Havencroft Farm welcomes our first angora goat kids of 2014

This morning about 6 a.m., Chantilly Lace, the pretty angora goat doe on my signs and business cards, went into labor. Tillie's eight-years-old (a bit old for a goat), but she's never had kidding problems. However, things just haven't seemed right, so I've been checking on her at night for the last two weeks. Between the single digit temps, snow, ice and her not acting quite right, I just wanted to keep an eye on her.

Her water broke, but her labor just wasn't progressing. About 7:30, I checked and found feet facing the right way. We waited a bit more, but she wasn't pushing at all. I checked again, but things didn't feel right, so we headed to Doc Nixon's. 

Doc looked out the door at the two feet protruding from Tillie's birth canal, said "uh oh" and went back into the clinic. 

Not what you really want to hear your vet say. But he was back in a few minutes and shortly thereafter a little buck kid was born. We named him Juxtaposition. He didn't want to get born, so his head was turned back. Doc let Tillie rest about 1/2 an hour, but she still wasn't pushing, so he helped little Jilly-doe into the world. 

Tillie, Jux and Jilly are home in the barn with a heat lamp on them now. It only got up into the 20's today, and is forecast to be 11 degrees tonight. They may spend the night in my workshop. Luckily, it is supposed to get up to freezing tomorrow and climb steadily to stay above freezing at night by the weekend. I sure hope!

Shepherding takes passion, dedication and a support network

Spring is a busy time on any farm. Here at Havencroft, where we raise Jacob sheep, dairy goats and angora goats, we know we won't get much sleep the end of March. But even planning on that, this week was a little extreme.

First time mom Greta does a great job with her little ram lamb

.

During lambing season, we check everyone well at evening feeding. If no one seems to be in labor, we only do a two a.m. check on everybody. But, if a ewe or doe is close, then we check every two hours, especially with the first-time moms. Lena and I switch off on these checks, which helps.
Greta, a two-year-old Jacob sheep ewe labored hard to have her rather large ram lamb (by Canoe Lake Sonic Boom) about 10 p.m. Sunday night. He did fine and is now debating with Hocus's Incantation about who rules the sheep pen.

Then, Tuesday evening, Lena's very special Demi sheep, (and the sheep who grows those incredible dark gray, silver tipped fleeces for my best Fleecyful Wool Rugs), went into labor. By 9:00 it was obvious she needed help and by 10:30, I knew that I couldn't handle the problems. We found our new vet in the middle of the night. Dr. Jill Baird in Clinton is a god-send!

Dr. Jill Baird of Van Buren County Vet Clinic labored for more than two hours in the middle of the night Tuesday to save Demi and her lamb.

She labored more than two hard, physical hours to save Demi and one of her beautiful lambs. Lena and I had driven Demi over to the vet in Lena's car. Clinton is more than an hours drive, over some pretty twisty roads, so we made it back home with Demi and baby by 3:00 a.m. for a bit of sleep for all of us.

At the 6:00 a.m. check, Demi was in trouble. I tried our local vets, hoping to save Demi and lamb the stress of the drive, but by 10:00 a.m., I was headed back to Clinton, after arranging for many wonderful friends to cover things for me at work!

Dr. Jill gave Demi IV fluids and did surgery to patch things up inside. The wonderful staff at the clinic helped hold the lamb, who cried if she was put in a crate. After all was finished, we tucked momma and lamb together to wake up. Demi was so happy to see her lamb when she came to.

Demi and baby resting after surgery on Wednesday.

 In an hour or so, she was up and wanting to know where they kept the food in this joint. Demi does love her feed. She helped clear the chickweek and a weed tree out of the livestock yard at the Clinic. I tried to thank Dr. Jill, and we were on our way!

Demi after surgery, ready to head home with her ewe lamb.

Demi and Ipswich (Jill) home after Demi's surgery.

 Then, after Spring came dancing in last weekend, it blew back out with a big snow storm Thursday night. We got about 6" of snow here at Havencroft, before it started raining on top of it at 3:00 a.m. Luckily it was just warm enough that the rain cleared the roads, instead of icing them. It also washed away some, but not all of the snow.

