|
Hi thread! Jellyfish, I don't mean to hijack your thread, but we had our first lamb born and I thought the thread might appreciate more cute overload. We have dairy goats, and we usually have a surplus of milk. So 2 years ago we bought a bottle baby meat mix mutt ewe lamb to take care of the surplus and named her Beep Beep. She has a bit of an identity crisis being raised with goats and she is very goat-like. Then I started getting serious about spinning and realized hair sheep is no good for spinning, so last fall we bought Rock the Kazbaa, a Tunis ram. Beep Beep and Kazbaa whispered sweet nothings, but I really didn't think she took as she was only about a year old at the time of breeding and it was hard to tell if she was preggo under the fluff. Until last week. I came home early for an online conference, and as soon as I got out of the car Mr. Celestriad was yelling to me, "Beep Beep is in labor!" Well, crap. There was only 20min to conference start, and my does, especially first fresheners, generally take about 45min to go from start to finish on kidding. We expect first timers to involve a minimum of thrashing and screaming and convincing the dam that yes that is her baby and yes it needs to nurse. I rushed into the barn, where Beep Beep was calmly standing, and licking and baby talking her new ewe, who was already sitting up and thinking about standing. Ooookay, then, so apparently sheep are very different from goats... We have named the little ewe Boop. It's very curious--white meat mix hair sheep plus redhead but white wool Tunis sheep apparently equals paint sheep. She's a chill little thing, again totally unlike the nearly psychotic energy of kid goats, even though she definitely enjoys playing and bouncing too. At a week old, she is already confidently stealing alfalfa hay and beet pulp alongside the big does and being an independent little boss.   
|
#
¿
Apr 22, 2022 04:56
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 8, 2024 22:35 |
|
|
Okay... just remember, you asked me to talk about goats and sheep lol Here's Beep Beep in all her glory. Yes, she's on a goat milking stand. Yes, I have trained her to do so. Yes, it's a struggle every time until it gets through her sheep brain that's what I want to do, and then she's happy to act like a goat and get delicious beet pulp. She's a hair breed, but she still gets a pretty decent winter wool coat on her, as you can see. I have no idea what breed Beep Beep is--probably mostly Katahdin. She is extremely loud, and makes it very clear when she Wants A Thing, usually delicious beet pulp.  Here's Rock the Kazbaa, our Tunis ram. He's way too cunning for a sheep. He broke out of our fenced pasture once by working at a corner until he got it loose, and now he checks all the corners to see if he can do it again. He's not over-fond of people, and doesn't like to be touched. He is going to really hate me in a couple of weeks when I shear him. He currently lives with our buck in the bachelor pad and although the hormonal boys like to get in shoving matches and have Certain Feelings About Things, he cries whenever I take the buck out for nightly feeding. His "baa" is extremely deep.  I haven't taken any more pictures of Boop yet. I will see if I can grab one over the weekend. She has an odd teat defect that people might be interested in seeing, so she can't be bred. She has 4! teats instead of the usual 2, and one is very clearly non-functional. Both likely are--supernumerary teats usually don't work. But she is damned cute! I'm hoping Boop's wool might be usable for rugs, as I like to experiment with tapestry weaving and her color is awesome. I am going to post a post for each goat and her offspring to try to keep from WALL O TEXT and to properly introduce everyone.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 23, 2022 03:35
|
|
|
First up is Celeste. She is a 2-year-old purebred Nubian and this is the second time she has kidded. Her first time, she was only a year old (buck managed to tear off his apron to get to her) and she gave me a gorgeous daughter, Andromeda. She's a beautiful doe out with a great pedigree and this year she produced 9.3lbs of milk on her first milk test, so she should earn milking star credit. We will see how her lactation curve continues throughout the year. She was a month from kidding in this picture. I can't find a picture of the buck I bred her to. I repeated the breeding that begat Andromeda, and she looks just like her dad. He was a horrible fence breaker, but a very sweet boy. Celeste kidded triplets, one doe and two bucks. I sold all of them--the doe's new owner came from 5 hours away to pick her up. First up is an ear action shot of the doeling, and next is the two boys loving on me and somehow not holding a grudge for being neutered. Goats are REALLY good at holding grudges.  
