Kidding Season - Another Kid

I've got some good news and some bad news tonight.  Let's start with the bad.  On Sunday, Bunny gave birth to twins.  The largest one was born dead.  The youngest was very small and weak.  For the past four days we've worked hard to pick her up, put her on Bunny's teats, and encourage her to suckle.  I was going through this process five or six times a day.  She'd drink and show some strength.  She was never able to get up on her own, make her way to the dinner table and drink milk.  Last night I noticed she was getting weaker.  I worked with her and gave her encouragement, but my efforts proved to be ineffectual.  By late this afternoon she died, and I dug a hole with a shovel and buried her.  I've buried several goats this year.  Tonight when I got back from the Beekeeper's meeting, I could hear Bunny crying hauntingly as she looked for her baby.  C'est La Vie (and death).

Bunny's unnamed doeling - RIP

Let's switch to the good news.  Agnes is another momma goat.  She's the only goat on the farm with horns, and she uses that to her advantage, bullying all the other goats.  She's mean.  But she is a good momma, always delivering healthy babies, strong and vigorous.  Coming on the heels of Bunny's situation, we were hoping for a better outcome with Agnes.

It's Agnes' time to shine

Tuesday afternoon I went to the barn to gather eggs.  As I rounded the corner, I was greeted by a surprise.  Agnes had given birth to a big black baby goat.  She had cleaned her baby up, and it was up and walking.  Since Agnes had not had a gender reveal party, I checked the little goat's equipment and it's a little buckling.  We'll name him Kit!

Without any assistance from me, Kit immediately started nursing and got his dose of colostrum, giving him the best shot of health moving forward.  That little dude drained one teat in no time flat.

I always like to get proof the babies got the colostrum.  "The proof is in the pudding," they say.  That saying is literally true.  I checked Kit's "pudding," and it is bright orange.  Yep, he got the good stuff digested.

Kit is jet black and full of spunk and energy.  He'll be a welcome addition to Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.

We've always said that if you are discouraged or depressed, the best thing for you is to sit down and watch baby goats hop around playfully in the pasture.  It's sure to put a smile on your face!

Bunny's Baby

I'm re-reading James Herriot's books and am in the middle of "Every Living Thing."  He's talking about lambing season and going out in the countryside in the cold, windy weather to help ewes deliver in problem pregnancies.  Most of the farmers didn't have any enclosures and he delivered lambs out in the cold.  He said his hands and arms would get so raw from washing his hands so much and the wind whipping on his skin, chapping them thoroughly.  

It makes me happy for us in kidding season for goats, for when we begin to see their bags 'bloom,' we bring them inside the barn.  Even though it's not cold, it isolates the expectant mothers from nosy cows and chickens who won't give them a moment's peace.  Bunny is named bunny because she has a pink nose and a white stripe down her face, giving her the appearance, somewhat, of a bunny.  Bunny's bag has bloomed.  It is tight.  She is close.

She delivered twins Sunday afternoon, right before church.  Here is the smallest kid, a doeling, that Tricia is making sure that she gets a belly full of colostrum.  It's very important that they get this.  The baby is very weak and frail.  We worked with her for a while until her sucking reflex or instinct kicked in.

Unfortunately, her twin, also a doeling died during birth.  Tricia said that she was still in the sack and thinks she may have suffocated.  She was bigger than her twin sister by a long shot.  So yes, we buried yet another goat once we got back from Evening Worship services.

Bunny's baby girl is solid black with a white spot on her head and on her left foot.  We're working hard with her to try to get her to get up and get active and nurse on her own.  So far, it's slow going.  Hopefully, things will get better day by day.

Little goats are the cutest thing!

Here is Bunny and her baby, yet unnamed - we're still thinking.  Any ideas?

Agnes, another goat of ours, is now on the clock.  Her bag is growing, but I don't think she'll kid in the next day or so.  I'm watching her closely.  Tonight I milked out the rest of Bunny's colostrum that her baby didn't drink, and we'll freeze that for later use, should we ever need it.

The Trouble With Goats

Goats are interesting creatures.  Always getting into trouble.  In fact, just this morning I woke up to find Agnes, one of our goats, had gotten herself completely tangled up into some portable fencing.  I struggled for almost 10 minutes before going to get the wire cutters and destroying my fence in order to free her.  It is no wonder that in Matthew 25 our Lord separates the sheep from the goats.  A quick study of this passage shows that the goats are not the good guys.  In fact, they are told to depart to everlasting fire.  Although goats are cute, they can definitely be troublesome, and if I'm honest, sometimes I wish some of ours to be on the coals of a barbecue fire, if not everlasting fire.  

