disadvantage when it came to head-butting. Head-butting is a fact of life and I would just rather be safe than sorry. Also, goats are known for sticking their heads through the fence to get to the better grass (it's the same stuff) on the other side - don't want them getting their heads caught because of horns. It's bad enough when they stick their head through someplace that is just too small and then can't get it out - can you imagine if they had horns.
Next weekend we are having our First Annual (we hope) Nigerian Dwarf Wether Auction here on the farm. 4-H kids will have a chance to come view, play and choose the wether they want to buy and raise for 4-H. We have four, possibly five, breeders who will have kids here for sale. It should be a really interesting day. Some of the babies being sold this year are a little young but if this year's sale goes well, we'll breed for a little older babies for next year's sale.
Also, next week I need to start getting goats clipped, hooves trimmed and getting ready to go to our first show of the season. We will be headed to the Hancock County Fairgrounds in Greenfield Indiana on the 25th. I can't wait. I love going to the shows. Don't necessarily care if I win (although that's a major plus), but I love the camaraderie, the learning and everything else that goes along with it.
We went to our first show in 2007, didn't take any goats - just went to watch and see what it was all about. We had a really great time and the kids both got to show other people's goats. We met a lot of really great people. The next show we took our goats and felt like we were right at home.
Well - gotta go feed - more later! C Ya
Spring has sprung and baseball season has started. Quaid is playing on the school team and then will also be playing in the summer league at Warren.
We bought a new buck (like we need another one) from Margot in Muncie. His name is Dawnland Tabby's Maritimer E and he'll be five years old in June. He throws some amazingly colorful babies. Our wethers Zeek and Kai are babies of his. We were looking to breed with him again and Margot decided she had too much of his blood line on her farm so she sold him to us. We are looking forward to breeding him with our ladies and seeing what we get.
We sold three goats (Velvet, Zody and Repo) to a couple from Poneto for their kids for 4-H. I'm sure they will do great for them. They are mother (Repo) and kids. These two were the first born on our farm and although they are extremely special to us we think they will do great for their new family.
Disbudded Pepper's babies today. I hate disbudding day but feel it is a necessary evil. The subject of disbudding brings lots of opinions for and against. We disbud for the goats safety and for ours. Besides that, the kids are in 4-H and goats must be dehorned to show. It wouldn't be fair to disbud some and not all as that would leave the disbudded ones at a distinct disadvantage when it came to head-butting. Head-butting is a fact of life and I would just rather be safe than sorry. Also, goats are known for sticking their heads through the fence to get to the better grass (it's the same stuff) on the other side - don't want them getting their heads caught because of horns. It's bad enough when they stick their head through someplace that is just too small and then can't get it out - can you imagine if they had horns.
Next weekend we are having our First Annual (we hope) Nigerian Dwarf Wether Auction here on the farm. 4-H kids will have a chance to come view, play and choose the wether they want to buy and raise for 4-H. We have four, possibly five, breeders who will have kids here for sale. It should be a really interesting day. Some of the babies being sold this year are a little young but if this year's sale goes well, we'll breed for a little older babies for next year's sale.
Also, next week I need to start getting goats clipped, hooves trimmed and getting ready to go to our first show of the season. We will be headed to the Hancock County Fairgrounds in Greenfield Indiana on the 25th. I can't wait. I love going to the shows. Don't necessarily care if I win (although that's a major plus), but I love the camaraderie, the learning and everything else that goes along with it.
We went to our first show in 2007, didn't take any goats - just went to watch and see what it was all about. We had a really great time and the kids both got to show other people's goats. We met a lot of really great people. The next show we took our goats and felt like we were right at home.
Well - gotta go feed - more later! C Ya
Monday, March 30, 2009
My Spice Girls - Ginger and Pepper
What a hectic weekend! The end of Spring Break for the kids, visitors to see the new babies, nasty cold weather again and more.
The triplets are doing great and we had visitors here Sunday to see them. The 6 year old boy pretty much had his mind made up before he ever got to the barn. He got to hold the other buck and told me "he's a lot cuter than in his pictures". It was pretty funny. Well he and his parents have decided to take both the boys - one as a buck and one as a wether to keep the other one company. The bucks will stay here for awhile until they are ready to be weaned and then go off to their happy new home. That leaves us with one doe - Sunni - and she is just as cute as can be. She's kind of a strawberry blond color with white spots and she has her mother's sweet temperament already.