|
|
#
¿
Apr 23, 2022 03:43
|
|
|
Next is Erin. She is a 4-year old purebred Nubian, and she is very special to me because she was the first goat born on my farm. She's my favorite (shh, don't tell the others). She's also quiet, which is extremely rare for a Nubian goat... She is one hell of a milker. Last year, she capped out at 11.3lbs in a single day. This was her 3rd time having kids. Twin boys, then quadruplet boys. I bred her to the same buck that I bred Celeste to, for the third and final time. Really really hoping for a doe after 6 boys... As you can see, she was huge. A beached whale. I was expecting quadruplets again. She kidded 2 days early, quads as I expected although one was stillborn--a doe. And then she got very sick. She wouldn't eat or drink and was acting really off. About 30 hours after she kidded, I noticed her squat and grunt like she was in labor. Oh God. I had to reach inside her, and sure enough, I found another doe dead inside her. She frickin' threw QUINTUPLETS and nearly died doing so. We shoved medicine in her round the clock and I knew she would recover when she started bossing Celeste around. She did get mastitis, which is an infection in the udder, so badly that one side didn't really recover. One side of her udder is doing great, and the other side is only operating at about 50% capacity. Even so, on her first milk test she managed 7.8lbs. The three surviving kids had to be hand raised because she was so sick. She had 2 really cute boys--the first one I was calling Hairy Potter because he looks like he has lightning bolt on his face. They were both sold to a great home and first-time goat owners.   And, FINALLY, she threw a GIRL! A tiny, tiny one--average weight for a Nubian kid at birth is 6-7lbs, and she was a whopping 4.2lbs. But oh, she was worth the wait! This is Queen Maeve, and she is every bit as spoiled as you can imagine. I have never seen a goat with her coloring before!   Here she is at about a week old, sulking in the sink for scale: 
Celestriad fucked around with this message at 04:19 on Apr 23, 2022 |
|
#
¿
Apr 23, 2022 03:54
|
|
|
Here's the last doe who kidded this year, Andromeda. She's Celeste's daughter and she looks just like her sire. She is a yearling, 14 months old and she clearly took her size from her sire as she's already as large as her dam. This was her first time kidding. She's a love bug, but she got a lack of brains from Celeste too... She was the first goat we tried to disbud (burn the horns off of) and we did a terrible job of it, so she has little horn stubs. She's got a great build, wide and deep. I bred her to Flagstaff Moment, who is a special boy. He's the great-great grandson of my favorite goat of all time. His great grandma was one of the top 10 milking Nubian does in the entire US, and his dam milked for 600+ days straight on her very first lactation. He is a sweet, spoiled baby who whines if he doesn't get enough attention. He is a buck, and so somewhat dangerous and dumb when he's fully in rut, but he's always a gentleman to us.  Andromeda kidded twin does two weeks ago. She was convinced she was dying when they crowned, but that's par for the course for a first-time mom. She started off as a great mom, and then suddenly decided she only wanted the doe who looks like her and actively attacked and bit the little roan girl. So she lost baby privileges and it's about broke her poor dumb brain. She's finally getting better after about 2 weeks. She has a really lovely first-timer udder, and is managing a bit over a 5lbs a day. I expect her lactation to improve. The little doelings have Flag written all over them. They're wide and deep and are the most vigorous kids I've ever had. They were playing at an hour old. They'll both be sold once they're tattooed and registered. I currently only have Flag as a buck, so I don't want to keep a daughter from him right off the bat due to inbreeding concerns. Here they are at about 3 hours old. 
Celestriad fucked around with this message at 04:31 on Apr 23, 2022 |
|
#
¿
Apr 23, 2022 04:07
|
|
|
Finally, we have a bit of a different delivery. I had this little girl flown in from across the country, from one of the top Nubian breeders in the US. This is Kachina Doll, and she was born early in the year and came to us about 3 weeks before Celeste kidded, so she stayed in the house with us until she had playmates born and consequently thinks she's a people. Her grandsire on one side is one of the top 5% of Nubians in the US, and her granddam on the other side is one of the top 10 milk producers in the US. I love her angry eyebrows. She's spoiled spoiled spoiled, and also the smartest goat I have ever owned. She's a whirlwind. Here she is Kachina dancing on the couch. (The ears provide lift.)   I think there's a goat somewhere in this picture, but I don't know where? 
|
|
#
¿
Apr 23, 2022 04:13
|
|
|
Multiple reasons. There are such things as hornless goats, but if you breed a hornless goat to a hornless goat, 25% of the offspring are sterile hermaphrodites, so it is really not a good idea. You have to have a hornless goat to be registered--part of breed/show standards. But there are lots of practical reasons too. Goats are not kind to each other. They attack each other all the time to establish dominance and pecking order, and particularly in dairy goats a horn to the udder could end her milking career. Another reason is that when you milk a goat, you are in a very vulnerable position, half under the goat and with your back to her. They're good and loving girls, but if they throw heads they could horn you in the head. There have been instances of goat owners taking a horn to the gut when a goat takes exception to something, and goats take exceptions to a lot of things like hoof trimming, whistling, checking tails, etc. I personally had a close call when Andromeda's sire injured himself. I was cleaning the wound, and while he is a good boy it HURT and he didn't want me to do it. He smacked me with his solid bone head hard enough that I saw stars. If he had horns, I would have lost an eye. Meat goats are not subject to the kind of close handling that dairy goats are, and they keep their horns as part of the breed/show standards.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 23, 2022 04:38
|
|
|
I didn't previously introduce Amber to the thread, because she has not had kids yet. She's always been our "helper" goat; she loves to help with anything and everything. One time I had to go into the house for something and she followed-- that created a monster. Here she is being judgemental at the TV.  Help, I have a house goat now.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 21, 2022 04:15
|
|
|
Breeding season is in full swing here. One doe is already bred, one doe is due to be bred this weekend, and the final two does are due to be bred next weekend. The youngsters are going through puberty, but they are absolutely not allowed anywhere near a buck because I don't need any teen preggo immature moms next year thx. This makes me realize--I don't know if a lot of the readership of this thread has a good understanding of what happens in goat breeding. TIME FOR SOME EDUCATION KIDS Does go into heat, just like cats. And just like cats, they are utterly shameless and extremely horny. The signs are different for each doe. Some will be subtle about it, some not so much. There is one thing that almost all does do, which gives away that they're in heat:  The screeching. Oh god. The screeching. Two weeks ago, we had 3 does in heat simultaneously. They want the D and they're gonna make sure every buck within a mile radius knows. And these are the goats that are best known for screaming, so add it up and it equals earplugs. Well, we don't let sex happen willy-nilly around here. So the girls end up frustrated because they want the D and it's not forthcoming (I am not dealing with kids in February, ladies. Too cold). So what's a girl to do? Yes, you're correct. Country goats make do. If a buck isn't there to sex them, it's lesbian orgy time.  