What to keep in your kidding or lambing kit

Havencroft Kachina had these adorable twin ewes by Havencroft Neptune. The new barn gives us a great set up for jug pens to give mom and babies a safe place to bond .

 It's the beginning of lambing and kidding time here in the Ozarks on Havencroft Farm. That means it's time to keep the "midwifery" kit hanging by the door so we're ready to help when needed.

I've been a shepherd since 1979. I learned from an old-time shepherd, Finley Nelson, and from my dad's stories of having goats when he was a kid. So, I do things the old fashioned way. I am happy to learn about new ways, but I still think simple is good.

Our lambing kit is simple. It starts with towels to help mama dry off babies. Most ewes or does have twins, so if we can help her by drying off one while she goes about the business of having the second, that's good. If it's cold, getting the babies dry quickly will help them stay warm.

Scissors, iodine, towels and clean straw are staples for planning on Havencroft Farm. 

The next thing that's in the kit is a sprayer bottle of iodine for spraying the lamb's umbilical cord. It's vitally important. We always iodine babies. Sometimes we dip navels, but for the last few years we've been drenching them well with the sprayer.

We also keep scissors in the bag, just in case we need to trim umbilicals that are dragging the ground, or trim wool away from udders on sheep that haven't been sheared yet. The next thing that is vital is making sure that babies nurse very soon after being born. They need the protection of the first milk, colostrum, to protect them from bacteria and to get their gut working. We check the mama's udder, making sure the colostrum is flowing freely even if we weren't there for the birth. We also check to make sure babies have full tummies and warm, moist mouths.

If the babies are too weak to nurse, or if there is any other reason they can't get colostrum within an hour of being born, we thaw out some frozen colostrum from last year, or earlier in the year and use a bottle or dose syringe to get it down them. We always freeze excess colostrum from our dairy goats in two ounce bags for just this purpose. Colostrum and soaking navels in iodine are considered absolutely necessary on our farm.

Something else I try to keep in the kit are recycled shopping bags. They are handy for disposing of after birth. We keep that cleaned up because we do have coyotes, raccoons and other predators that we don't want to invite with the smell of new birth.

We also make sure we have clean, dry bedding available. Some of our ewes choose not to use it, but we try.

Finally, we keep molasses in the kit. We mix about 2 tablespoons (or glugs)  in a bowl of warm water to offer to every new mom after giving birth. Most of them drink it down. It gives them water, sugar for energy and minerals like iron to help replace what they've lost.

It's not much, we keep it simple. We also do regular night time barn checks during kidding and lambing season. The whole flock gets used to the flashlight as the silly humans wander through their sleeping place two or three times a night. We are respectful of their sleep and try not to shine the light hard on any ewe or doe unless something looks unusual.

Gardening and cheesemaking

Those of you who follow my blog know that last year I made the decision that my dairy goat herd was for milk production, not for raising dairy goats. To that end, I found someone who would take and raise the kids for their own use, and I have all the sweet, creamy milk from my four does. 

Right now I'm getting about four gallons a day. And I'm making cheese daily. 

I got a Dutch style cheese press for my birthday, along with molds and followers. I've made some delicious cheeses. I have yet to be able to save any to age. My family loves cheese. 

Yesterday I made a cheese with some fresh Greek oregano incorporated into it. I got the plant from the Ozark Folk Center State Park Herb Shoppe and it is doing well in my garden. 

Between making cheese, doing chores and gardening, I seem to be having trouble finding time to weave this summer. 

B is for Boys

           B is for boy. Boy sheep and boy goats.

Lots of fuzzy little critters running around in the alleyways between the fences.

2014 has been a slightly boy-ish year here on  Havencroft Farm. 

Out of nine lambs on the ground, we have six boys. We only have four ewes left to lamb. A few if those boys look to be ram quality if you are looking for a new herd sire, let me know and I can send you pedigrees. 

Hester's lilac boy is very nice. We'll see how all their horns come in before we decide who remains a ram.  

Out of five angora goat kids, three are boys and we're done with babies in that flock. 

Happy B-day. April 2, 2014. 

Busy night on the Farm

Fantasia's twin doelings by Herkimer. I think we'll
call them Imagination and Inspiration?

Do you see the baby goat?
Who do you think spent an hour searching for her at 1:00 a.m.?
Luckily, Shawn's feelingbetter, because I got him up to help me
find her. He's the one who spotted her. This barrel
was in the sheep pen.

