December 2019 – Storybook Farm

Posted on December 31, 2019December 31, 2019 by Marcia — Leave a comment

Sparrow’s Kids

Those who follow this blog regularly will remember that we purchased Echo Hill’s Sparrow last July as a foundation doe of our new herd. (We had previously purchased Sparrow’s son, Rigel.) Two days before we were to pick her up, Rigel’s sire broke through electric fences to mate one last time with his lady love. (So romantic!) Bethany Bisherat gave me the option of canceling the sale, but I love Sparrow and Rigel was great, so I went through with the sale.

I couldn’t be happier that we made that choice! Sparrow is a beautiful, refined doe, who easily earned her milk star last year and, as Bethany put it last February, “turned into a Holstein”! Her udder is capacious and her teats are soft. She is a joy to milk. She is docile, sweet, and has proved to be the most attentive and patient of mothers.

The Kids Arrive

Of course, the icing on the cake is that she gave us three beautiful copies of herself to populate our new herd! We were amazed to be blessed with three doelings. The video below is of them only hours old. Mom is patiently still washing her new kids; Maggie (far right) is learning to scratch herself while standing up!

In keeping with our practice, we have thematic names that help us remember blood lines. Since Sparrow is a bird, her doelings needed to have bird names. First born was Chickadee, then came Skylark. We thought we were done. There was a significant time lag while we waited for the placenta–but lo! A third doeling, Magpie, was born. (Then, two placentas!)

I have since learned that a goat’s womb has two “horns.” Each can house multiple kids. It’s probable that Chickadee and Skylark were in one horn, and Magpie (Maggie in the barn) was alone in the other. This would explain why Chickadee and Skylark are smaller than Maggie, who is the longest and deepest of the sisters. Chickadee and Skylark have moonspots.

Meet Them One by One

This is Chickadee, hours old. She is mostly brown, with some white and many moonspots. I so love her ears and breed character! She was firstborn, and the smallest by quite a bit.

This is Skylark at 3 weeks old. She has a very pretty, feminine face, and is both deep and long.

At first glance, she’s hard to distinguish from her younger sister, Maggie. The way we most quickly tell is that the spot on her back is not connected to the brown on her side, she has moonspots, and there is no black on her legs.

Below is a gallery of Maggie shots. She is the third born and biggest of the three sisters. Viewed on her right side, she is hard to distinguish from Skylark, but from her left side, the brown markings form almost a map of North and South America!

After two weeks, a friend online pointed out that she was folding her ears back (bottom left). This is a fault if left unattended. Thus, we devised a “hat” for her to train her ears. It needs to stay on for about two weeks. Naturally, she loses it regularly! We then tape it back on. She’s really good about it; it’s mostly lost when she battles her sisters for a drink from Mom’s two teats.

Of course, the biggest joy of having baby goats is sharing them with our grandchildren!

Posted on December 13, 2019 by Marcia — Leave a comment

Milk Stand Upgrades

When I first started with goats, I purchased two milk stands made of wood. They have served us well, but they bother me because, even though we wash them down with bleach and soapy water every day, they never look clean. I just know that dirt (and germs) are seeping into the wood, and while the milk never comes in contact with them, they still bother me, especially when seen in relief to our new milking parlor!

I decided to upgrade our milk room stands and use these two older ones elsewhere for things like clipping, hoof trims, the buck house, etc. In all, we’re making four new stands for the milk parlor.

The first thing I decided was that I wanted metal mesh stands, because I could hose them off, and the dirt would fall through them to the floor. Good luck! Each one costs $200+ (not counting shipping)! We weren’t going to pay that (no money left after barn building—LOL) so I thought of making a heavily painted white wood frame using the same basic design as our original ones, but getting a local welder to make metal floors that will fit onto the wood frames like shoe box lids. They are thus removable for cleaning.

I found a local welder who made them out of expanded steel, #9 (which means that the diamond-shaped holes are 3/4”), and raised (not flattened) for extra traction for the goats.

