and the rest of the gang...for now...

So it's been a while since I've really posted anything here for several reasons, limited time being one of them. But wanted to introduce you to some of the newest members of the herd. Below is Birdie.

Birdie bears this name because she was born with a parrot mouth and parrot = bird and it sort of just stuck.... Quite honestly when I saw that I was afraid she'd have to be put down because I thought she wouldn't be able to eat or drink, much to my delight I was wrong! It took a bit of patience and it was a learning curve at first, but she's eating like a champ! She's eating hay and will now even drink water from a bucket.

 Next up it was FINALLY Katie's turn to deliver. I was convinced that she was going to stay "sleek and single Katie" forever so when she started showing signs of pregnancy I was over the moon happy! Though she kept it a secret for a looooooong time. Had I not felt the baby moving I'd likely never have suspected she was carrying. I like to be in the "delivery room" with my girls and I love it when they come to me to seek comfort while laboring.

 Katie didn't venture too far from me and I was SOOOO glad to have been there for this delivery. One of the pictures Ron took of this delivery was of me praying for Katie and I gotta say, it's one of my favs, I think it was intuition as Katie's delivery was a rough one, she labored normally but when she started pushing and pushing and pushing and nothing really was happening I started getting worried. I ended up having to go in and get the baby out. Katie was exhausted and this baby was not coming out. I was scared but remained calm and went through all the kidding scenarios I had read about and had the kids start praying too. I worked with her contractions and prayer and got the baby out and both momma and baby survived. Then let out a huge sign of relief and a prayer of thanks. It was no wonder she had trouble, Jumpin' Jeffery weighed in at exactly 9 pounds! For a first freshener that is HUGE!

 This is Jumpin' Jeffery and I'm not sure if it's because of the traumatic delivery or his innate goat-ness and goofy personality but I am completely smitten with this not so little guy. Maybe because it's Katies first baby too, I have no idea, just completely smitten.

Next up was Strawberry, she hadn't taken since she had Buckley and Katie and I thought it was because Blackberry had been so mean to her and hurt her internally, but I guess not! When she came into season shortly after Dealer arrived here I honestly didn't hold much hope of her taking and when the first breeding didn't take I figured well, I'm not surprised. Then she came into a full blown screaming (literally) heat, she literally chased Dealer all over and kept flagging and my thought was geez, Strawberry have a little self control girl! But this cycle was different and this one took! This produced twins. A little girl that we named Laudamus (meaning "we praise!" - and after all we have been through the past couple years in general and with this little girls mom I figure it's a fitting name.)

 And another buckling which we named Vedder, yes, as in the last name of the lead singer of Pearl Jam - Ron's favorite band. Vedder had showed signs of selenium deficiency because he was walking on just the very tip of his front toes then would take a few steps and lay down, heartbreaking?! YES! I called my vet and was able to get some selenium and vitamin E for him. That worked very well! With in days he was better and up and running with the rest of the herd and his legs have completely straightened out. We live in a very selenium deficient area and despite the fact that I'd never had problems with it for kidding this year I had a few. Turns out that Birdies parrot mouth and the lack of pregnancies for Katie and Strawberry all these years could also have been cause by that too. So now I know and can take steps accordingly.

 This is the second group of kids all snuggling together in the bean bag, cute? oh yes! Below is the introduction of all the babies this year. I see a pattern with Dealer's offspring. two white, two black and two brown. I find it maddening that forever now I have wanted a little black doe, because I love the way they look and I got white does and black bucks. Sigh, maybe next year.

Let me tell ya folks, this is a wonderful way to start my mornings, sitting in the sunroom in the early morning light with a bunch of babies in my arms! L to R Vedder, Jeffery, Laudamus

hard decisions...

These handsome guys followed me home from the Fiber Frolic yesterday, meet Bear and Shakespeare. I had absolutely no intention of bringing anybody new here but like most of the other animals that live at From the Country Farm these two little boys are here because of some hard decisions that needed to be made. Welcome Bear and Shakespeare, though I certainly see a name change in your future, never was a big fan of Shakespeare....