Enough about the new babies for today - off to tell some more history of the farm.
The first Nigerian's on our farm came to us from Margot in Muncie. We were researching on the internet, found the NDGA (http://www.ndga.org/) website and found breeders in our area. Margot answered our email and sent us pictures of a few does she had for sale - so we went for a visit and came home with two - Ginger and Pepper. Ginger grabbed my attention in her picture because she had a smile on her face that was irresistable. Now this is definately not the way to buy a goat - but we did and we haven't been disappointed. Pepper was Jack's choice because of her spots - he has this thing about spotted animals. Me, I actually prefer solid colored or pinto colored but I'm slowly coming around to his way of thinking on the spots.
Pepper will be four years old in May and as far as I'm concerned, she'll always have a home with us. She is just too sweet. When we took her to a friends to have her bred she stayed with them for a month. I missed her terribly, as did Ginger. When we picked her up we weren't sure that John was going to let us have her back - he had fallen in love with her too - and boy was she spoiled when she got home. He'd fed her lots of animal crackers and given her lots of lovin'. That was last spring and in July she gave us two gorgeous kids - a doe and a buck. We kept Dani (Ice Dancer) here and Speck (Speck O Pepper) went to Ohio to live with a lady named Ashley. Pepper is our latest mom who gave us the triplets mentioned above.
Ginger is something else. She's a two-year old with a ton of personality and reminds me of a cat sometimes. When she wants your attention she'll come and get it. Other times she'll just go her own way. She had horns when we first saw her but the horns have since been removed - for her safety and ours. For her first freshening we had her bred to Maritimer (a buck owned by Margot) for September babies and she gave us Kahili Kai and Del Rio - two bucks. Unfortunately we lost Rio to pneumonia but Kai is doing well. He is now a wether and loves to be petted and fed animal crackers. Such a cute boy. He looks like he has a rooster on his side.
Ginger is bred this time to our buck Toby for July babies. I'm really looking forward to seeing what she gives us this time. She did great last time and was a terrific, easy little milker.
The triplets are doing great and we had visitors here Sunday to see them. The 6 year old boy pretty much had his mind made up before he ever got to the barn. He got to hold the other buck and told me "he's a lot cuter than in his pictures". It was pretty funny. Well he and his parents have decided to take both the boys - one as a buck and one as a wether to keep the other one company. The bucks will stay here for awhile until they are ready to be weaned and then go off to their happy new home. That leaves us with one doe - Sunni - and she is just as cute as can be. She's kind of a strawberry blond color with white spots and she has her mother's sweet temperament already.
Enough about the new babies for today - off to tell some more history of the farm.
The first Nigerian's on our farm came to us from Margot in Muncie. We were researching on the internet, found the NDGA (http://www.ndga.org/) website and found breeders in our area. Margot answered our email and sent us pictures of a few does she had for sale - so we went for a visit and came home with two - Ginger and Pepper. Ginger grabbed my attention in her picture because she had a smile on her face that was irresistable. Now this is definately not the way to buy a goat - but we did and we haven't been disappointed. Pepper was Jack's choice because of her spots - he has this thing about spotted animals. Me, I actually prefer solid colored or pinto colored but I'm slowly coming around to his way of thinking on the spots.
Pepper will be four years old in May and as far as I'm concerned, she'll always have a home with us. She is just too sweet. When we took her to a friends to have her bred she stayed with them for a month. I missed her terribly, as did Ginger. When we picked her up we weren't sure that John was going to let us have her back - he had fallen in love with her too - and boy was she spoiled when she got home. He'd fed her lots of animal crackers and given her lots of lovin'. That was last spring and in July she gave us two gorgeous kids - a doe and a buck. We kept Dani (Ice Dancer) here and Speck (Speck O Pepper) went to Ohio to live with a lady named Ashley. Pepper is our latest mom who gave us the triplets mentioned above.