It was a busy night here on the farm, with new baby angora goats after a day of shearing. Fantasia's fleece was short, but I could tell she was close to kidding. I want to back up the angora goat's shearing shedule any way, so that will mean short fleeces this spring. Shorter mohair still spins up into beautiful yarn.

Fantasia had these beautiful twin girls about 11:00 p.m. I'm so glad Shawn is up and around again. He's also getting his sense of humor back. He wanted to name them Isabell and Isnotabell. I nixed that. I came up with Isa and Imnot... but I didn't like those either. At midnight, Lena just said she doesn't like angora goats anyway and she didn't care what I named them.

I think, since mommy is Fantasia, they need to be Imagination and Inspiration? What do you think.

We also had a baby goat hunt last night... the baby is fine. I'm wondering if this is inspiration for a picture book...

Shearing begins - or - Why shear now?

Basil being sheared last year. We'll shear her again this weekend.

We always try to shear before our ewes lamb and does kid. There are several reasons for this - our sheep and goats are out on pasture. We will bring them into pens and shelters with their babies when necessary, but they mostly manage just fine on their own.
1. If the mamaas are covered up in the thick wooly coats that they are wearing now, they cannot share body heat with their babes when they lay down together.
2. Lambs and kids have very short coats. If their dams also have very short coats, they know when it's cold enough to take the babies into the shelter.
3. Lambing and kidding is stressful and causes a metabolic change in the ewe/doe. This causes a break in her wool/mohair. So, if we shear right before birthing, then we are shearing at a natural break.
4. We don't want fleeces to get dirty with birth fluids.
5. We want the babies to be able to find the udders.

So, why don't we wait until later in the year to breed, so that we don't have to shear when it's still cold? Again, there are many reasons.
1. Most breeds of sheep and goats are seasonal breeder, they will breed September - December for babies in February-April. In our flocks, we seem to have a few that push the boundaries on the late side, but nobody seems to start cycling early.
2. We live in Arkansas, where everything grows well (usually, last year's drought is an exception, I sincerely pray) - including pests and parasites. The barber-pole worm is just one of many that infects sheep and goats and is happiest at above 60-degrees and 60% humidity. We have a decent parasite management plan, but I want my kids and lambs to have a start before the parasites. The babies born in February and March grow better and are stronger and healthier than those born later.
3. Here, our first flush of green is starting right now. By the time our girls are dropping their babies, we'll have a bright new pasture, with all its good vitamins and minerals for milk production and healing.

So, enough lecture mode.

When we did body score and FAMACHA eye checks on everybody this Sunday, we also checked udders. I have the dates when we put the girls with the boys this year, and it looks like in most cases, they got right to work.
I knew that Cowslip did not take on her first visit to Boomer in September, but she seems to have settled on the next go-around. Demi is bred to Dan for lambs the end of Feb., early March and Basil is bred to Boomer for his first lambs of the season. Tillie and Gamma seem to have worked it out with Herkimer for late February babies. He seemed so shy when we put him with the girls, but I guess they liked that approach.

This weekend we'll be shearing those four. If you are interested in fleeces, lambs or kids, give me a call, send an email, message me on Facebook or leave a comment here and I'll get back to you. We only bred 9 ewes this year and 5 angora does, due to the drought, but we will have some babies for sale.

Geo Rural

 As we head toward sustainability on our five acres in the Ozarks, I have to grapple with the questions of how many animals our land can support, and how many we need to live the way I want to. One of the reasons we moved to the Ozarks is because it is legal to sell goat's milk here, direct from the farm to the customer. I love my dairy goats. Milking is my morning and evening meditation. But, I really only need two milkers to supply our family's needs

Geo is a great mommy and she has the nicest udder to milk.

My favorite doe is Yampa. She is half Oberhasli and half Lamancha. She looks like a big Ober. Born in 2003, she had twins every year until we moved to Arkansas. Then, she wouldn't settle. She milked for four years and finally bred last year to Footsie, our yearling half-Lamancha, half-Saanen buck. The results were Geo and her brother, who found a new home as an infant. 

Harley is two days old. She's sure that she is big enough
now to climb up the roof like Auntie Ginger.