It cost me $60/stand to have these fabricated. Then, we built the wooden parts and tried the new floors on for size. They fit perfectly!

So far, so good!

However, in researching this approach, I discovered that the steel, left unpainted, would rust. 😢 So, of course I had to paint them.

This was not at all difficult using spray paint.

I used Rustoleum brand high-gloss white—again, working for that washability! I sprayed both sides of the metal floors.

After the floors of the stands were each spray painted with two coats, I took the wooden part of the first stand outside and used a brush to paint it.

It was more labor intensive than spraying, but the high gloss paint went on nice and thick with a brush—which was important to me for washability in the years to come.

That’s about it! I love how they look in our new milk room, and they are working just as I wanted them to: the dirt drops through them, and the raised expanded metal gives plenty of traction for my does as they jump up and down.

Posted on December 12, 2019 by Marcia — Leave a comment

Make a Kid-Warming Hut

This is a quick post to share the hut we made that’s been a blessing. I know there are those who are hard core and don’t turn on the heat lamp unless it’s, like, below zero outside, but I’m a softie and I sleep much better knowing littles have the choice to go in, especially during the first week or two of life.

Materials You’ll Need

A Prima Premier heat lamp (so your barn won’t burn down) and a 150 or 175 heat bulb
A plastic 50 gallon water barrel
A saber saw
Some baling twine
Some hay

How You Construct It

Start with the barrel. If yours is complete with top, start by cutting it out. (The barrel in this picture is upside down.) Notice that the original rim of this barrel is intact. Leave it this way for structural integrity.

On what was the bottom of the barrel (and is the top in this picture) get out your Premier heat lamp, take off the white grill, and draw around its rim. (While the grill is off, insert the bulb if you haven’t done so already.)

You’ll want to saw about a half inch inside the circle you draw, so that the lip of the lamp will rest on the barrel, and the white protective grill will set inside the barrel.

Finally cut the doorway for the kids to enter and exit. For Mini Nubians, ours is 12” tall and about 7” wide.

So, below is a picture of the kid warming hut assembled. It’s super easy. Use some baling twine to suspend the light from your barn rafters, as in the left picture below. We tie it up that way because we don’t want the barrel to ever get knocked over and let the light fall to the ground. I should NOT be supported solely by its cord, but we also tie up the cord so the goats aren’t tempted to nibble it.

Notice, too, that there’s a string of blue baling twine around the barrel (right picture above) to stabilize it further. It’s secured to an eye hook screwed into the wall behind, where we usually hang a water bucket.

Now, put some nice soft hay inside the barrel… a good 3” to 4” deep. (They will mash it down, and you don’t want them to get cold). You can pat it down some yourself in front to make sure it’s easy for them to get in and out.

The nursery stall, all ready for kidding! (See how to make the bunk here.)

And now, just for cuteness…

Posted on December 11, 2019December 11, 2019 by Marcia — Leave a comment

Goat Bunks and Pools

In an earlier post, I described the rubber flooring that we chose to put down in our new goat barn. We love, love, love this flooring for so many reasons (sanitation, easy to clean daily, etc.) but one problem we had for winter was that rubber on earth is cold. Almost all barn floors need some augmentation in winter for goats, so that they’ll stay warm and dry. We had a large area, and bedding is expensive, so we hit upon a compromise that is working great for us, and I decided this was the time to share.

Pictured at the right, you can see an assortment of $3 kiddie swimming pools that are 5’ in diameter, and two rectangular bunks in the far double bay. The one at the extreme end was just mucked last week. The one closer to the camera is getting too full and needs mucked soon. (It’s been about 9 weeks since I mucked it.)

These offer sleeping accommodations to 13 does. This post shows and tells how I make (and maintain) these pools and bunks.

Steps to Construction

Step 1: For a pool, buy a kiddie pool (they go on sale for a song in the fall, but they’re never expensive).

For a bunk, buy some untreated 2x6s. The bunk pictured here is 4’ X 4’. The ones in the picture above are 4’ X 10’.

