Claire Turns 1 Week Old

Claire, 1 week old

Last Saturday Claire turned 1 week old.  Claire is Windy's one and only kid.  Windy is also a first time mama and does really well with taking care of Claire.  Claire gets to eat all she wants to from her mama since she doesn't have to share with a sibling.

As you can see from the picture above, she is growing quickly.

Claire is just starting to play with the other baby goats now that she is bigger and can keep up with them.  Claire goes off into the pasture everyday now with the herd.

Sometimes she plays with the other baby goats and then other times she likes to just relax and take a nap in the sun.

Here is a cute little video of her playing and running.

Also here are some additional pictures of Claire at a week old.

Claire up close

Claire relaxing in the shade

Claire relaxing with her Auntie Whimsey

Claire getting some sun

Claire & Julie

Meet Chuck & Tbone

Chuck (l) & Tbone (r)

We have been searching for quite awhile for some beef calves.  They have been very hard to find lately and if you find full breed beef calves they are very expensive.

We finally found some beef cross calves for sale.  Tbone is a Angus/Holstein cross and Chuck is a Limousin/Holstein cross.  I contacted the person selling them and agreed to meet and pick them up last Saturday.

Saturday after Hailey's soccer game, Jamie, Hailey & I drove to Kentucky to pick up the calves.  Drew was at a friends house so he didn't come. The calves are fairly little and we were able to take the back seat out of the van and put them back there.  Thankfully after driving for a bit they laid down and took a nap.

Tbone (l) & Chuck (r) sleeping

Before they laid down and took a nap. The calves did a little sight seeing and tasting of the car.

Chuck & Tbone in the car

Chuck tasting the seat belt

Once we got them home they did great.  We were told they are between 7 and 14 days old.  They still need milk at this point so we are feeding them bottles.

Hailey with 1 of the calves bottles

The calves get 2 bottles a day, once in the morning and once in the evening.

Drew feeding Chuck

Me feeding Tbone

They love their bottles and drink up the milk right away.  Most of the day they like to lay down and take naps, they are babies after all.  They love when me and the kids come down to visit and get rubs and pats.

Here are a few other pictures of Chuck & Tbone.

Chuck

Tbone

Chuck up close

Tbone up close

These calves are for us to raise as meat, hence the names. Jamie thought it would be funny to name them Chuck for chuck roast and Tbone for tbone steak.

We will most likely have them for at least 8 months to have them grow and fill out nice before they go to the butcher.  We will be butchering at least one of them for food for us.  We are not sure if we will sell the other one at auction, sell it as meat or keep it longer and then butcher it also for our freezer.  We will just wait and see.

Check back often and see how the boys progress is going.

Abby & Maddie Turn 1!!!

Abby & Maddie turned 1 last Wednesday.

Maddie (l) & Abby (r)

These girls are just as sweet as can be.  Maddie and Abby are Priscilla's babies from last year.

They are very bonded and go and do everything together. The look very much alike but have different personalities.

Maddie is very sweet and quiet.  She loves to have pats and her cheeks scratched.  She quietly waits by your side to notice she is there waiting for you.

Abby on the other hand is still way to curious for her own good.  She is still the mischief maker of the bunch and I swear she has it written all over her face.  She's a good girl but will be the first one to sneak through the door to get out.  Abby also loves to get the other girls to play with her.

Since both girls will be old enough, they will both be bred in the fall.  We still haven't decided who each girl will be bred too yet.

Here are some pictures of Maddie & Abby on their birthday.

Abby in the pasture

Maddie in the barn

Abby peeking out the barn door seeing what's going on

Abby (l) & Maddie (r) digging into some hay

Check back in the fall to see who the lucky buck is who will get to spend sometime with these sweet girls.

Priscilla's Babies Turn 1 Month Old

The babies are 1 month old now!!!

I'm getting behind again and trying to catch up :).

Chloe (top), Cole (bottom l) & Carter (bottom r) hanging out

Sunday, April 19th the babies turned 1 month old.  They are doing excellent.  They go off into the pasture everyday with all the adult does.  They still love to play, run and jump.  They love to have hugs and be petted also.

Here they are at 1 month old.

Chloe & Carter warming up with the sun

Cole coming to say hello

Chloe & Carter saying hello to Chelsea

Cole relaxing with Chelsea

Carter, Cole & Chloe

Cole, Carter & Chloe getting some sun

Maybe Next Year.

Whimsey

Well, we bred Whimsey back in November to Brady.  We were pretty sure she was bred because she never came back into heat.