Pheromones are a hell of a drug. Let's talk about the buck. They're significantly bigger than the girls, and they go into rut like deer. Their muscles bulk up so they can fight for breeding rights, and they go a little crazy. Many stop eating, or barely eat. It's not their fault--their sole goal in life is to sex. This is also why intact bucks don't live as long as does. And the biggest part of rut is to make sure they smell nice for the ladies. If you've ever heard that goats stink, it's because someone has encountered a buck in rut. It's a very unique (very BAD) smell that just sticks to everything. If you touch a buck, change your clothes and shower. This is the way.  Why, you ask, do they smell so drat bad? Part of it is our friend pheromones. A bigger part of it is that they regularly piss on themselves to get that stank on.  They also become super affectionate, so you get a 180lb buck who wants to snuggle and wipes his pee-soaked beard all over you. Ask me how I know. So, as a buck, now that your stank is correct, how do you make sure that you're ready to go when you encounter a doe? That's right, regular autofellatio.  Try explaining this one to the kids. Okay, so now we have a buck with the correct stench and a correctly working penis, and a doe in raging "standing" heat. It's called standing heat because she will stand still to be mounted by the buck, but that's still no guarantee. She's still a lady, and has to be properly wooed. And, since you're a buck, of course wooing involves more piss because WHY NOT.  There are other steps in wooing, including the buck sticking his tongue out and making a "buh-buh-buh" noise called blubbering. So in all those cute/funny videos of a goat with his tongue out, that goat is trying to gently caress you. If the buck is stinky enough for the doe's taste and he woos her sufficiently, she will allow him to mount her. It's very fast--if you're not watching you might never know that your goats bred.  Here's where it gets surprisingly egalitarian. Both the buck and doe have to orgasm for the breeding to be successful. The buck will throw his head back, and the doe will hunch up. (Sidenote, does can do the hunch up at any time--just walking around BAM girl boner.)  We usually make sure they get three good breedings in before we separate the couple. It generally takes about 15min. There's a reason we call our bucks "studs." So in recap: stench, piss, orgies. If all is well, 5 months later we get adorable baby goats. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 6, 2022 03:34
|
|
|
We're about 6 weeks from the first kidding and hoo boy are there FEELINGS going on. The pregnant does are all huge. I would be shocked if they're not all carrying triplets at a minimum (I'm looking at you, Erin. Plz no 5 kids this year again). Erin and Andromeda are doing well with it, just that they can't eat enough and they can't get enough attention. Amber is a first-timer, and she is MISERABLE. She doesn't know what's going on and she has always been our most socially awkward goat so she's really confused and needy. The youngsters have been integrated into the main herd, and there's still some drama there from the older girls putting them in their places. The most drama tends to happen around milk stand time--the youngsters still haven't figured out hierarchy and milk stand order so I have to boss them around as much as the does do. The milk stand order will settle down in time. So hey, check this out: we finally got off our asses and built our website! https://snakeggfarm.com/ It shows all of the goats, and has a blurb about each one. It also has pedigree information, if you're curious how that looks. And we have stuffs for sale, including goat milk soap. We're still actively adding to the site every day. It's nice to look semi-professional about all this. I will take more photos of the girls in a couple of weeks. AMA if you have questions about pedigree or milking stuff--I will be happy to go on a long, detailed, educational, and hopefully amusing rant about Dairy Goat Genes (TM).
|
|
#
¿
Jan 25, 2023 04:07
|
|
|
It's not common, especially in the standard-sized goats like Nubians! You hear a few cases each year, but the chances are less then 1%. Twins are the most common, probably about 50% of births. Singletons are next most common, probably about 30% of births. Triplets are about 15%, and the remainder is quads with a tiny sliver of quints. It's more common in miniature breeds, since it's a lot easier to fit five 2lb kids in a uterus than it is to fit five 6-7lb kids in a uterus (plus placenta and amniotic fluid). The vet was extremely surprised we had quints, and basically said, "Your nutrition must be perfect." It is more common if the dam was a triplet or higher for her to be able to throw triplets or higher. Erin was a triplet, so it makes sense she likes to give me 4-5 kids at a time. The biggest factor in multiples is nutrition, like the vet said. Dairy goats have high vitamin and mineral needs. To be honest, most goats are probably nutrient deficient because people think they can just browse trees and grass and do fine. They *can*, but they're not living optimal lives and fertility, milk production, and long-term health suffers. Unfortunately, only 3 of her 5 survived last year. That's the sad part of that many kids. In her case, they got tangled up in the uterus and drowned because it took too long to get them all out. Ironically, Maeve was the runt of the litter at just over 4lbs and is doing fine and will probably be as big as her mom. Erin, of all the does, is most able to handle quints, at least. She's huge--at her milking thinnest she tops 175lbs and her withers reach my crotch. But she definitely got to where she could not lug around all those kids! When she had quadruplets, she stopped being able to jump up on the milking stand about 2 weeks before her due date. When she had quintuplets, she stopped being able to jump up a full month before her due date. I'm watching her closely to see how many she has...
|
|
#
¿
Jan 25, 2023 05:27
|
|
|
I promised pictures of impossibly wide moody pregnant goats, so here they are. First up, Erin - we're going to induce her to kid Friday, March 3 even though her due date isn't til Sunday the 5th. She's so huge she really doesn't need to be cooking those buns in the oven any longer than necessary. Still suspect quads, even though she can still be coaxed onto the milking stand with much petting and treats.   Next up is Andromeda, due on Saturday March 11. Suspect triplets from her because she's just impossibly wide.   Also, people who are unfamiliar with goats wonder if they are affectionate. Maybe their only interaction with goats is the bottomless pit pygmys in a petting zoo, who only want food food food. Andromeda would like to address whether goats are affectionate:  Finally, Amber is due on Sunday March 12th. She's our first timer and she's way too miserable for just twins. She's also a huge wide deep doe like Erin, and as you can see she's really spending a lot of time easing herself around and trying to take weight off her hooves. She's also having a lot of trouble getting up and down on the milk stand. So I suspect triplets for her as well, but this is her first time so I really have no baseline to go off of--just instinct.   I didn't take any updated pictures of Flag, the buck they are all bred to. I will do a photo shoot with him tomorrow and update the thread. But I have a good reason I swear! I did a photo shoot with the yearlings instead. Here's our kiddos from last year: Kachina - brought from AZ, smartest drat goat ever, A+ angry eyebrows  Queen Maeve - giving zero shits about the camera, food is more important kthx  Nebula - the one we swore we wouldn't keep. Andromeda x Flag daughter from last year, and splitting image of her dam. She just turned out so well put together and beautiful I could not sell her. You don't see yearlings with a build like hers--wide and deep and level. She will mature into an incredible doe, and should be a powerhouse milker as well. She's about as dumb as a bag of hammers, however, and super obnoxious. 
