It's raining kids!

There are four rubbermaid bins lined up along one side of our dinning room. In those bins there are nine baby goats of various sizes and ages. Last night there were seven bins with fourteen babies.
Fourteen!! Do you know how much milk 14 baby goats drink in one sitting? A LOT! This morning five of them went to their new homes. So now we are feeding the nine who are left plus the six that are outside.
From beginning to end it takes a hour. Some of them eat really fast. Some of them eat really s....l....o....w.

Fourteen!!

Llano's doeling & one of Yoyo's babies.

The little bitties! The black one's Bonnie's little doe and the belted one's Sophie's doe.

                                                            

This little doe loves to sleep on the bottom book shelf. This is the other one of Yoyo's babies.

Meet the giants! The white one is Mesquite's doeling and the belted one is Sophie's buckling. They are both BIG!

The one not looking at us is Nyasa's doeling. She has some pretty markings. The chocolate one is Serano's doe.

                                                                          

Meet The New Kids

So what has happened since I last blogged? Terra Cotta kidded. Triplets! We named them Thorin, Fili, and Kili. :) Thorin's the biggest followed by Kili. Fili was the smallest. Fili was never really healthy. We believe that her big brothers got most of the nourishment while in their mother. We did every thing that we  could for her. When we couldn't do any thing else for her, we made her as comfortable as possible. Thorin and Kili went to their new homes on Tuesday. Later that night Sydney kidded. Twins. A buck and a doe. They are both BIG! Emma and I named the girl Aravis and the boy Tiny Tim. He couldn't stand properly for the first couple days because his leg had been cramped in a bent position while in his mom. But now he's fine. His nickname is Tiny. :) Even though he is a big boy. Calvin and Luther are growing fast. Rebel Yell is trying to keep up with them. :) They are now in a outside pen during the day. Usually they come in for the night but that is about to change. Later today I'll be moving their pen to a more open,sunny patch in the side yard. Then on nights when it is cold I'll wrap sleeping bags around the sides to help keep them warm. Because I'm tired of moving them in and out every morning and evening. :)

Kili. He is around 2 1/2 lbs. He's SO cute!

Thorin trying to get Tumbleweed to play. No go. ;-)

Thorin. He was about 3 1/2 lbs.

Kili getting ready to jump.

This is my favorite! Libby with her goaties.

Did I mention that Thorin and his siblings were Mini goats? That's why they're so small. :)

Rebel Yell

 Another goat kidded this morning! And since it is Confederate Heroes Day Dad named her Rebel Yell. Yes she sure can yell!

"Finally! I did it! I stood up all by myself!"

Those are some ears.

Practicing her pose.

Yes we do do Confederate Heroes Day here at the farm. We have (and are proud of) our Confederate ancestors. For that matter we are also proud of our Union ancestors. In fact one of our relatives was a  spy for the Union during the war. A female spy to be exact. How cool is that? :-) The best way to describe why we honor these "rebels" is to point you to my Mom's blog http://dairyberries.blogspot.com/2009/01/invisible-holiday.html

Work

So for the last week and a half I've been cleaning out the storage shed/new sewing room. While cleaning out the inside part of the shed I found Christmas ornaments that were missing, a newspaper from November 23,1963, and pictures of Dad when he was a teeny little boy. He looked like Judah. :-) He was cute! So after I cleaned the floor, it was time to fix the door knob and the windows. One of the windows was broken by yours truly (I told you I couldn't aim well), and the other one was broken by Timmy. He has no excuse for bad aim. Come on, he plays baseball. He has no excuse for hitting the window instead of the tree. ;-) I successfully removed what remained of the bottom window without any thing or any one getting hurt. Then I moved on to the top window. Removed the glass but not without a trip to the house for some hydrogen peroxide and band-aides. Ouch! So now I'm working on cleaning the outside portion of the shed, which has been used as a place for the bikes, lawn mowers, spare washing machines and dryers, and in the rare event of a hurricane ever hitting us, a goat shelter. I've also found out that this is where our dogs bring the little "treasures" that they find in the woods. You can not imagine all the things that they've brought back from their daily wanderings. So by tomorrow evening I'm hoping to have the entire shed cleaned out and organized so that on Tuesday I can start moving my sewing stuff in there. I can't wait!! :-)

More Pictures

Dixie and her goatie.

"Hey!! Where are you taking my brother off to?"

Sweet!

You won't find any thing cuter then those two sweeties!

Dixie trying to get Luther to eat her hair. Silly girl. :-)

"Oh! Is that milk for us?"

                                     Sorry for the picture overload. :-) They are just SO cute!!!

Update

Luther.

"Let's go see what's over there."

"Did you hear that?"

Calvin trying to jump on the couch.

Calvin.

The baby goats born on Jan 4 are growing fast! We figured out that they are preemies. Roughly three weeks early. Which generally means that they have a very slim chance of surviving. But they are now learning how to jump, play, and head butt each other. They eat roughly 7 oz of milk per feeding. They get fed every 5 hours. A goat born full term would at this age already be eating 20 oz a feeding. That tells you how small these babies are. We,Grace and I, decided to call the cream colored one Calvin and the white and black one Luther. :) For a couple days we were worried that Luther had some health issues. He wasn't as interested in exploring as Calvin was, and he appeared to be blind. But now he's as active as his brother. They will follow any thing that moves that they think might possibly have food for them. Earlier this evening Calvin was missing. We found him at the end of the hall were he had wandered while following Dixie. It won't be long before they are jumping on the couch, bouncing off the walls, and getting into things. :-) Baby goats are so much fun!!

Grrrrrr........

What was that goat thinking as she contentedly chewed up my book? Was she thinking "What a great story!" Or was she thinking "What weird things people read about." All I can say is that at least she didn't eat the middle of the book. Oddly enough she stopped eating at the page I had just finished reading. Unfortunatly she also ate the last ten pages as well as the first twenty. Crazy goat! Do I go around eating your alfalfa? Until I do could you please leave my book alone.

All right. Now that I've ranted about the book-eating goat I'll answer the question that I'm sure some of you (including my Dad) are asking yourselves. Why was my book any where where a goat could get it.
Well.... it was a beautiful sunny day so Emma and I decided that instead of reading in the comforts of the living room,we would go outside to read. So we grabbed our cloaks (we like to wear our cloaks when we read Tolkien), went to our favorite "reading tree" and got ready to read. The goats however had a different schedule for the day. So after chasing the run-away goats through barbed wire, thorn bushes, and brambles, Emma and I finally went back to our book 45 minutes later. Only to find that some of the goats had been there in our absence. And had enjoyed a little nibble of my book. Thank you very little!
So now if you happen to pick up my copy of "The Hobbit" you will start where Bilbo realizes who Gandalf is, and you will end at the place where Bilbo is leaving the Lonely Mountain.
There is never a dull moment on the farm. :)