We waited the long 5 months for her due date of April 8th.  As we got closer to her due date I was second guessing myself if she was really bred.  I never felt baby movement on her and she wasn't getting very large to show she was carrying babies in her.

Then on her due date she started showing some discharge.  We thought she was going into labor.  The next day I did find a small puddle of what I thought was discharge and Whimsey's mucus plug.  We waited and waited for her to go into labor and it never happened.

I went onto the computer and asked some of the more experienced goat owners what they all thought.  Everyone said to watch her and give the vet a call.

Monday morning, 8 days after her original due date, with no baby still here, I called the vet.  The vet explained that Whimsey most likely had a miscarriage and her body absorbed most of the miscarriage.  Once the day arrived that she should of went into labor her body expelled the rest of what her body didn't absorb.

We are a little disappointed that she didn't give birth.  We really wanted her and her sister, Windy to both have babies at the same time.  Whimsey and Windy are very bonded and we thought that if they both had babies at the same time that it would be a little less stressful on them for each of them to have a baby to focus on instead of one having a baby and the other not.  Unfortunately it didn't work out that way.

Whimsey is a little lonely.  She looks for more lovings from me everyday and I am happy to give them to her.  Spending a little extra time with her helps her feel not so lonely.  Things have gotten better now too since Windy and her baby are no longer staying in the birthing pen but in the barn with all the other goats. The sisters are still very close and Whimsey is actually very gentle with Claire, Windy's baby girl.

One thing we have done is started Whimsey on a diet.  When a doe is pregnant you need to increase their grain intake and we did do that for Whimsey thinking she was expecting. Since she wasn't pregnant, she gained a little bit of extra weight from the grain.  We have now cut back on the grain for her to get those few extra pounds off of her.

Thankfully the vet said Whimsey is healthy and should be fine to try to breed again this fall.

Whimsey relaxing on top of the baby box

Check back later in the year to see who we decide to breed Whimsey to.

Baby Claire Is Getting So Big!!

Baby Claire is Windy's baby that was born last Saturday evening.

For the first 2 days I keep mama and baby in the birthing stall together to help with bonding.  It's also nice for Windy to spend time with her baby alone without the whole herd being on top of them.  Claire is nursing well.  She only nurses from 1 side which is usual so every morning I milk out the other side of Windy's udder and save the milk to make cheese later on.

Here are some pictures of Claire at 2 days old.

Claire staying close to mama

Claire standing strong

Claire's sweet face

Claire nursing

Claire is doing so well.  Nursing great and growing quickly. Tuesday, at 3 days old, was her first day out.  We let Windy and Claire out for a couple of hours supervised of course.  Claire met at the other girls and babies in the herd.  Nobody really wants to much to do with her right now because she is so little and new.

Claire out in the grass

Claire looking over the baby box

Claire meeting Matilda and Cole

Claire & Matilda

Windy did a great job keeping an eye on her.  Wednesday, at 4 days old, I let both mama and baby out into the barn and pasture for the whole day.  I kept checking on them every 2 hours and things went very well.  Claire went off into the pasture with her mom and the herd for a bit too.  She is jumping and running now but still takes lots of naps.

Claire at 4 days old tucked into the back of the baby box

Check back in a few days to see how Claire is doing when she turns 1 week old.



Fishing Is Fun!!!

We have been trying to take the kids fishing for quite awhile now.  Time just seems to get away from us with everything being so busy now with the farm and the kids sports.

Hailey & Drew both had gotten new fishing poles last year that we still hadn't used.  Jamie's friend Brad was visiting last weekend and he loves to fish.  So we all went fishing for a few hours on Sunday at Cordell Hull Lake in Granville, TN. 

Here are some pictures from our first time fishing in TN.

Brad helping Hailey cast off

Drew waiting for a bite

Brad & Hailey fishing

Drew casting off

We went fishing in 2 spots.  The first spot we didn't catch anything so we moved to spot # 2.
Drew ended up catching 3 fish, 2 small large mouth bass and 1 sunfish, Hailey caught 1 sunfish and Jamie caught 2 small large mouth bass.  All of our fish were to little to eat so we just released them back into the water.

Drew with his 1st fish, baby large mouth bass

Drew with his first fish, baby large mouth bass

Brad & Hailey with Hailey's first fish, sunfish

Hailey with her first fish, sunfish

Jamie with his first fish, baby large mouth bass

Deer on the opposite shore getting a drink

We had such a great time fishing and will be going back as soon as we have some extra time.

Thanks Brad for helping teach the kids to fish AND patience. :)