As you may know Venus and Spice are here as milkers because Strawberry and Katie didn't take this past fall or deliver the year before. Don't get me wrong, Venus and Spice are great and I adore them but that is how they came here. Two years ago I tried to breed Strawberry and Katie and feel that at least Strawberry took, but it was never confirmed, but feel that she did. Katie I'm not really sure at all, like most things with Katie it was an odd situation all around. Well a few months into gestation Blackberry started beating on the other goats especially Strawberry, the one whom he'd been with from two other farms!) and I mean beating on them so I took him out of that pen and put him by himself for a bit in an attempt to figure out what happened and re-group. I think the beating they took caused them to abort the pregnancies.  I then put him in with the llama and alpacas figuring they are bigger and the llama is guardian of the alpaca herd so he wouldn't take crap from a 60 pound goat, that worked - for a while. After a while when that herd was fed he'd go lay down in the middle of the pile of hay and toss his horned head at the llama and alpacas and prevent them from eating. Not cool. So he was separated from them and with no other animals for him to be with I was out of options. Feeling badly for him because he is a herd animal but cannot be with a herd I decided to try putting him back together outside where there was room for the other goats to escape if need be. Venus was not out at that time, I was not going to jeopardize another pregnancy. It was a disaster. And back into solitude he went. It was then I knew what needed to be done. He could no longer stay here like this, it was a hard decision to make but one that needed to be made. It's not right for him to be by himself because he is a herd animal but it's not fair to the other animals to be beat on, running away from him in fear or starved because he won't let them eat. It's just not right. It's also not responsible of me to just ship him off to some unsuspecting farm so I have made arrangements for him to be sent to "freezer camp." It sucks, but it's the humane and right thing to do, he's never showed aggression to humans, but terrorizes other animals and it needs to stop. There is no place for that on our farm.

You may be wondering how the two little guys at the top have anything to do with Blackberry or hard decisions well, let me tell you. At the Fiber Frolic this weekend during the lull while it was pouring some of the vendors had a chance to get together and chat. My children had seen an older woman trying to bring in a couple goats and a sheep and had seen her struggling so they offered to help her. Then they stood there for a while and were asking about the animals, she chatted with them and answered questions and off they went. Sunday morning comes around and she and I were talking during a lull and she asked me to take these two boys. As it turns out her ailing mom with dementia lives with her and is requiring so much of her time she has to find new homes for her flock. With a quivering voice and teary eyes (this I understand) she said she just cannot do it all and only has her 6 year old grand-daughter to help so new homes must be found. She'd found homes for a couple animals and a few more were in the works but it takes a while sometimes to work out the details for others. It is a hard decision for her as well but one that must by made, so these two little boys with fleece as white as snow, shiny and lustrous as a pearl and as soft as cashmere joined our farm. They are pygora goats who are nearly full grown and are roughly 40 -50 pounds each, not at all like the large milking does. :-) They are a bit freaked out be all the changes right now but have started to relax and walked up to me tonight cautiously, but that's a start.

a bit of relief...

 Katie and I snuggling on the back porch when she was just a wee lass.

Just returned from the vet's office with a report of good - ish news. Katie's leg is NOT broken like I thought. Praising God for His mercies! She did do a fair amount of soft tissue damage and will be a while recovering but should; when healed, be ok. Watching for infection and still on some pain meds but my "Katie Darlin' " should pull through!

Katie update

First of all, thank you all who participated in the emergency vet bill soap sale, I appreciate that more than words can express.

Secondly, I went back and reread the initial post about Katie after reading some comments and realized that in my stress I did not accurately describe what happened. So I apologize for that. In no way did my neighbors dog have anything to do with Katie getting hurt, my neighbor and his dog were just walking by to get the mail and happened to be in the right place at the right time and was able to help.

