Popcorn For Sale

Matthew 25:31-46 King James Version

31 When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:

32 And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:

33 And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

There comes a time of separation, of dividing, of judgment.  As Matthew 25 tells us, this will occur.  Nations, peoples will be separated in which the godly and the ungodly are distinguished and parted from one another.  Where previously, they had dwelt together, at that time a judgment will take place.  The sheep (an innocent, mild, docile animal) will go to the right (favored) and the goats (wild, unruly creature) will go to the left (disfavor).

On Our Maker's Acres Family Farm there is a less apocalytical time, in which we must separate some animals from others.  We only have 5 acres of land.  This means that in springtime when the goats kid and the cows calve, we discover we don't have the land capacity to handle all these creatures.  Not enough grass, not enough time to manage them.  So decisions must be made to cull the herd.

In this case, we've decided to sell Popcorn.  We don't mean that we will be going door to door selling Orville Reddenbacher's Best.  Popcorn is our baby buckling.  We are currently bottle feeding him since his momma (Annie) has mastitis-damaged bags that no longer produce milk.  Annie produces beautiful babies, but no milk.  Tricia will put Popcorn up for sale this week.

It will be sad to see him go.  We hope a good family purchases him.  He is spunky, full of energy, healthy and is always jumping around.  That's why we call him Popcorn.  Any time he sees us, he comes up to us and puts his front feet up on us to beg for another bottle.  

We'll miss him, but we still have the little doeling, "Cupcake."  I'll post about her a little later.  Popcorn, anyone?

Annie's Time Is Coming Soon

Annie is our Nubian Goat that gave birth to triplets back in early March 2016.  We named the little trouble-makers Buckwheat, Darla, and Jane.  They are fun to watch, but like we always say, they are like having some bad little kids around.  They are always getting into trouble.  The little family of four has entertained us time and time again.

Tricia let me know that she noticed that Annie is "bagging up."  This means that Annie is pregnant and will be kidding again within the next few weeks.  During all this rain, we've kept her in the barn where it is warm and dry and there is plenty of dry hay to serve as bedding.  She's really not fat at all, so I don't think she's having triplets again.

The expectant Annie giving you "the eye"

But here's the proof of the pregnancy and soon delivery of at least one kid:

Goats are different from cows in their lactation equipment.  A cow has 1 udder with 4 quarters.  There is a teat for each quarter.  If you watch a calf nursing on his momma, it will go from teat to teat until all are empty.  A goat also has four quarters, but has only 2 teats.  1 teat drains 2 quarters as there is an opening in each quarter that empties into the teat.

Regardless how many teats Annie has, they are filling with milk and we'll have another little one on the farm soon!  We will keep you posted.

The Great Houdini - Annie the Nubian Goat

Each morning while we milk the cows, we put Annie, our Nubian dairy goat, into the goat milking stall.  You can see the gate leading into the stall in the photo below. To the left of the gate inside the stall is Annie's milking stanchion and her trough that we pour dairy ration for her to eat while Tricia milks her.  I'm not a big fan of drinking her milk plain, but we make goat kefir (a drinkable yogurt) that we make delicious smoothies with by blending in berries, figs, honey, and cinnamon.  It is a great, healthy breakfast-on-the-go.

So while we milk the cows, Annie waits (sometimes) patiently for us to finish up and then go feed her and milk her.  Except we have a design problem with the gate that has allowed Annie to figure out a way to escape.  Can you see the gap between the gate and the post that has the gate latch below?  Annie has recently found that she can stick her nose in the gap and wedge her nose underneath the latch and pop the latch up.  Animals can be smart sometimes, can't they?

She then gets out.  It may not be as dramatic as getting out of a straight jacket or a chest with chains and padlocks, but she is crafty, calculating and deceptive.  Since we are busy milking the cows, we don't notice she's escaped until she sticks her neck into Daisy's trough and begins eating her food. Daisy will have none of that!  She uses her big old cow head as a weapon and knocks Annie out of the way.  Annie is a stubborn, persistent creature and she will keep on trying.  All sorts of shenanigans follow.