One thing that keeps us busy with goats is dealing with foot problems.  Ours are very susceptible to foot rot.  It's a condition that has us constantly trimming hooves and applying copper sulfate soaks on affected hooves.  I want to introduce you to "Bunny."  Bunny is a goat that sadly lost her baby as a stillborn this spring.  We call her Bunny due to her pink nose and striking resemblance to a bunny rabbit.

Bunny is in our goat milking stanchion for her hoof treatment.  She has an issue with her front left hoof.  We put her in the stanchion so that we might be able to isolate the hoof for treatment.  We gave ol' Bunny a cup of sweet feed to somewhat distract her from the task at hand.

I got some hoof trimmers and clipped around the affected, tender area.  There is a spot that appears to be an abscess.  It started to bleed, and I squeezed it hard to see if I could get any infection out.  Then Tricia mixed up a copper sulfate solution for soaking.  The poured it into a "hoof bath" apparatus and we set Bunny's affected hoof into the soaking solution.  I then used duct tape to secure it on her leg, so she wouldn't kick it off.

We left the boot on for 20 minutes, hoping to give the copper sulfate time to work.

We finally took the boot off.  Hopefully Bunny will improve.  If not, we're not opposed to bringing her to the veterinarian.  Bunny is not the only hoof patient at the moment.  "Tillerson," who is Tillie's little buckling was also limping.  Tricia squirted some copper sulfate into the affected hoof.  

We'll continue to watch Bunny and Tillerson for improvement and provide care to them as needed..

Our Bunny Rabbit

We have a goat named Bunny.  I know, a strange name for a goat, but she has long ears and a pink nose and when she was just a baby, we thought she looked like a bunny.  That's how she got her name.  She is a cute little critter.  Her mother is Agnes.  Agnes is the only goat on the property with horns.  We always say that we'll never allow another goat to have horns.  She certainly uses them to gain dominance over the other hornless goats.  

Bunny is part Nubian and part LaMancha.  The other day we bought her a pretty pink collar and I figured it was a good time to introduce her to you.  We have a lot of goats for our little pasture - too many, in fact.  They are fun to watch.  The are canailles (mischievous).  Bunny will hop up on this table and knock the fan off the table.

Her new pink collar contrasts nicely against her black fur.  Notice also what's hanging from her neck over the collar.

They are called wattles.  They serve no purpose.  Wattles are like skin tags or fleshy appendages with hair on them.  They are dominant.  A goat can't have wattles if neither parent had them.  In Bunny's case, her momma, Agnes, had them.

Bunny's wattles make her look unique.  But that's not the only thing making Bunny look unique.  She has a white stripe running down her face and a pink nose.  We've never had a goat with a pink nose before.

Bunny wishes you all a nice weekend!

A New Kid for Agnes

Agnes' due date, according to what we had marked on our calendar, came and went.  We watched as her bag grew to large dimensions.  We were a little concerned, but she seemed to be acting normally.  Agnes is the only goat on the place that has horns.  She uses them to her advantage and bosses all the other animals around.  The only goat she gets along with is her doeling, Mocha, pictured below with all the spots.

This past weekend, when I went out to the barn to check on things, I found Agnes had just given birth to two kids.  The female was standing up and was already nursing when I arrived.  The male, however, was not.  He was a lot smaller than the female and had not gotten on his feet yet.  Agnes was licking him and getting him cleaned up.

Agnes continued grooming her kids, and I worked on getting the little buckling up.  He was so weak.  I put him on Agnes' teat, but he barely had a sucking reflex.  I even milked Anges out and tried giving him a bottle.  That didn't work either.  The doeling, on the other hand, was nursing like nobody's business.  Agnes went into labor again and delivered the placenta.  She promptly ate it.  That's what goats and cows do.

The little doeling has wattles, like Agnes.  Wattles are dangling 'tails' of skin that hang off of the neck of some goats.  The doeling's wattles are both black with white tips.  Scientists don't know what the purpose of wattles is.  They just dangle and look cute.

I would like to be able to give a happy report about the little buckling, but I can't.  I made my way out to the barn more times than I can count, trying to get the little fellow to stand or at least nurse on his momma.  But it was no use.  I began noticing that he was getting colder and colder.  Finally, the last time I went to work with him, I found him dead in the hay.  This is part of it.  We've gotten used to it.