This winter, with hay being hard to find and time seeming to be an ever tightening resource, I decided to sell most of my dairy goat flock. I kept three does, Yampa and two yearlings, her daughter Geo and little Ginny. This Thursday Geo had two big, strong girls. We went through obvious H-names - Honey, Heidi, Heather.. and none of them fit. My son Juna suggested Hydro, to go with Geo. I've always appended "Metro" onto Geo's name, so Hydro just didn't work for me. 

Saturday afternoon, while we were fixing fence I was watching the little blonde baby, two whole days old, trying to follow her Auntie Ginny up over the roof. The little one could get up on the foundation log of the hoop house, but she can't quite reach the tarp, yet.

Harrah's quite the wee showgirl. She thinks Pequena llama
is a good, long-legged role model.

And the little red baby is so, Red. What's H for red? 

These two little girls are so independent, they are little enough that they go right through the fence, so they are as likely to be in the sheep pen or following the llama as they are to be hanging out with their mama.

Geo Metro, Honda? Nope. Suddenly, it hit, the blonde is Harley!

But red, who was visiting with the long-legged llama. What a show-off. She's a so red, Henna!

Naming is not usually this much of a struggle. Maybe it's a good thing we won't have a lot of to name this year.

Weekend highlights

 This weekend was a sunny warm end to January. I had Arkansas Craft Guild board meeting most of yesterday. We planned events for this 50th anniversary year and worked out details for the March 10th annual meeting.

Emma, half sheared

In the morning before the meeting, Lena and I sheared Emma-sheep. She had a huge girl lamb on Thursday and the lamb was having trouble nursing due to her mum's fleece. We named the lamb Hippo. I don't think I've ever seen a newborn jacob that big.

Lisa says the new mohair throw is divine.

Last night I finished a mohair throw out of Fantasia's fleece. Lisa has graded it "divine" and she is certain that it is hers. We'll see.

The new mohair fleeces are coming along well. The wethers Glitch and Gizmo are still steely gray. I had planned to sell them after this spring's shearing, but we'll wait and see how the fleeces look.

This morning we sheared Frannie and Amyrillis. I think in that flock Elizabeth will lamb first. She's already sheared and then the other two, but it was just better to get the shearing done while the weather is good. I think Nilly will be the next ewe to lamb, and Geo-goat is not too far out, maybe another month. Spring is certainly on the way, but we haven't had winter yet. Not that I'm complaining, mind you.

Shawn's out in the shop making me a pretty pecan size P crochet hook so that I can finish my next 52-things-to-do-with-an-old-shirt project. I'm shopping online for a used front load washer to finish felting my rugs. So many projects to finish and things to do. Life is good here.

Glitch does his pelican pose. 

Blurring the lines

My days of late have been spent in the past - the 1890's Ozarks. I have been cooking a variety of delights on my new favorite toy - a 1931 Kalamazoo wood cookstove at the Ozark Folk Center. She is just about the sweetest thing for cooking since maple syrup.

Just this week I've experimented (very sucessfully!) with peach cobbler made with fresh peaches, scottish shortbread, apple and oatmeal cookies, venison pies, cranberries cookies, chicken vegi stew thickened with cornmeal and butternut squash pies. I am having Fun!

It has left me with little time to record all the wonderful stories and ideas that have filled my days. I hope I can remember enough of them to write them down when I have a bit of time...
And it makes me even more aware of how different our life is from most people's though. My answers to the many questions I get each day are a good illustration of this.

The most common question is -
"Aren't you glad you don't have to cook this way at home?"
Um... actually, when I have a home again - I want a wood cookstove just like the one at the Folk Center. And, right now, that is the best cooking facility I have. Depending on how crowded it is, I answer that question with a negative and explain the details as well as I can.

"How long did it take you to learn this?"
Well... Thanks to my parents, I've been cooking all my life and we did enough camping that cooking with fire makes sense to me. It really is no different than modern cooking. Really. I rarely use recipes, but today I decided to look up a recipe for pumpkin pie in our 1915 Golden Rule Cookbook and adapt it to the butternut squash pie I was making. I was stunned when the recipe's first ingredient was "1 can pureed pumpkin". Obviously this was a townie cookbook! Pumpkins store just fine in the pantry without putting them in cans!

