Update on Priscilla & Brady's Breeding

Well this weekend Priscilla came back into heat so the breeding in September did not take.  I think it had a lot to do with Brady's inexperience.

Since September Brady has been in full rut.  He is becoming what every goat owner told me,  a stinky boy.  His new hobbies are peeing on himself and his face and torturing Bruschi (wether) by constantly humping him.  Brady has a very strong stinky smell to him and the smell will linger for hours on your clothes and skin even with washing really good. 

Brady -9 months old 10-24-11

Saturday afternoon we came home from Hailey's soccer game and Priscilla was hollering away.  I thought something was wrong with one of her girls because Priscilla is never vocal.  Hailey & I went down to the barn and saw Priscilla at the fence all by herself, walking back and forth wagging her tail and hollering at Brady.

Realizing she was in heat I opened the door for her to see if she wanted to go see Brady and she ran right over to his pasture.  I opened up the gate and she ran in.  Brady began giving attention to her immediately.  Clicking and wagging is tongue at her and smelling her.  Priscilla stayed very close to him and rubbed her head on Brady's body.

Priscilla 10-24-11

Within 5 minutes Brady fervently did the deed multiple times with Priscilla standing still for him.  I watched for a few more minutes and decided to leave Priscilla with Brady for the day and all night.

Priscilla went back in with the girls the next morning. We will be watching closely in 21 days to see if she comes back into heat.  If she does we will put her back with Brady again if not we will be hoping for babies are the middle of March 2012.

Grand Ole Opry

Last week the kids had their first break from school.  We always try to do a few things with them for vacation and was great because Jamie had taken the whole week off too.

We decided to take the kids to the Grand Ole Opry.

Outside of the Grand Ole Opry House

The line-up for the evening was impossible to turn down.  We got to see Sara Evans, Scotty McCreery, Trace Adkins, Montgomery Gentry, Dierks Bentley, Chris Young, Eric Church and LeAnn Rimes.

Each artist sang about 3 songs each.  They all were wonderful to listen to and watch perform.

We all had a great time.  I'm sure we will be going back again sometime soon.

All of us at the Grand Ole Opry

Drew & Hailey outside the Opry

We took lots of pictures and they all can been seen under the October 2011 album on my facebook page.



We are Expecting!!!

We believe that Priscilla is expecting.  Its been well over 21 days since her last heat and she is showing no signs of having another heat cycle.  We are hoping for babies but since being new to all of this we are not absolutely positive she is expecting but all signs point to that she is.

Priscilla - Purebred Nubian

Priscilla has had babies before and she is such a wonderful mother.  We have her babies from last year here with us on our farm.  Her previous babies are two girls named Abby and Maddie.  They are both strawberry roan in color with some spots of white on them.  I'm hoping again for girls since they are much higher in demand than boys.  Boys would be fine too but we just really want them to be healthy.  We are hoping for spotted goats as we know that Priscilla has produced some spots on the girls she has now and the dad, Brady, his mom was a full spotted Nubian.  We will just have to wait and see.

Maddie & Abby 1 month old, you can see the spots they have.

We can't forget the daddy too though.  Brady took his time figuring out what was suppose to be done but thankfully he figured it out.  This is his first year breeding as he is a young buck at only 8 months old at the time of his first service.

Brady - American Nubian

Brady is such a sweet boy.  He loves attention and rubs on his neck and is very friendly.  Along with Priscilla's quiet, sweet nature, I'm sure their babies will have wonderful personalities.  Babies will also be registrable with the ADGA (American Dairy Goat Association) as American Nubians.

If all is well, the babies will be due the beginning of February of 2012.

Homecoming for Drew

Homecoming 2011

Drew & Maya

Last weekend was homecoming. Drew asked his friend Maya to attend as his date.  Homecoming here is the way they honor the senior players of the football league which will move to the middle school football team next season.  There is no dance for this homecoming.

Drew's homecoming consists of only the senior players, the 6th graders, of the football team.  The 6th graders get to ask a girl to come to homecoming and escort them onto the field.  The girl presents the player with their football medal and the player presents his date with a flower.  Homecoming is a big deal for a girl if she is asked and many of the girls get really dressed up.

All the girls dressed up

A king is also named.  All the football players on the varsity team and the girls that have been asked to go to homecoming vote 2 days before for the boy that think should be king.  The king's date his then crowned queen.  This years voting ended up in a tie so they named two kings.  Colby Long and Jonah Smith.

It was a great night for all the senior boys and their dates.

I have posted 2 video's on my facebook page if your interested in seeing the ceremony.

Maya & Drew with great smiles!!

Making Homemade Venison Sausage

Jamie was able to get his first buck a few weeks back and saved some of the meat for sausage making. Jamie & Hailey love venison steaks.  Drew & I don't usually eat venison but I really like it when we turn it into sausage.

Chorizo flavored venison sausage links

Venison sausage is very easy to make and tastes delicious.  It doesn't have any gamey taste either.

First Jamie cuts all the venison meat into cubes.

Cut up venison meat

Then Jamie cut up a large pork roast into small pieces.  You need to add some type of fattier meat to the sausage since venison is so lean.  It has basically no fat in it.

Cut up pork to add a little fat to the sausage.

Next Jamie added all of the cut up meat into the meat grinder. First it is ground from chunks into a thick grind and then its run through the grinder again for a finer grind of meat.

1st grinding of meat

Meat almost all ground

2nd grinding of meat

We now need to season the meat.  I bought a sausage making seasoning kit from Cabela's.  I chose Chorizo flavor.  It includes all the seasonings and the natural hog casings to make the sausage.  You need to soak the casings in cold water to help get rid of the salt they preserve the casings in and to rehydrate them.

Hog casings in water

Chorizo seasonings

Now that all the meat is ground up and mixed together.  All the seasonings are added and mixed well.  We then stuff the natural casings with the meat mixture.  Jamie's meat grinder has a sausage stuffer attachment that makes it very easy.  Unfortunately we didn't take any pictures of the actual stuffing process since you need both hands.  We actually do this together.  Jamie stuffs the ground meat into the machine and also operates the on/off switch.  I put the casings on the stuffer and actually hold the casings while the machine is stuffing them.  Once they are stuffed to the length you want you need to twist the casing to make it into a link all the while its stuffing the next section of casing.  Once you get the hang of it, its not too hard, just time consuming.

We got all the sausage made and then bagged up for the freezer.

Chorizo venison sausage.

We ended up making 5 packages of large sausage links,  these ones will fit into sub rolls.  We also got 12 packages of regular size links and 5 packages of loose or bulk sausage.

Of course we set some aside to try right away for dinner and it was delicious.  It has a very sweet taste at first but then some serious heat at the end of the bite.  

We are hoping for another deer as we have another seasoning kit to make Italian sausage since this type is a little spicy for Hailey and I.