I broke an old broomstick in half as a temporary workaround and used it as a doorstop.  It worked!  Annie was frustrated that her escape act had been foiled.  But a sharpened broomstick handle isn't a long-term solution.  It is kind of dangerous, too.

I rummaged around in the barn and found some lumber and nailed it in two angles on the ladder that leads up to the hay loft.

If you notice in the photo below, look at the bottom latch.  You'll see the gap no longer exists.  There is just a small sliver - way too small for Annie's goat nose to fit between.

Four screws and two scrap pieces of lumber was all that was needed to put an end to Annie's escape artist routine.  There is peace and harmony around the barnyard now - for us at least.

Soon...

Annie, however, is plotting her next escape, biding her time until she pulls off her next Shawshank Redemption prison break.

Breeding Annie

Annie is our Nubian goat who is 2 1/2 years old.  We thought that she had been bred back in December and were expecting her to kid in May.  We noticed that she was beginning to show signs that she was about to kid in May as her udder began to swell, but then she never went into labor.  We never found any signs that she miscarried.  It was just strange all around.  To this day we still don't know for certain what happened, but we're not giving up and want to try again.

We began to search the area for Nubian bucks to breed her and fortunately were able to find that a gentleman right down the road about four miles or so that has a Nubian buck.  He also has Jersey bulls and we had taken our cows over to have them bred before, so we are familiar with him and his set-up.  I made arrangements to bring Annie to him so that his buck could breed Annie.  Benjamin and I went into the pasture tonight and found Annie sitting atop the round bale of hay.  We grabbed her by her collar and let her out of the pasture and toward the driveway.  Annie hardly ever gets out of the pasture and she was leery.  What are they up to?  Big Boy was barking his head off and Annie became very nervous and jittery.  She tried to bolt and run, but we held her tightly.

Time to go, Annie

Since Nellie (Annie's mom) died in December, we hadn't had any goat kefir to drink.  Goat kefir is a drinkable yogurt made from goat milk.  We add honey, fruit and a dash of cinnamon and it makes a delicious, healthy breakfast smoothie.  We are anxious to get Annie bred so that she'll kid and be in milk so that we can have goat milk once again.

We don't have a trailer to carry her in, but being that the buck is only four miles down the road, we lifted her into the back of my son's truck and Benjamin and I jumped in the back, holding Annie tightly, as Tricia chauffeured Annie down the road to meet the buck.  I'm sure we were a strange sight riding down the road with a goat in the back of the truck!

Riding in the back of the truck

At one point Annie got very antsy and nervous and began to cry and try to get up, but I laid down on top of her and held her firmly until we reached our destination, pulling her out of the truck with the leash.  The gentleman I spoke with has many goats and dairy cows, along with bees.  He has a nice place.  We began walking Annie into his pasture toward a pen.  He'll isolate Annie and the buck in the corral for however long it takes for her to get bred.  

Immediately the buck came running and jumped on top of her - repeatedly.  But Annie is not in heat yet.  Goats are like deer and only really breed during the fall/winter months.  I don't know for sure how to tell when a doe is in heat, but I did read something that said that just being around a buck will cause a doe to come into heat.

I don't really know how long it will take for successful breeding to take place.  It could be a few days. It could be a few weeks.  We'll just wait and see.  Hopefully, though, Annie will be successfully bred this time around, and she will kid this spring.

This is Hard to Write...

This is hard to write and hard to talk about, but that is part of what this blog is about - to journal our thoughts, our victories, and sadly, our struggles in managing a small, diversified homestead farm. Tricia and I have long said that this adventure is a learning process, one that has its fair shares of exuberance and victories where you feel like you are on top of the world AND one fraught with disappointments and difficulties where you feel like you're in a valley.  This is one of those times.

On April 6, 2013, we embarked upon a new adventure that we chronicled in this post: Nellie in which we rejoiced in a new addition to our family when we purchased a lovable Nubian Dairy goat named Nellie.  Since that time Nellie has become like a member of our family, yielding gallons and gallons of goat milk that we use primarily to make kefir.  She gave us many smiles and laughs along the way. She also gave us Annie, her little girl:

Annie

Annie's all grown now and it was time to bring Nellie and Annie to be bred by a Nubian billy goat and we recently discussed that trip in This Blog Post.