I gave up on recipes and made very good butternut squash pie. I had lots and lots of compliments on it and one question that kind of stumped me. One lady, after tasting it, said, "You didn't make the crust, too, did you?"
Umm... If I didn't make it, where did it come from? Is there a pie crust tree in the herb garden that I don't know about?

Sometimes I don't even realize my answers come from a different reality than the question.

"Why don't you churn your own butter here?" asked a young woman.
I answered honestly, "I don't because I have goats and you can't get cream from goat's milk without a cream separator. So I just have to make-do with store bought butter."
I thought a minute and then I added, "But I do have a neighbor who has a cow. Maybe I could ask Dave for some cream."
The young woman seemed to think I was doing a fine job of staying in character...
Tomorrow I'll see if I can pick up that cream on my way down the mountain.

Comings and goings

Yesterday we traveled almost to St. Louis, Mo. to get the new buck for our angora goat flock. I think we'll name him Cappucino.

And yes, his fleece is as divine as it looks. It was hard to keep from petting him all the way home!

He came from Herbal Maid Fiber Farm and has generations of solid, beautifully fleeced, colored angora genetics behind him. I am already telling the girls that they all better have beautiful chocolate twins next spring. Of course, they think he's a little kid and beneath their notice right now, but once it cools down, I think they'll be happy to look at him as a boy.

Because it has been so hot, I thought he needed the benefit of air conditioning for the 7 hour trip home. Kathy, his breeder, showed me a trick that worked great. We just duct-taped a disposable diaper around his belly and over the leaky bits. The goat rode comfortably and the truck stayed clean (well, as clean as usual) and dry.

I've always believed, or at least since the early 1980's when I studied this stuff, that the buck/ram/stud is half of your herd. You can breed up a mediocre flock by bringing in top genetics through the male. You can make a good flock better by using a sire that strengthens the weak points.

So to follow through with this concept, we bring in one new sire each year. We raise three types of animals, jacob sheep, colored angora goats and lamancha diary goats. This year, we added Cappucino, next year, we'll be looking for a good, 4-horned jacob ram and the year after that, a new lamancha buck.

Part of being a breeder, especially with a rare breed like the jacob sheep, is helping other people get started in the animals you cherish. I'd like to congratulate Mona Sloop on her purchase of a good starter flock of our jacob ewes and lambs this week. I wish her daughter, Lake, best of luck showing LHF Alice in the breeding sheep show at the county fair. I'm sure she'll do great. Alice loves to show off and I think she still remembers her Reserve Grand Champion win at the 2006 National Western Stock Show in Denver. I'll let you know how they do.

Viewing from different points

Many, many years ago, I responded somewhat flippantly to a woman who asked me how to keep her goats from jumping on her car.
"Don't park the car in the goat pen," was my dismissive reply.

I'm paying for it now! The picture is of Constance dancing on the windshield of Midas.
The goats are an important part of our land clearing effort at Foxbriar. Cat briar (part of the origin of the name), bull briar and wild rose make most of the mountain an impassable mess. We've had sheep get so tangled their feet were off the ground and we had to use a saw on the vines to get them loose. The black berries thickets promise delicious delights - but about 4 acres are so thick with them that only moles can get through. The goats eat all these thorny invaders and are thriving on them.

But that means the goats are running loose on the farm. Anything we don't want them climbing on, eating or strewing about as they curiously try to figure out what it is, has to be fenced off. Well fenced off! But I figure it is good training, they are teaching us how to keep gardens and orchards safe from the deer, rabbits and coons.
Now, about that question - How do you keep goats from jumping on your car? Well, if you look at it from a different view point - build a car corral that is goat tight. Hmm, if that exists - see picture above!

Today the internet and e-mail groups are great places to go to find information and ask for advice. Many people are willing to share what they know and most do it in a manner that shows they are just offering to help from their point of view. IMHO (in my humble opinion) is used and implied in many posts. Other people are adamant that you should do it their way or you are wrong.

We just moved from a place where there were lots of veterinarians. Most of them didn't like working with sheep and goats, but I had a few that were wonderful with all my animals. I had moved there from a place where you could not get a vet to come to the farm, period, and it was almost 200 miles to take your animals to a vet. We've been calling the vets in and around Mountain View since before we decided to move here, and we've found a few that will work with us - but it was apparent before we made the move that we would have to go back to being responsible for the majority of our animal's health care.