|
|
#
¿
Feb 22, 2023 03:44
|
|
|
kafkasgoldfish posted:Is there a special procedure you have to do for milking when they can't hop onto the the platform? Thank goodness, there is no overlap between "heavily pregnant" and "actively milking"! Every breeder does it differently, but I tend to only keep my goats in milk for about 9 months at a time. I tend to breed for kidding in March due to weather not sucking quite as much, and I dry them up (make them stop producing milk) at the end of December. That way, they have a few months off to recover and focus on their pregnancies. Milking takes a heavy toll on goats because they produce a much higher percentage by body weight than a cow does. A 1300lb Holstein makes about 64lbs of milk a day, whereas a 140lb Nubian makes about 8lbs a day, and Nubians have much higher fat percentages in their milk (5%) than Holsteins do (3.5%). They physically need time off to recover and put weight back on between milkings. One of the goals of my breeding is to have a goat who can milk for much longer than 9 months at a time, which is why I bought Flag as my herd sire. His dam milked almost 2 years before her production got low enough to warrant a re-breeding. And that's a perfect segue into Flag pictures! Look how much more macho he is than the girls. He's built so much heavier with a thick neck and a ruff of fur along his spine to make him look bigger. He's out of rut now, so his neck has actually thinned down to normal. During the height of rut, the muscles in his neck swell and thicken so much (to allow him to fight for breeding rights) that I can't close the milking stand upright. And he has a truly magnificent beard--most Nubian bucks have wispy kinda pathetic beards like a 15-year-old boy, but his is more along the lines of IPA-loving hipster.   And this was going on behind me the whole time I was trying to take photos of Flag. OH MY GOD did you know that there's a BOY HERE!?!? 
|
|
#
¿
Feb 23, 2023 03:38
|
|
|
B A B Y G O A T S Well this was a .... fun ... kidding. So we induced Erin to kid, which meant that we knew the exact timeframe kids could come (32-36 hours after the shots). Nothing happened and nothing happened, and at 36 hours on the nose I knew there was something wrong and it was time to go in. So I lubed up, my wife held Erin down with all her might, and I reached in. Sure enough, there was a kid in the worst possible position. Normal kids/lambs come out like this: ====< -||>==( ) / \ legs head body back legs This little guy was sitting like this: . < -||> Head ..... \\ neck . ==( )== front leg sideways / chest / front leg other direction sideways His chest was trying to come first, and not giving Erin the signal that a kid was there. So he was a roadblock, positioned so he physically could not come out, and could not give her the signals that she was in labor so she could tell me. I had to 1) pull the legs forward into the correct position, one at a time. 2) try to pull the kid out. 3) realize that his head was up and back in the dreaded "head back position", one that has cost a lot of dams and kids their lives because it's so drat difficult to fix in the confines of the womb. 4) freak out for a moment, talk myself through it. 5) Push the kid back in the womb a little bit to give me room. 6) pull his head down and line it up with the cervix. 7) hold both front legs with my free hand outside of the womb. 8) pull kid out while holding head in place and pulling front legs. All the while, Erin is screaming bloody murder and my wife is doing all she can to hold down a goat that outweighs her by a lot. Thankfully, the rest of the births went very smoothly. Everyone was stressed because of being held in place by the roadblock kid, and all of them had pooped in their birthing sac, so they were dirty dirty kids. Erin is being an excellent mom, although the stress has affected her milk and so I'm supplementing them with milk/co-parenting. So enough talk, here they are. Group shot, as you can see they're quite little, mom's head is only a little smaller than a whole kid.  Here's our little roadblock buck. I thought for sure he would be dead, and he did have a bit of a rough start breathing. He also has contracted tendons so he can't stand up straight. We're doing physical therapy on him and he's responding well.  This little buck is clearly Flag's mini-me.  This little buck is clearly Erin's opposite sex clone, and was so wiggly I had to physically restrain him for the photo.  And finally, a super cute and super sweet little GIRL! Plus bonus doting mama.  And since I am co-parenting, that means that baby goats are constantly attempting to eat me at all times. 
Celestriad fucked around with this message at 04:54 on Mar 5, 2023 |
|
#
¿
Mar 5, 2023 04:50
|
|
|
Well this has been an exciting year for kidding. We just sat down for lunch when we heard Andromeda go into labor. We went out and got her and she kidded #1 without issue. My wife went back inside and thought to check on Amber; she was licking a dried-off, standing doeling. Well okay then, both are going together. Drug Amber over to join Andromeda in the kidding stall and had to assist Andromeda by rearranging kid #2 who was stuck backwards with one leg presenting only. Cue Amber's #2 kid. Few minutes later, Andromeda gave us #3. Both moms decided to adopt all kids and are busy co-parenting. Phenomenal job for both moms, especially Amber being a first timer. All 5 are girls! The herd(minus one kid hard at work)  Proud Andromeda  Proud Amber w/ co-parent  Andromeda #1(hungry)  Andromeda #2(hard at work)  Andromeda #3  Amber #1(Ctrl + C)  Amber #2(Ctrl + V)  Loving the cool highlights on Amber's kids, and this moonspotted doe might be the most gorgeous doe we've had yet. Also, Erin's first will officially be called Roadblock.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 12, 2023 02:46
|
|
|
Neddy Seagoon posted:
Actually, it's probably better for the kids in the long run. Each doe has her own gut flora which is passed to the kids when they lick them at birth. Each doe also has her own unique mix of antibodies that pass to the kids in their first milk, called colostrum. Babies' intestines are able to absorb the antibodies in colostrum for only about the first 24 hours, and then it stops being effective. These kids are exposed to the gut flora and colostrum of two different does, which means that they're going to be twice as well protected as regular kids who only have one mom. We will have to pull babies in a few days because we do milk test which measures ALL the milk and nursing kids obviously don't allow us to do that, and we usually sell kids as bottle babies. We're a married lesbian couple, so the kids will go from having 2 goat moms to having 2 human moms. Win/win?
