Goat Kids
We have an adorable addition to the homestead, two goat kids!
Just arrived at the homestead, still in the travel cage
They are Alpine does, which we purchased from George’s Mill Farm. If you’re wondering why their ears look green, it’s because they were just tatooed before I brought them home. The lighter colored one was born on March 9th and the tan one on March 15th, so they’re very young. We will bottle feed them a few times a day for the next several weeks. They slurp up the milk fast, though, so it really doesn’t take much time to feed them.
Exploring
These little ladies are already in charge! We had them explore the backyard and meet the dogs, and the tan one took an interest in following after Noah. Noah, being his silly self, was scared and would run away. Of course this led to more chasing by the goat!
Chase the fluffy tail!
We’ll post many more pictures and videos of the goat kids as they grow!
Rabbit Tractors
It has been a week of building, too. With Harley’s recent acquisition of 11 new rabbits, and spring approaching, we have been building rabbit tractors.
Rabbit Tractors
These are movable pens that house rabbits on pasture. We see these as a way to give the rabbits the best living conditions possible while still keeping them safe.
Rabbit tractor with 4 Junior Does
One of the benefits of the tractors that they are large enough that we can house multiple rabbits together. Rabbits are social, but are also territorial, so housing rabbits together can be good or bad. To lessen the odds of fighting, we used rabbits that were already living with a littermate, so they already shared space with one other rabbit. Then we took each pair and put them together into one tractor. It’s worked wonderfully, with no fighting! These are young does that we’re growing out to be future breeders. If you look closely, you may see that we have one of each Silver Fox color in here: chocolate, black, blue, and lilac.
New Pens!
With the warmer weather this week, we were able to put up some more electric fencing and rotate livestock to new pens.
We like our new pen!
We rotate our animals to new ground pretty often. We like them eating the natural vegetation in the growing season, plus rotation helps prevent parasite problems.
The goats were moved to brand new ground, and then several hogs were moved into the goats’ former pen. The hogs quickly got busy rooting around.
Root! Root!
Their rooting is great! They eat what hogs were made to eat when they do this. When we rotate them out of this pasture, the rooted earth will be ready for us to seed over with forage crops. Then when those crops have grown, we can send the goats back in to eat that!
Sick Goat
This week we dealt with our very first major livestock illness. One of our pygmy wethers, Jethro, became ill.
He was not eating and acting lethargic. We have medical supplies on hand, thankfully, so we were able to help him out and now he’s doing fine!
Once I saw that he was sick, I separated him from the rest of the herd. I did this mainly so it would be easier to monitor his food and water intake, and to work with him. I took his temperature, and it was pretty high: 106, when the normal range for goats is 102-103. We treated with antibiotics as well as nutritional and vitamin supplements. This is the first time we’ve had to use antibiotics on any animal. It’s crazy to think about the rampant antibiotic use in factory farming situations, and contrast that with our one use of antibiotics in over a year’s time. The treatment was very effective; Jethro’s condition improved within 24 hours. He started eating and drinking normally, and moving around a lot more. After three days of isolation and treatment, I moved him back out with the goat herd.
It was pretty easy to give Jethro his shots. Typically we put goats on our milk stand to do their healthcare because it holds them in place. With Jethro being in his own pen and being so sedate, though, it was easy to work with him in the pen. I used feed to line him up next to his house. I stood on his other side, holding him in place so that he’d be still enough I could safely give him his shots. With feed to keep him occupied, he really didn’t seem to mind the shots at all.
Jethro in his position for shots
Goat Hierarchy Drama
Jethro’s illness led to drama in the goat pen, of course. Jethro is the alpha goat of our herd, meaning he’s the top goat. I find this amusing since he’s one of the smallest goats. With him being sick, and then me taking him away from the herd, some of the other goats started fighting. Well, they started head butting each other, which is the goat way of fighting. It seemed they were trying to reestablish a hierarchy in Jethro’s absence, or perhaps fight for who would be the new alpha goat.
In this process, our little Nigerian Dwarf buck, Champ, was beating up our Alpine buck Bear.
Champ
Champ is less than half the size of Bear, but Champ has horns. Horns make a big difference in head butting. So we moved Bear out of the goat pen, and back with our American Guinea Hog boar Alaska. Bear lived with Alaska before, and they get along well. Now that Jethro is better and has returned to the goat herd, we may move Bear back there in a few days, too. We’ll see. For now, he seems content to live with Alaska.
Bear and Alaska
Those the highlights from this week! Check back soon for videos of the goat kids!
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