The sheep and goats were all tucked in their shelters, except for Henna, one of our Lamancha dairy goat yearlings, who was in labor and insisted on being outside. Every two hours, I went out and put her back in the barn. I tried to move her to the milk shelter, but the entire herd broke out of the gate I hadn't locked tight (at 2 a.m.) and so I did good just to get everybody back in the goat pen.

The goat kids playing in the barn after Thursday night's snow.

Spring in the Ozarks

Mouse, Bones and Dapper Dan want breakfast.

Our mountain, shrouded in fog on Friday morning.

 Finally, at 8:07 a.m., when I had called in late to work for the 2nd time this week, Henna had a lovely little doe - in the snow bank. Lena and I penned her in the barn and I went to work. When I got back home at lunch to check on everyone, I found the second little doe. Mom and both babies are fine.

Henna, our Lamancha dairy goat yearling and her twins, born Friday morning about 8 a.m. (after I checked her every 2 hours all night long!)

Shepherding takes passion, dedication and a whole village of folks to support the effort. I want to thank Dr. Jill and Dr. Ben; Lena; Shawn; Missy Epperson; Josh; Melody and the whole rest of everybody who helped out this week!
We have 2 more angora goats and 6 more jacob sheep left to have babies. Last year, two of them had lambs at our Shearing Day open house. Who knows what will happen this year? This year's Shearing Days Open House here at Havencroft Farm is March 30 from 10 a.m to 4 p.m. Leave a comment if you need more details.

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...

Spring arrives on the Farm

Spring arrived this week. It was nothing gradual, Spring came on Wednesday, like a person walking in through the door.

Suddenly, I did chores without my Carhartts for the first time in months. I didn't need my gloves to hold the frosty metal grain bucket handles, because they weren't frosty.

Yellow, purple and blue poking up in the front pasture.

I could get in my car and drive to work, without having to scrape the frost off the window.

The front pasture suddenly turned purple and yellow and blue.

Suddenly, I just had to make a gallon of peppermint sun tea.

Hundreds of robins flocked to City Park as I drove by on my way to work.  I saw cardinals as I did morning chores.

All of a sudden, on Wednesday, Spring arrived.
                                                               

Harley's little doeling

Then, on Thursday, my little yearling Lamancha diary goat Harley had her first kid. This little girl will be going to live with Linda P. when she is a bit older.
Suddenly, I had to remember to santize the milk pail for the first time since November. And the dishes left on the counter became part of my morning routine, along with milking. On Tuesday, goat milk will go back to being the mainstay of my diet. Ah, Spring.

 And then my favorite little yearling ewe presented us with her first little ewe lamb. Hocus Pocus is a sweet, friendly darling of a sheep. I think her wee little Incantation will be as sweet as she is adorable. She has a tight little curly coat and I love rubbing my cheek over her soft side.

Suddenly, Spring arrived on the farm this week. I hope your week was delightful.

Harley's little doeling a few hours later, all cleaned up.

Hocus Pocus and her little ewe, Incantation

Incantation's better side. Boomer is her daddy.

Call him Ishmael

Ishmael, the first baby angora goat of 2013. Born 2-22-13.

We had our first baby of the 2013 season born while I was shepherding the Ozark Quilt Retreat on Thursday. Lena texted me pictures. We shared the news with friends via Facebook. And I put out a call for "I" names. Ichabod was Lena's favorite name among the more than 17 submitted. But, when I got to meet the little guy on Friday night, I knew he was Ishmael.

Ishmael is the center of everyone's attention. He sleeps between his Mama-mama and his Mama-llama. His daddy thinks he's really cool. And even the dairy goats are intrigued by the little guy. With all this attention, he's going to grow quite the attitude.

Luckily, his mom and dad are both gentle and sweet, so I expect the same from Ishmael.

Ishmael and his Mama-mama and Mama-llama

The whole flock seems to adore the little guy.

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.

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...