|
|
#
¿
Mar 12, 2023 04:19
|
|
|
Instant Jellyfish posted:
Huzzah! I have only been waiting on this breeding for 3 years, not 11, so I can't say I know your pain but I can appreciate it! Good ewe, Pansy!
|
|
#
¿
Mar 12, 2023 04:30
|
|
|
They're technically related; Andromeda's mom is Amber's half-sister, but they're the same age and raised together since Amber was brought home at a month old. They're best friends and do everything together, but I didn't really expect that to extend to kidding and raising them jointly.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 12, 2023 05:22
|
|
|
We've already retained Nebula, another moonspotted doe from that pairing. This little girl is prettier than her, but she has better conformation, and she's a sweet snuggly girl. Fun fact about moonspots: They start dark and lighten over time until they're pure white.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 12, 2023 06:18
|
|
|
It doesn't normally get cold here at this time of year; however, it's going well below freezing and baby goats are skin and bones with no wool coat. So, in order to keep everyone warm through this cold snap, we brought them all into the house.  Please send your thoughts, prayers, and puppy pads. Also: physical therapy is effective-- He's not 100%, but Roadblock is doing better with the whole standing thing. 
|
|
#
¿
Mar 14, 2023 02:57
|
|
|
Our meat mutt sheep, Beep Beep, surprised us with twin lambs on St. Patrick's Day! The weather promptly proceeded to be cold and miserable and crappy for the weekend, so it took us a moment to get pics. One ewe, one ram. She's an excellent mama, and Flag is a great surrogate dad to them. Little redheaded ewe:  White ram with mascara (hard to see--Beep Beep was very interested in the camera and we had a hard time with photos):  WARNING: THE FOLLOWING PHOTO CONTAINS NEAR-LETHAL LEVELS OF CUTE. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. Not a lamb but.... omglookit that milk mustache gaaaaaaaaah 
|
|
#
¿
Mar 22, 2023 02:34
|
|
|
The lovely smell of bucks in rut is starting to waft across the summer breeze, and I realized that I have not yet introduced the thread to my new junior herdsire! Shame on me... Meet Blissberry Bring MeThe Horizon! He's 4 months old, brought all the way from Minnesota. His genetics are amazing - both of his grandmothers scored a 93 on their judge appraisals--a 100 is a theoretically perfect goat, and in the Nubian breed a 93 is the closest anyone has ever gotten to reaching that score and both of them did. Both of them also achieved the National Overall Best Performer (in both shows and milk) twice, and both of them milked over 3000lbs (one of them milked 4000lbs) in a single year multiple times. One of his grandfathers was named Best Nubian Sire twice and the other is the son of another Best Nubian Sire. So, uh, wow he's bringing a lot to my herd. Horizon is also the sweetest baby ever and incapable of walking - he prances everywhere. He's constantly posing and he realizes he is some Hot poo poo. I love his color. I've never seen a 2-tone goat before (it's because he has a ton of roaning and from a distance the roan makes him different colors and shows up as white spots). We had an adult doe go into heat over the weekend and the big does usually have zero interest in immature pipsqueaks, so we introduced them out of curiosity to see what would happen. Horizon charmed her completely. He did a great job flirting and blubbering and foreleg kicking, but he's still a bit young to figure out what comes *after* the flirting. Poor doe was so unhappy about being cockblocked when he wouldn't lay her, even though she was definitely giving the "hey sailor" and "happy birthday Mr. President" vibes. He has the best face <3 Also long goat is long   
|
|
#
¿
Aug 2, 2023 03:02
|
|
|
I realized I really need to update this thread--a lot has happened. We sold Erin to a great new veterinarian goat mom who we're actually going to partner with on some artificial insemination, so I'm super excited. I spent all day looking at goat semen. (Sentences I Never Thought I'd Say for $1000, Alex.) Flag was being a colossal dick, both to Horizon and to us, so he got his rear end sold. He actually attacked my mom and my wife. We were going to put him down, but we sold him to a huge Jamaican dude who will breed him to his does and then probably eat him. Good riddance. Once any animal attacks, it has crossed the line and there's no going back. Beautiful Miss Queen Maeve is infertile. She doesn't have heat cycles, even though anatomically everything is correct. I thought she was intersex so I checked her with a finger and she has all the right anatomy, she just doesn't cycle. We even tried to induce a heat with hormonal control (now that's a fun totally different post - get me on that topic for a good time), and absolutely nothing happened. So she will go live with Horizon, who will love having a doe companion. She might even enjoy it too. Meanwhile, 4 of the does are pregnant. We're planning on moving next year, 1000 miles from here, and the timing is all gonna depend on when my wife gets a job. So this might be a very very interesting kidding season/milking year. Everyone is bred for mid Feb through March 3, so hopefully we can get kids rehomed before we have to rehome. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Does carry their kids on the right side, and if you look almost every one of these pictures has a huge lump on the right side - dat's babies. But we still have a long way to go, so let's ponder how many goddamn kids we're going to have if we can already see baby lumps.... First is Andromeda, who will be having her 3rd set of kids and I would not be surprised if she has triplets again. She is in the aggro stage of pregnancy and is beating the poo poo out of the other goats. She's also herd queen now that Erin is gone, which really doesn't help with the aggro.  Next is her daughter, Nebula. Nebula will be a first timer, so she's a lot harder to guess on how many she will have, but that's a nice twin-sized baby bump I would guess. She is starting to moan and groan and she puddles when she lays down.  Next is Amber, with her back to the camera being dramatic (Kachina is being dramatic in the background too). She is so hard to tell--last year I was sure she had triplets and she only had twins. But she has grown into a huge doe so she hides them well. She's also... not graceful.... nothing like a huge pregnant doe standing patiently on your toe or trying to crowd behind you and instead shoving you off balance. I'm super impressed with her milk and udder--beautiful udder, and on her October milk test she had 7.5% fat content and 5% protein content--and I should be getting November results any day with likely higher levels still! And she's keeping in good condition even despite dropping all that fat and protein in the bucket!  Finally is Kachina. She is a first timer and so so miserable. It doesn't help she always was the fat one (we say "she has a healthy rumen") which I am really totally fine with because she comes from really heavy milking lines and she's gonna need that fat to support her milk production. But she was a triplet and her dam likes to throw herds so she will likely overachieve and throw triplets as a first-timer. She groans and moans constantly. Poor baby - I can't explain it to her and the first-timers always seem like "wtf is happening." Her excellent crazy/angry eyes really help with the wtf stage. Here she is smuggling a beer keg or possibly a small porpoise.  Finally, a group picture of the entire herd, with Queen Maeve and this year's kid, Mona, all grown up. (Conveniently standing next to each other for the photo.) 