You will also need one tarp per bunk that is oversized for the bunk size you want to create.

Step 2 for the bunk is to screw together your 2x6s to make a square. Then unwrap your tarp.

Step 3 for a bunk: Drape the tarp over the frame, and then wrap the excess around the frame. Make sure to push the tarp down so that you can fill it and the weight of the fill won’t break the tarp, or cause it to become unwrapped from the frame.

Step 4: (For either pool or bunk) put down a thin layer of equine horse bedding pellets. These are super absorbent. They will hold a lot of urine before it will start to puddle at all.

Step 5: Add some PDZ powder to your pellets. (Word to the wise: do all this with no goats watching. They think that the pellets and PDZ are feed!)

The purpose for the PDZ is to counteract ammonia odors (which are unhealthy for the animals to breathe) for as long as possible. I buy mine at Tractor Supply Co.

Now you are ready for the initial bedding layer. What you want to use is hay that is full of sticks—the kind you would’t buy for your goats. (Some people use straw.)

The idea is that you want urine to trickle down through it. I was able to buy large round bales locally for $35/bale, and a bale lasts over a month for all my bunks and pools combined.

When you put in your first layer of hay or straw, just make it about 3-5” thick; nowhere near the top edge of the bunk or pool.

The goats will lie in it, crushing it down, peeing and pooing. Each day, sprinkle just the lightest layer of loose hay (or straw) over the poo and pee stains. You really do not need much.

Again, the goats will come and lay on it, mashing it down. At first, the goats will stay dry because the loose layer of hay (or straw) will separate them from the horse pellet bedding that will absorb urine like a sponge. By the time the pellets are saturated, you’ll have been sprinkling new layers of hay for a week or more.

Benefits of Pools and Bunks

In case you haven’t recognized it yet, this process of bedding the bunks (or pools) is called “deep bedding.” There are a couple of major benefits to deep bedding.

First, in winter you don’t have to muck often. I dump the pools about every two weeks or so (and I could go longer, but they get heavy with congealed pee). I muck the bunks only every two months, and again, I could go longer but they get high and the goats start to stand on them to reach things I don’t want them to, so I empty them and start over.

Second, because the urine travels down through the loose hay and because I layer it each day, my does stay dry and clean, which in winter translates to warm and clean.

Third, the combination of pee, poo, and hay actually makes heat! Basically, these elements create a chemical reaction akin to composting. This adds to the animals’ overall comfort, and actually helps heat the barn overall.

Mucking the bunks is relatively easy. Let’s say that the bunk has gotten about 8”-10” high. I take a pitchfork to it on a relatively warm day, and can fork down about 8” before I hit the heavy, brown layer of congealed pee plus hay. Thus, I strip the entire bunk of the top 8” and then get some help to simply drag the tarp filled with the heavy stuff out the stall door. (In our case, we are spreading it nearby; if I was hauling it far, I’d use a wheelbarrow for the bottom layer, too.

If the day is nice enough, I spread the tarp in the sun to dry, and then finish the job later in the day. I sweep off all the dried bits of horse pellets, bring the tarp back to the bunk frame, and re-bed it as described above.

My goats love this system. Some choose to sleep in the bunks, and some choose individual pools. Occasionally, when scanning the barn late at night by barn cam, I see funny things like this picture.

This is Buttercup with her three almost-adult, 10-month old doelings, all snuggled up together in one 5’ kiddie pool!

Note that the girls do not pee and poo in just the pools or bunks. If you look at this picture closely, you can see that they also litter the rubber flooring. But, that’s a matter of 20 minutes’ work each morning to sweep up the berries, urine, and scattered hay with a broom into a muck bucket. Easy peasy, and I love how fresh smelling everything stays.

I am thinking that in summer I’ll be taking out all the pools and bunks and allowing them to either sleep inside or outside on ground with scattered hay. They won’t need the warmth then, and it’ll be less work for me.