As I said, I was not here when it happened and just came in on the aftermath but from what I can gather she tried to jump the fence, managed to catch her leg, panicked and who know what at this point.

As directed by the vet I attempted to take off the dressing/bandages and check the laceration. However, when doing so she started moving around and looked to me like that her leg was moving weird almost wobbly, despite the fact that the vet didn't seem to think it was broken when she examined her on Saturday. My gut tells me it's broken, so I stopped re-wrapped and put the splint back on and will call the vet again in the morning. Because my truck is still in the shop (since Thursday) and will be for a while....ugh.... my mom will drive her truck down (over an hour each way - Thanks Mom!) and help me get Katie to the vet for an x-ray and who knows what from there. I wish I had better news and hopefully tomorrow I will post that she's going to be on the mend shortly it's just bruising or something. She is on meds for pain and stall rest, which she detests but there are some things you just cannot explain to a goat! That being said, I'm really trying to listen to Katie too, listening to what she's trying to tell me in her own way and it helps that I've known her her whole cantankerous in a loving sort of way life. Some people may be of the mindset that it's just a goat, and I'm ok with you thinking that. To me Katie is my responsibility, I caused her to come into this world, bottle fed her and raised her from day one. I need to do what I need to do to make sure she's not suffering, that is one thing I simply cannot bare. I do not take the responsibility of any of the animals here lightly. Each decision I make on their behalf is done with care, consideration and in what I feel is appropriate at the time.

NOT her best day!

Poor Katie, she's miserable and confined which makes it even worse! This afternoon as I was turning onto our road I got a frantic phone call from Faith. I didn't understand much of what she was saying but told her to calm down and breath and I was turning into the driveway. I was able to get out of her that Katie had cut her leg and that a neighbor was out with her. So I parked and headed out to assess the situation our neighbor had his dog by the collar in one hand and Katie in the other she was dripping blood and not bearing any weight on her leg even with the dog three feet from her. Oh Lord this is NOT good! Fortunately I got my dad's head in situation like this and can remain calm and do what needs to be done. I told the kids what I needed them to do and got her up to the house with the use of a garden cart as an ambulance for goats. Cleaned up the wound and got it dressed and the bleeding to stop. She still wasn't bearing weight and I was afraid she'd broken it and figured this day would end with tears, a shovel and a good-bye because of that. I did what I could do for her but knew this was way beyond what I knew to do and had no pain meds for her. I don't think there is anything more pitiful than a whimpering goat. At least in that moment I couldn't think of anything. I called the vet out I just knew despite the cost I had to do it, Katie is like a daughter of sorts to me and I just had to do what needed to be done. So the vet came out about two hours after I got home and with an exam said she didn't feel anything broken but that she may have just really injured the leg muscle, tendons etc and the cut was nasty! So she vetted her and put this splint on her leg and gave me some pain meds and said if she's still not bearing weight by Monday get her to the office and we'll do an x-ray just to see what is going on in there. But this should work, so we'll see. That being said a farm call on a weekend will be a rather large bill so this weekend only I'm having a Emergency vet bill sale on the goat milk soap. Buy 5 get one FREE! This of course is to help pay for her bill. Katie sends a big THANK YOU to all of you.

Good Morning from our herd to yours!

Katie like to ride in the truck..

She likes to hop up into the cab of the truck (because I don't have a cap and it's COLD; too cold to ride in the back, here in February) and stand between the rear seat and the back of the front seat or lay down on the rear seat or stand with her head in between the two front seats. Usually on the way back from not playing nicely with the buck she'll rest her head on my shoulder and make her sweet little Katie noise. This was my last shot this season with her and once again she didn't co-operate. UGH!

Maybe we'll have more co-operation and hopefully some success with Galloway! This him at 4 weeks and I am SO pleased with his growth and confirmation! Really looking forward to having him here and hopefully get a little black doe out of him next year!