|
|
#
¿
Dec 2, 2023 04:06
|
|
|
Roadblock (whose registered name is now Finbarr) went to the same veterinarian goat buddy who bought Erin. She loved him so much that she jumped on the chance to buy his mom. I saw updated pictures of him, and he's turned into a really solid boy, but he's a bit skinny because he's been playing with the other boy kids and a bunch of teenage boys are pretty rambunctious. You would never know that he was born unable to stand properly!
|
|
#
¿
Dec 2, 2023 17:06
|
|
|
Well, I'm not so much scared of milk fever because of the diet I feed them. They get only alfalfa hay, which is really high in calcium. Milk fever comes when calcium drops as they go into milk and they start to pull it from their bodies/bones, but the alfalfa hay has enough supplemental calcium that it makes up the difference. If I was feeding a hay that didn't provide so much calcium, I would definitely be concerned. Yes, I am concerned about ketosis and pregnancy toxemia. It happens in goats who are carrying a herd (Kachina) and have huge rumens taking up a lot of abdominal space (...Kachina....) and are on the chunky side because goats store fat internally and it presses on the stomachs too (KACHINA). We have already taken steps to cut back her excess calories. We used to just dump extra grain in the hoppers and let the goats clean it up because milkers need the calories, but Kachina was big enough to muscle in and get more than her share. We stopped doing that about 5 weeks ago and all grain is only fed on the milking stand. She only gets a handful of grain a week to keep her habituated to the milking stand and so I can check her more thoroughly, and she also gets 3 animal crackers a day. As she gets close to kidding, she will get grain again for two reasons - first, the herd is pressing on her stomach and she'll need the extra calories from nutrient-dense food, and secondly to get her rumen accustomed to grain again in the quantities she'll need. Ruminants are one hell of a learning curve to feed - you're feeding the bacteria in the rumen, not the animal, and gut flora seems to be exclusively made up of sensitive motherfuckers. So I never understood why humans deliberately want to put themselves into ketosis for diets - it is really bad metabolically speaking, especially when we have huge brains run on carbs only. Goats are the same. I am gonna buy ketone test strips and watch her like a hawk for the last month of her pregnancy, and if she starts to throw ketones I am gonna throw every food I can at her to keep her calories up. Once she kids, the biggest danger will be over because then her body will be switched to turning fat into milk, but those last few weeks will be nerve-wracking. Granted, she is the most food-motivated goat I have owned (and that says something given she is a goat) so if I see her interest in food decline I will get a heads up. Her fat will actually work in her favor once she's in milk. Goat milk is 168kcal/cup, and she will probably -start- at a gallon a day and go up from there, so she will be outputting at least 2500kcal/day. Goats use their fat reserves for the first few weeks of milking, and then all calories have to come from excess calories in grain. If she's as heavy a milker as I suspect she will be, then I will be very grateful for her ability to get fat.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 6, 2023 03:21
|
|
|
B A B Y G O A T Nothing yet on a big move - my wife has a final round interview for a Director-level position in Vermont next week so keep your fingers crossed because VT has some awesome small dairy laws and we could actually make this A Thing if we move there. We induced Kachina to kid on Sunday because she's a chonk and because we knew she would need help with how many she was carrying. Usually, they kid 30-36 hours after induction shots, but at 32 hours she wasn't dilated at all. We added another shot because Kachina be stubborn, and 3 hours later she was in labor. Sure enough, 2 of the kids were tangled up together. I had to reach in and I found a butt. So I had to straighten a back leg and pull it into the birth canal, go back in and find the corresponding back leg (and I could feel another kid in there tangled up so I had to work around that one), straighten it and pull it into the birth canal as well. The first kid was born backward, a pretty little girl. After a few minutes, Kachina told me she wanted the next one out so I reached back in again and found a kid sitting with elbows bent out and head on hooves. Easy enough, just grab hooves and pull them forward. Except the kid yanked his legs back. So I grabbed again. Yank again. The inside of a womb is a slippery and messy place and this little poo poo was actively resisting me. Finally, I get a firm grip on those legs and pull. Little roan buck kid was born without issue, but some of the placenta came with him. Now this is bad. If the placenta detaches early, any kids still in mama can drown because they're no longer getting fed from placenta. Or the placenta could have torn off of mama's insides before it was ready and made her hemorrhage. Just as I started to be like "oh crap what now," and no more than 90 seconds from bringing out the buck kid, Kachina spat out a kid fully encased in a birthing sac. The kid was so little she just came out as is, past the placenta bit. I had to break the sac and rescue the hostage, a 4.5lb fireball of a doeling. Kachina took one look at these wet screaming things and decided, "Absolutely the gently caress not." She refused to even lick them, which I really haven't had a doe do. Instead, since my hand was up her vagina a few times and I milked her to give colostrum to babies, she has decided that I Am Baby and she baby-talks and licks my wife and I. And screams bloody murder when we're out of her sight because We Are Baby. So we have kids in the house. Newborns. Who require round-the-clock care. Sigh. I really wanted her to take over this bit especially since the weather was nice but Kachina had other plans. She has recovered really nicely and is already milking over half a gallon a day at only 2 days fresh, and increasing rapidly. So here's the cast of characters as a whole. They're a few days early so they're small, but very healthy and feisty.  Here's the firstborn doeling. Her name is Maya, and she's a proper lady who is already learning to bounce and run.  Here's the buckling who did not want to be removed from his nice warm womb. He already went to his forever home, because they wanted to raise up a newborn from scratch so they could bond with him (don't worry, he had a day of colostrum before he left).  And here's 4.5lbs of pure attitude, in one of her extremely rare moments when she isn't screaming at us or jumping on her sibling. Her name is Matryoshka (Mattie for short) because her mom is Kachina Doll and she was a tiny tiny doll inside of her. 