The doeling is quite healthy.  She is spunky and strong.  She looks like she has white tube socks on her legs, with one sock being pulled up high and the other slouching lower.  She also has a white stripe running between her eyes and down to her nose.

She has a pink nose!  This is the first goat we've had with a pink nose.  Tricia said it makes her look like a bunny, so she named her "Bunny."  I think she likes her name.  In the photo below it looks like she's smiling!

Day by day she gets stronger.  Soon we'll be able to milk Agnes and Bunny will share some of the milk with us.  Until then, she's drinking a lot!

We keep our eyes on ol' Bunny.  The other animals, especially LuLu and Elsie, the heifers, are very curious.  They come and check Bunny out and like her with their long sandpaper-like tongues.  They are a little too rough with Bunny.  Agnes and Bunny sat down near the garden on a beautiful early spring day and soaked in the pleasant surroundings.

Welcome, Bunny, to Our Maker's Acres Family Farm!

A Strange Visitor Behind the Barn

Just behind our barn right beyond the perimeter fence that borders our little 5 acre property on the south is a little patch of woods.  We don't own it.  It is overgrown with privet, ragweed, Chinaberry trees, and dewberries and briars.  It's home to a bunch of squirrels, possums, snakes, and other critters.  Every year I go out back and chop a 5 foot clearing to keep the wilderness from encroaching.  

Things, as we see all around us, move from order to disorder.  The Second Law of Thermodynamics or Law of Entropy states that when left alone in natural states, eventually everything goes back to disorder.  We see that played out in society, in our possessions, and heck, even our bodies.  Clearing a swath beyond the fence is a small way to keep wildness at bay.  It may even keep critters from coming onto our land as they're exposed to hawks and other birds of prey.

I always glance out back.  There's no telling what you might see.  Yesterday, I saw a strange sight indeed!

I couldn't believe my eyes!  A black rabbit!!  Now we have our share of cotton tail rabbits.  We've talked about them from time to time.  They got into the garden one year and mowed down all of our snap beans.  But this rabbit was different.  I've never seen a black rabbit in the wild before.  I showed Tricia the photos and she actually saw it again today.

The rabbit is big and fat and healthy.  We even wonder if it was a domesticated rabbit that somehow got away or was turned loose, but none of our neighbors have rabbits.  I looked up on the Internet to try to learn about black rabbits.  They apparently are extremely rare.  There's even a lot of superstitious talk of black rabbits, but I'm not superstitious.

I stood there and watched the fellow (or gal) for a long time.  The rabbit was nibbling on some of the fresh growth I had chopped down.  As I tried to move closer, the bunny hopped away.  What a gorgeous sight to see.

As strange as it is, I like having this strange black rabbit around.  I hope the rabbit stays out of the clearing, though, as the black rabbit is not quite as camouflaged as the brown cotton tails are.  It would be easy to see by the hawks and owls that patrol the skies near the patch of woods.  As it hopped away, I noticed that it does NOT have a cotton tail.  It is jet black, except for one foot that was white, as if it had a sock on.   

My KInd Of Hip Hop

Saturday afternoon I walked across the backyard toward the sweet corn patch.  I am a little concerned about it as it is yellow-looking and isn't growing as it should.  I think it needs some chicken litter to get it moving.  As I was walking to the corn patch, something caught my eye.  Something brown ran past me.  I turned to look and thought I caught sight of a rat running into a big pile of sticks that we had collected from a recent storm.

I'm not a fan of rats.  I kill them on sight.  I walked over to the woodpile with the intention of trying my best to kill the rat.  However, as I looked down into the pile, I pulled this little critter out:

That's not a rat!  It was a young, female bunny rabbit.  I picked her up and brought her inside.  I could feel her heart beating at a rapid pace inside her chest.  The poor little thing was scared.  I gave her to Benjamin to pet for a while.

My first instinct was to go get a cardboard box and try to raise it, but we've learned with other rabbits, squirrels, wood ducks, and other critters, that wild animals are best left in the wild.  I told Benjamin that in the woods just to the south of the hen house, I had seen two adult rabbits the week before in the tall grass.  I'd bet anything that they were this little rabbit's family.

Benjamin set her down amidst a dense canopy of grass and weeds and underbrush. She blended in nicely and you could hardly see her.



She hippity hopped into the woods.  Benjamin tried to follow her and saw one of the adult rabbits I was telling him about.  I'm sure it was the bunny's mom or dad.  We were happy to have reunited the family and saved the little bunny rabbit's life.  Big Boy, our great Pyrenees dog would have eaten the little rabbit as an appetizer.