WHY were we in the mini van to begin with? GREAT question! Our goat, Sophie (the cute one with the long ears, pictured above), was being taken to a farm to be bred! She wasn't as excited as I thought she would be, BUT in the end, I think she liked our choice in men....
I took my son, Deklyn, with me because he was going to pick out a female to have bred also. He wanted to make an investment with the 4H money he got this summer. He is planning on selling a baby goat to his brother, Austin, who is going to be in his first year of 4H next year. :) Here is the little female he chose, unfortunately, she is still nameless. Any ideas?
She was also going to be bred by the little male that Sophie was being bred by.
Then we have our other new female. This one I have had picked out for about a month or more! Her name is Iris! She is a nice sized gal who is 3 years old. And a GREAT milker!
And here is a pic of her new man! Iris is in the center, the male is the ugly one on the right!
Then we have this little thing that we brought home with us... Yes, in the mini van. Deklyn bought this gal too, but she was too young to be bred this year. She is a real sweet heart. Her name is Annie! She looks a lot like our little wether Max and our other female Riley (both in this pic too)...
All in all, we have 3 new goats! Iris, Annie and ???... Iris, ???(no name) and Sophie are being bred! SO we COULD have up to 6 new goat babies this Spring! Add that to the 3 Jacob sheep that we are going to have bred in a few weeks, there will be no shortage of babies on our farm starting late February/ beginning of March! Oooo... will are gonna be busy! Especially with 3 goats to milk in the COLD! Oh well. It will be a huge blessing to have that much milk.
And I'm sure you won't be surprised to hear me say that we aren't done with new life on our farm this Fall! There are actually going to be MANY more additions... But we are gonna save THAT for another day!
13 comments:
How about Flossy? I love that you put a goat in your van! Hey, gotta do what ya gotta do!!
What an opportune time to have made a "car video." hahahahaha. I would love to have heard and seen the reaction to the untarply duties. hahahaha!
Can't wait to hear of the new additions!
we had sheep growing up and we used to transport them around in our cavalier station wagon if you can imagine! Sheep butts pressed into the window get a lot of attention and it takes a lot of cleaning to get all that lanolin off. Such great memories, thanks for posting this :)
-Melody
How fun!!!Nothing like new life and new dreams on a great farm:)Can't wait to hear about the new additions... I like the name "shelby".Just a thought;)
names..Cosette, Pandora, Trixie,Daisy, Ida, Melinda(my beautiful ,in Spanish) shortens to Lindi, Zadie, Zinnia, Mariposa (butterfly in Spanish) shortens to Posie. Those are some of the names of our milk goats. We try to go with themes...French or Spanish or ??? each new kidding season.
Until we had $$ for a real livestock trailer (used and homemade but sturdy) our goats and one sheep road in the back of our 15 passenger van. the "real" farmers all made fun of us but we thought it was fun.--Serenity--
Love it!!! We brought home a pot-bellied pig in our mini-van...she was quite a sight with her head hanging out the window so she wouldn't be carsick!! We got a lot of honks for that~can't wait to see all of your new babies!!!
I think some good names would be Petunia or Francesca (Frannie for short). Do you plan to sell the babies? Just wondering if you make a profit (because I would think they could eat a lot) or is it simply a hobby? I just love goats, I think they are so sweet, but hubby thinks it would cost too much and they would be terrors. Seeing your goat in your van made me think about when I was in Kindergarten. My parents had some friends who had a goat that they milked and sold the milk. My sister was allergic to milk but could drink goats milk. So they bought the milk and became friends with them. And I was lucky enough to take one of the goats in for show in tell... In my moms car (we were complete city slickers), I remember the goat was all over and tried climbing the walls at school! Such memories!
Jenn- They don't really cost ANYTHING for us in the summer time! They are pasture-fed (like all of our animals are). So the only feed costs are for grains when I milk them. It also helps with production to get their calories up. Some goats CAN be terrors, but we put up a woven fence and put an electric line up around it. They don't give any trouble! We had one goat that was an escape artist, and we sold her. We didn't want to deal with that!
We probably will sell some of the babies. We definitely can't keep them all. In our state we can't sell the milk anymore (I remember when I was younger, my parents bought goat's milk for my sister also). But you can sell herd shares or become licensed to sell the milk for pet consumption. So that could be a possibility in the future!
THANKS FOR THE NAMES EVERYONE! I will run them by my son, since this is his goat... We will see what he thinks! :)
Take your goat in a car? Doesn't everyone do that? I would if I had one. I do hope to add some dairy goats to our new farm in the spring. Any advice on breeds are welcome!
Kim- All I know are Nubians! They are good for large quantities of milk, and higher butterfat. They are a noisier goat than most! But IF I were to add any other breed, I think it would be a Nigerian Dwarf, BECAUSE they have a HIGHER butterfat content, which is great for making butter! They are smaller and do give a smaller quantity of milk...
Other than that, I can't offer you much help! I'm a little bias! :)
And no, I think some people have a trailer for their goats??? I have only heard stories... :)
Thanks, Sarah. My boys are marking off a pig pen right now, maybe I should get out there and have them do a goat pen too. Fresh butter sounds wonderful!
Um....your son knows all about this breeding stuff?.......How do you explain that?.....
Anonymous- Yes, he knows as much as any 9 year old should know on a farm. He knows that breeding is when 2 animals "get married' and have babies. Beyond that, the "details" of the whole process are unquestioned by him. He trusts what we say, and he is too busy to figure the "details" of something as boring as that...
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