|
|
#
¿
Feb 14, 2024 03:45
|
|
|
It's more common in first time mamas, and in mamas who I had to assist. She was both. I mean, it is definitely not fun for the goat to have me stick my whole drat hand up her vagina and fish around inside her. She was very sore afterward, and I had to give her pain killers and Preparation H on her poor swollen vulva. So she went through this traumatic thing without knowing wtf is going on, and then these things start screaming at her and sucking on her tits? I would be offended too. Whereas I have been working with her teats for a long time, in a known way (on the milking stand) and I raised her. So she's waaaaay more comfortable with me than with the new shrieking things. Also, purebred dairy goats are very far removed from wild scrub goats. A lot of the mothering instinct has kinda been bred out of them because most dairy people (including me) pull the kids so we can get all the milk. So it's kinda a problem of our own creation.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 15, 2024 03:14
|
|
|
B A B B I E S 2: T H E B A B B E N I N G We induced Nebula to kid on Sunday, because we knew she was packing multiples. I was expecting large twins or possibly small triplets. She didn't really want to go, but the induction took and she was NOT thrilled about having her first kid, who was quite small. Boy howdy, did she scream. First timers are always the worst in that regard.... Got the little one all settled in and warm, and Nebula came around once she realized that she wasn't going to die from having a baby and started licking her. Success! A good mama, after Kachina rejected hers. Her udder is huge, way bigger than her mom's udder, so I was hoping the littles would be able to nurse okay. A little while later, she settled in for round two. Another textbook kidding. Then while we were cleaning up kid #2, my wife looked over and goes, "Oh god there are hooves coming out of her!" Sure enough, two back legs were sticking out of her. She hadn't even pushed. I quickly got over there and helped pull the kid because I was afraid if it took too long, the backward kid would start to breathe while its head was still in the womb and would drown on the uterine fluids. Once again, Nebula was very much not thrilled with this and let me know by screaming like the damned. All those cute goat screaming videos? Yeah, not so cute when you're covered in goo and blood and poo poo and trying very hard not to hurt anyone while also trying very hard to hurry. Well, all three were doelings! Mama settled down and was taking good care of them, and we got them all to nurse colostrum. We cleaned up the lake of birthing goo, and she made a kinda/sorta push like I would expect when she was getting ready to expel placenta. So we gave her an oxytocin shot (helps them expel placenta, closes up any tears in the uterus/reproductive system, and helps their milk let down), and went inside to eat a well-deserved dinner. About an hour and a half later, my wife went out to check on them and saw a kid lying in the placenta. Her first thought was, "Poor thing, mama passed the placenta right on top of her!" Then she counted, 1... 2... 3........ 4!!! Nebula kidded a 4th! We had no idea how long the kid was there, but its mouth was cold so we rushed it inside and dried it off and warmed it up. We discovered it was a buckling with quite a set of lungs on him. Once he was warm, we rushed him back out and made sure he had colostrum. I would never have thought she had quads.... 3 does, 1 buck. All are doing well, and the splitting image of Horizon. His first kids are really vigorous - no birth naps for them. Here's the cast of characters: Firstborn little girl:  2nd doeling, slightly blurry:  3rd girl posing like a supermodel already:  Surprise buckling:  The whole herd: 
|
|
#
¿
Feb 21, 2024 03:27
|
|
|
B A B Y 3: R E T U R N O F T H E B A B B Y G O A T S Finally, we had an easy kidding after all the drama and surprises. Last year, Amber had a kid on the ground before we realized she was in labor, and then kidded a second with no issues. Both kids were identical girls. This year, my wife was doing an interview and I heard the sound of labor over the baby monitor so I grabbed the kidding kit (a bag full of everything we might need for a kidding - gloves both short and shoulder-length, betadine, lube, leg snares if the kid is out of reach, nose bulb to suction mucus out of kids having issues breathing, shears for cutting umbilical cord, etc) and towels and went out to the barn. I found Amber standing over a kid, licking it. Ooookay then. I grabbed the kid and Amber and took them to the kidding stall in the baby barn and held back the horde of babies while she licked on her newborn. My wife finished her interview and joined us. The other kids were being really obnoxious, climbing all over us and bothering Amber. She was good about it and just pushed them away with her head, at least, but she made it clear she wanted them to be far away. I asked my wife to go back in and grab a baby gate to contain the monsters, and in the time it took her to go inside, fold up the gate, and bring it out Amber squirted out another kid. She prefers to kid while standing, so I had to catch the poor thing before it hit the ground. I can only imagine the first kid's birth--Welcome to the world! Your first lesson is - gravity! WHUMP Both kids are identical, but boys this time. Splitting images of Amber and Horizon. Really, really solid little things, up and about really quickly and huge. They were as big as Kachina's two-week-olds. The second born drank like half an udder of milk the first time he encountered a teat (exaggeration but he really went to town). Was really, really hoping for girls from this pairing, though. Sigh. They were really hard to photograph, so forgive the motion blur. Both Amber and Horizon have amazing heads/ears, so please enjoy Attack of the Blurry Ears. No star, firstborn:  Star, thirsty boy: 