Ginger is bred this time to our buck Toby for July babies. I'm really looking forward to seeing what she gives us this time. She did great last time and was a terrific, easy little milker.
This picture was taken at the Fall Show in Greenfield Indiana last year. My daughter took it and I just thought it was such a great picture. Can you ask for anything sweeter than babies.
Well enough for today - I really do have to go get some work done around here. I could write all day if I didn't. See ya later!
Friday, March 27, 2009
They're Here - They're Here
Pepper finally had her babies this afternoon - Triplets - 1 doe and 2 bucks and they are all gorgeous! The little doe came about 3:15 with absolutely no problems, then about 10 to 15 mintues later (didn't have a watch on) came brother number 1 - backwards. Needless to say, that scared me, but we got him out and cleaned off his face and the mucus out of his mouth and he is definately a little fighter. Brother number 2 came out about 30 minutes later. (Aly and I finally had to take the first two and hold them so mom could go about her business of having the third.) He came out backwards too, but is doing great! Mom and all 3 kids are resting peacefully in the barn now. We went out to check on them a little while ago and they are still a little wobbly but everyone is moving around well. They already love being held and petted.
Baby #1 - the doe - she is going to be a real beauty with that gold (almost blonde) coloring.
Baby #2 - a buck - what a flashy little guy he is.
And Baby #3 - the other buck - he's more brown than the doe (he's still wet in this picture) and has the sweetest little white markings on his nose - he's a real doll.
All three of these little goats are for sale at our website www.fourzsminiz.com.
Another day of waiting
No babies yet - but she's looking more promising.
We have water and water pressure to the barn. Yippee!!!!!! We have so much water pressure that it nearly blew the bucket off the fence last night. Just have to remember not to turn the water on full blast when filling water buckets. The pressure will be so nice when it comes time for cleaning buckets, feed pans, rabbit trays and the like.
A little bit of history about our farm: We started this venture in the summer of 2007. I had been teasing my husband that I wanted a couple of pygmy goats for Christmas one year - and of course he said no. Well in 2007 at the 4-H Fair there were some baby Angora kids in the FFA petting zoo. I hadn't seen them yet when my DH (dear husband) asked me if those were what I was wanting. So the next day I checked them out - they were adorable! Anyways I went through the barn and found some pygmy's to show him. He started asking around about them and one of the kids called me to tell me that "Dad is asking where to buy them!"
After the fair I got to looking around and found a guy in town that had some miniature goats for sale. I took DH to see them and we fell in love. We brought them home and named them Clyde and Sassy. This guy also had miniature horses and Jack fell for them hard. After getting Clyde and Sassy home we started doing some research and I decided that they weren't pygmies after all - that's when we found out about Nigerian Dwarf's. I actually think Clyde and Sassy were a pygmy nigerian cross.
While I'm researching goats - Jack is researching miniature horses. Someone at work told him about a couple on S.R. 18 that raised minis so one day after work - we took a drive down 18 on a wild goose chase. We found the place in Flora Indiana. We picked out two that were for sale, a 14 year old mare (Katy) who had just foaled and a blue-eyed filly (Crystal) that wasn't weaned yet. They were gorgeous! We had to wait for about three weeks to pick Katy up until she weaned her colt. I could hardly wait but it was worth it. When we picked up Katy we put a deposit down on Crystal and we picked her up after she was weaned. The really fun part about this was that our kids were on vacation with their Grandma while we were doing all of this - so we kept it a secret until we went to pick Katy up. We told them we were going to get goats and they about had a fit when they saw the goats - they were as big as the horses and not at all what we had been talking about.
This is Katy the day we picked her up - she was bred for an April 2008 foal.
We have water and water pressure to the barn. Yippee!!!!!! We have so much water pressure that it nearly blew the bucket off the fence last night. Just have to remember not to turn the water on full blast when filling water buckets. The pressure will be so nice when it comes time for cleaning buckets, feed pans, rabbit trays and the like.
A little bit of history about our farm: We started this venture in the summer of 2007. I had been teasing my husband that I wanted a couple of pygmy goats for Christmas one year - and of course he said no. Well in 2007 at the 4-H Fair there were some baby Angora kids in the FFA petting zoo. I hadn't seen them yet when my DH (dear husband) asked me if those were what I was wanting. So the next day I checked them out - they were adorable! Anyways I went through the barn and found some pygmy's to show him. He started asking around about them and one of the kids called me to tell me that "Dad is asking where to buy them!"