Nellie (foreground) and Annie (background) ready to go

We received a call earlier this week sadly informing us that Nellie had died.  There. I said it.  We don't know how or why and we certainly don't blame the wonderful people looking after her.  There were no marks from predators and no signs of sickness.  It just happened.  It's one of those things that you turn over and over in your mind wondering what we could have done differently, wondering how this could have been averted or what type of learning experience we can take away from this tragedy. Sometimes there are no answers.

We know that we provided her with a good life.  She was a happy goat and it saddens us that when we go to pick up Annie, Nellie won't be returning to Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.  As I write this I can almost hear her bleating "behhhh" and the jingling of the red bell that we had hanging around her neck as she would run to the barn for her daily milking.

There is a phrase in French, C'est la vie, that means "That's life."  It's true.  Bad things just happen sometimes that we can't change.  Although hard to accept, it's just the way things are and you keep pressing on.  Life is a cycle that sadly includes death.  We fully understand that she's an animal. She's not human and as special as she was to our family, her life is not as valuable as human life.  Our job is to be good stewards of the animals and land that the Good Lord has given us and we believe we've done that, but that is no consolation for losing her and doesn't assuage the sense of loss we have. This isn't the first animal we've lost and it won't be the last.

RIP Nellie

The Millenials have a term they use when something is really good.  They call it GOAT.  That acronym stands for Greatest Of All Time.  RIP Nellie.  You were the GOAT and we will miss you! 

There's a new KID in town...

When I was 10 years old, there was a song called, "There's a new kid in town," by The Eagles that will be undoubtedly stuck in my head now, but we've got a new kid in town - really.  A baby goat.  Nellie had her little kid this afternoon.  It's a girl!!  We named her Annie. 

We got back from Lake Charles and while I was moving the temporary electric fence to let the cows eat fresh grass in the backyard, Russ went to the barn to gather eggs.  All of a sudden he took off running back to the house with the entire flock of chickens following him.  He ran to tell Tricia that Nellie had her baby, so we all went out to see the new arrival.

Everyone's excited about the new baby!

Nellie was cleaning her up as we walked up.  She didn't really mind our being there, but she did not want the chickens around.  She scratched at the dirt with her hooves and lowered her head and rushed at them as if to say, "I'm a new mom.  Give me and my baby some space!" 

Annie gets her first bath

It is very important for baby animals of all types to get the first milk - colostrum, it is called.  It contains antibodies and other vital nutrients that the mother passes to her offspring to ensure that they are healthy.  We watched for the longest time, but Annie was having difficulty in understanding how things work.  Her instincts were working.  She knows she needs it, she just can't figure out how to suckle off of Nellie's teats.  Poor Nellie was so engorged - it looks painful.
 

Where is it?  How do I find it?

Nellie tried to push her with her head as if to say, "C'mon!  Lower, go lower, little one!"   


Trying to help

Little Annie is so cute.  She is tiny and has markings almost like her Mom.  She's a Nubian goat as well.  Look at those long, floppy ears!  

Awwwww!  She looks like she might be smiling!

She is a curious little thing and is not shy.  Just hours out of the mama and she's calm and content as can be.  She seems to be perfectly healthy.  Nellie is fine, too.

My, what big ears you have!

Nellie, with her beard, licking little Annie.  Nothing like a spit bath...

 

At last, and who knows if this is the right thing to do or not, we helped Annie find what she was looking for and she began to suckle and get that colostrum that gives her a good head start on health.  Goats often have twins.  In fact, the lady who sold us Nellie just had another doe (nanny goat) that delivered triplets.  Since Annie is the only kid that Nellie had, we'll likely have to milk her to relieve some of the pressure.


Got Milk?  Well, yes.  Yes, I do!

One thing that is a little different with baby goats is that they aren't as wobbly as calves are.  Annie looks like she's ready to go.  She's got her footing and walked up to tell us goodnight. 

Annie, the baby Nubian goat - born 4/9/2013

  So Our Maker's Acres Family Farm has a new baby.  Wow!  She's a cutie, too.