Celestriad fucked around with this message at 07:22 on Feb 28, 2024 |
|
#
¿
Feb 28, 2024 04:06
|
|
|
Andromeda was huge and so uncomfortable, and her ligaments on her back end were so soft for a week that i could wrap my hand fully around her spine at the base of her tail. Then last Thursday night, she couldn't even jump up on the milking stand. So we knew drat well that she was going to kid Friday. I told my work that I would likely have to leave at a moment's notice, and then the hard part, the wait.... My wife was at home because of her schedule, and she was watching the goats like a hawk and listening really closely to the baby monitor. It started to pour. The barn has a metal roof. We discovered a blind spot in our cunning plan to hear Andromeda in labor and take her to the kidding barn--apparently, the sound of rain on metal roof drowns out the sound of labor grunts. The first indication she had that something was up was when she heard a baby cry. She grabbed the kid and Andromeda and raced to the kid barn, and called me on the way. I raced home (35 minutes) so I could help because in her past 2 kiddings, Andromeda has always needed assistance. I pulled up, flung open the car door, and watched my wife open the door carrying the pot of hot molasses water we always give the does after kidding (they need the sugar boost and the heat boost--birthing is stressful!). Andromeda was done. 3 kids, no assistance needed, all within 35 minutes. Great job mama! Stunning kids, too! Here's the firstborn, an absolutely stunning buck. Black roan and spotted. He was sold as soon as I hit "send" on a picture, and he will get to be a herdsire with several girlfriends.  Here's the doeling, with awesome dark moonspots. When they're this dark, they probably won't turn all the way white and will end up silver instead. She was reserved, so she was sold before she was born and her future owner is super excited to get a moonspotted doeling to match her moonspotted buck.  And the printer ran out of ink for the last kid, another buckling. Just one spot...  That concludes our kidding for the year, although I am not done with goats for the year! Kids are made of rubber, which is a drat good thing because they bounce psychotically and fall and roll and get into all kinds of hell. 99.9% of the time, they're fine no matter what they go through. I noticed that Maya, who we have decided we're going to keep, was acting off and didn't finish her bottle (a Big Deal for a kid). So I checked her, and one of her hind knees was swollen. Brought her in the house for a full exam, and it turns out she sprained it really good. We gave her a pain killer shot, and she was deeply upset about us manhandling her leg, the pain, and the shot. So what's a girl to do? Snuggle with mama til she feels better.  If you've ever had a cat fall asleep on your lap and started dozing off yourself, let me assure you--a baby goat sleeping snuggled on you is about 1000x stronger narcotic. We could market that poo poo for insomniacs. (She's doing better now--not 100% because she still starts limping a little at the end of a long day of being a crazy baby goat.)
|
|
#
¿
Mar 7, 2024 04:18
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 8, 2024 22:35 |
|
|
Arsenic Lupin posted:How does reserving a kid work? 'i want the best doe from X's litter? So here's how reserving works. You go on my website and find a pairing you like, then you email/chat me and go, "Hey Celestriad, here's $100, I want a doeling from the pairing of X and Y." I go, "Sure, you're the first person to reserve a doeling from that pairing." Then when the kids are born, if there is more than one doeling, I go, "Here's pictures of the doelings--who do you want?" Or I go, "You're second choice doeling - do you want to choose a backup just in case?" Then when the kids are born, if there is more than one doeling, I talk to first choice person first and then tell you, "Here is your assigned doeling." If there are no doelings born from that pairing, I go, "Bummer - do you want a doeling from another pairing? Here's who's available." You can say sure, or you can ask for your $100 reservation fee back. Timely discussion, because I reserved a buckling from a major breeder and I picked him up on Sunday. His dam is a first freshener so we don't have any pictures on her or a track record for her. I still felt really comfortable getting him, because of HER parents. Both her dam and her sire scored a 92 on their judging appraisals, when the highest any Nubian has ever scored is a 93. It is super rare for a buck to get that score, and so he is designated an Elite Buck. There are usually only 5 of those designated a year, in the whole country. And her dam is the twin sister to the 2021 National Reserve Grand Champion. His sire is the same buck who sired the 2022 National Junior Grand Champion, making her his half-sister. That buck is also the son of a Top 10 millker, and his grandsires are 2 of the best-known bucks in the breed. So uh, he has a crapload of milk and show potential. Goat kids are hell on wheels and get into trouble constantly. Just like my little Maya, my new kiddo managed to get his leg caught and sprained it. His breeder asked as a professional courtesy if I wanted to substitute another buck, or if I wanted to wait until he was healed to pick him up. But because I literally just went through this with Maya, I told her it was just fine. So we drove 2.5 hours to pick him up, and when I got there she handed me this absolutely gorgeous little guy. Meet J&M Hideaway Rogue Wave! (Sorry for the frame and Imgur tag, I had more trouble with this drat picture.)  You can tell from the pose he knows he's a show goat. The pose is also due to his poor sprained leg, but he is a Major Diva. Rogue is also super snuggly. If you sit, you will have a Rogue in your lap. Period. Good luck getting him off of said lap.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 13, 2024 04:53
|
|