After the fair I got to looking around and found a guy in town that had some miniature goats for sale. I took DH to see them and we fell in love. We brought them home and named them Clyde and Sassy. This guy also had miniature horses and Jack fell for them hard. After getting Clyde and Sassy home we started doing some research and I decided that they weren't pygmies after all - that's when we found out about Nigerian Dwarf's. I actually think Clyde and Sassy were a pygmy nigerian cross.
While I'm researching goats - Jack is researching miniature horses. Someone at work told him about a couple on S.R. 18 that raised minis so one day after work - we took a drive down 18 on a wild goose chase. We found the place in Flora Indiana. We picked out two that were for sale, a 14 year old mare (Katy) who had just foaled and a blue-eyed filly (Crystal) that wasn't weaned yet. They were gorgeous! We had to wait for about three weeks to pick Katy up until she weaned her colt. I could hardly wait but it was worth it. When we picked up Katy we put a deposit down on Crystal and we picked her up after she was weaned. The really fun part about this was that our kids were on vacation with their Grandma while we were doing all of this - so we kept it a secret until we went to pick Katy up. We told them we were going to get goats and they about had a fit when they saw the goats - they were as big as the horses and not at all what we had been talking about.
This is Katy the day we picked her up - she was bred for an April 2008 foal.
This is Crystal - the day we decided she was to be ours. You can't see it in the picture but her eyes are as blue as Jack's blue jeans.
Well - that's enough for today - guess I'd better go get some work done around here.
See ya tomorrow - hopefully with news of babies!
Thursday, March 26, 2009
It's gonna be a long day!
Good morning!
This morning when I went to the barn the babies were all screaming at me - they were hungry. The babies spend the night in a separate pen from mom so I can milk in the morning. After milking they get to go in and spend the day with mom.
We are in the midst of kidding with our wonderful Nigerian dwarf goats. On March 11 Oragami gave Quaid a beautiful set of triplets (our first trips) and on March 15 Panda gave Aly a beautiful little doe named Dora. (Quaid and Aly are my two legged kids).
Today I'm sitting here listening to the baby monitor for Pepper to go into labor. As huge as she is I'm expecting triplets or more. Last July she gave us a beautiful set of twins (Dani and Speck). I can't wait to see what she has this time. Dani is in the star on the left of your screen. It is so exciting when we have babies - although it can be a little exhausting for me - I have a baby monitor in the house so I can hear what's going on in the barn and at night I usually get woken up several times.
This week my husband has been working on getting a new water line out to the barn. The old hydrants just weren't in the right places for efficiency. Yesterday they trenched all the way from the house to the barn and then to his shop too. Hopefully they'll get the rest of the project finished before too long. The yard looks like it has been attached by huge worms.
Here's pics of the new babies born so far this month.
This morning when I went to the barn the babies were all screaming at me - they were hungry. The babies spend the night in a separate pen from mom so I can milk in the morning. After milking they get to go in and spend the day with mom.
We are in the midst of kidding with our wonderful Nigerian dwarf goats. On March 11 Oragami gave Quaid a beautiful set of triplets (our first trips) and on March 15 Panda gave Aly a beautiful little doe named Dora. (Quaid and Aly are my two legged kids).
Today I'm sitting here listening to the baby monitor for Pepper to go into labor. As huge as she is I'm expecting triplets or more. Last July she gave us a beautiful set of twins (Dani and Speck). I can't wait to see what she has this time. Dani is in the star on the left of your screen. It is so exciting when we have babies - although it can be a little exhausting for me - I have a baby monitor in the house so I can hear what's going on in the barn and at night I usually get woken up several times.
This week my husband has been working on getting a new water line out to the barn. The old hydrants just weren't in the right places for efficiency. Yesterday they trenched all the way from the house to the barn and then to his shop too. Hopefully they'll get the rest of the project finished before too long. The yard looks like it has been attached by huge worms.
Here's pics of the new babies born so far this month.
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