So we've asked for advice on the groups and internet boards. I've never raised sheep in this climate. Parasites and imbalances are very different. Southeastern Colorado is an area where Selenium is present in toxic levels, animals become very ill from the amounts that are present in the hay and in the ground. Here in the Ozarks, you have to supplement selenium in the animals feed. This difference I know about and understand. But what else is there out there that I need to learn?

So, I ask questions and research. The people that we have met up here on the mountain are friendly and have been more than willing to answer my somewhat silly sounding questions. And many wonderful people have had great advice in internet groups. But there are a few who insist their way is the only way - so you smile, nod, say thank you and realize the point from which they are viewing is not the same as yours.

This was obvious last week, when talking with Mona, who moved up here a few years ago from Florida. "It's so arid here and the soil has so much clay," she said while walking through her verdant pasture.
Shawn and I looked at each other. We had just been talking about how delightfully lush and wet it is here, and the soil was so nice and sandy that it drains well, unlike the slick clay of Colorado!
Viewing the world from different points.

Kids and cold

Erie had her kids this afternoon. One huge boy, one bitty boy and a stillborn.

Normally, (whatever that is!) our average temperature this time of year is 38 degrees. It gets down in the 20's at night, maybe the teens, and up in the 50's during the day.

Over the years, (since 1987!) I have found that I like to kid out the goats in February. The weather is usually pretty nice and dry and comfortable for being in the barn at all hours of the day and night.


Well, this year is not normal - not by a long shot. It has only gotten above freezing three days this month and it has been below zero most nights. Today it did almost get up to freezing. It was bright and sunny. And now, at almost 10:00 p.m. it is back down to minus three - that's 3 degrees below zero.

Our barn is generally warm and comfortable, but it isn't heated. I put a heat lamp in there, but the little goats were still not thriving, and heat lamps scare me because of their fire potential.

So, Lena and I build a big, crackling fire in the stove in the workshop, built a little pen out of pallets, bedding it with junk wool and several old blankets and brought Erie and her boys into the workshop.

I just went out to stoke the shop fire and check on everybody. Yampa is close, but I think still a few days off. Erie's little boys are up and toddling and happy. They are getting the faucets figured out and they think their soft bed is super to sleep on. Erie is warm, but worried. In spite of the fact that she has been driving everyone out of the barn with dragon yowls all day - she doesn't like being alone. I left her a radio, perhaps that will help, a bit.

If I were a little less tired, a little less worn out by dealing with all this cold and ice and snow, then I'd stay out there with her tonight. It would be nice and peaceful to sort and pack, and Shawn is on the road, so I am lonely, too. But I am tired, so I've set the alarm for midnight, to check on everybody, and I'm going to curl up in my soft feather bed and listen to the radio...

Thought trains and pogo sticks

Do you ever loose your train of thought?
I do, frequently. And my life can be chaotic enough to loose a whole, great big, long train - along with its tracks!
When I examined it, I realized my thoughts are not like trains. They are not predictable, following set tracks and schedules. They are not big and strong, blowing their whistle as they blast through my mind. No, often I can track them, but it is more like following bunnies through the snow.

"The snow, there wasn't much last night because it is too cold. Seven below, in fact right now at 5:00 am. The goats who are due are even being friendly and sleeping in a huddle in the barn, even though Erie is so close she really can't stand to have any one touching her. They say the high today is supposed to be 15 degrees. None of this ice and snow is going to melt at that rate. I could start a fire in the shop and work out there today, but really, I have a lot of office work that needs doing. How are we going to get the fencing panels dug out of the snow drifts so we can take them to Arkansas? Does Shawn have everything he needs to leave for this mornings trip? I should check the spare tire situation.... Ah, the house is so warm after checking on the goats."

That was the basic trail of thought as I went out to check the goat barn this morning. You can track these thoughts. They leave a trail. But, sometimes, my brain confounds even me. Especially when it is in creative mode, my thoughts are very random. It's like my mind is excited and is on a pogo stick.

Great ideas for a new rug, must draw weaving drafts ^!^!^ dogs, need bath ^!^!^! Do we have frozen peaches^!^!^Would that blue wool look good on a felted stress ball^!^!^Need to call my mom^!^!^What are the horses up to?

And so on. I am usually up and working when my brain is hopping around like that, but if I am ever here writing and you really cannot follow the post - now you'll understand.

Have a bright and shiny day!