Frustratedearthmother's Journaling Journey

[NH Homesteader]

Lol OK! This is the farm I'm looking at. Seriously impressed with them... From an internet view anyway, lol. Never been there (sounds like a field trip!)

http://www.gapmountaingoats.com/

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Geeze louise! They're proud of those guy...but I don't blame 'em a bit. If you can get that price - go for it!

 

[NH Homesteader]

Exactly, I wish I could! Lol

So how's the little dude? Is he living in the house? More pics necessary.... Please!

 

[baymule]

Your buck is a cutie pie. I just don't understand taking babies away from their moms to sell them. It saved you a lot of money, but I am more for letting the moms do what they do best-raise their own babies. JMO

I know he will flourish under your care and not only live, but thrive. I like his name too! What makes Kikos so high priced?

 

[sumi]

FEM, you got him! And he's gorgeous His dad is stunning too… Hope everything will go well with the raising of the little one. I must say I'm with Bay on letting moms take care of the little ones.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

I'm an advocate of mama raising too. So much so that in 25 years of doing this I have NEVER pulled a baby just so I could bottle feed it...yikes...too much work! And, I've never sold one just to get rid of him early. But, there are exceptions to every rule... Last year I did have bottle babies when mom kidded and didn't have enough milk. I supplemented them but never pulled them from their mom. She gave 'em what she could, and I gave 'em the rest. I did end up selling them at about a month old when I sold a whole bunch of other goats at the same time. Gotta say that I'm really not looking forward to the next 10 weeks or so... not so fond of bottle raising. But, there are occasions when it does make sense.

These folks sell their bucklings, to give their doelings a better start (they have mama all to their selves). However, in the Kiko world (which I'm barely a fledgling) one of the big bragging points is 'does that kid unassisted and need no help raising their kids.' This seems to fly in the face of that theory. I also wanted to disbud this baby and in order to do that I needed to own him. And, there's no doubt that bottle babies are very easy to handle as adults. This will be a large buck and I'm ok with him being super easy to deal with when he's grown.

He wasn't tooo keen on the bottle last night but took an ounce or so. This morning he did much better. I haven't seen him poop since he's been here even though I see evidence of meconium on his legs so he's at least passed that. I'll be watching for milk poop to start coming through now that he's had a good breakfast. I'll have him on a 5 hour schedule for the next couple of weeks at least - but no feedings in the middle of the night. It'll be 7am, noon, 5pm, and 10pm. But, we'll be flexible - if he's hungry after 4 hours I'll probably give in, lol.

Yep, he's inside. The little fella is in the breezeway for now. We have a wire pen in there and lots of puppy pads! It's temperate, not muddy, I can heat or cool as necessary, and it's close! Once I'm sure he's thriving, and the weather is cooperative, and maybe when he's down to 3 a day feedings, I'll move him out to the front barn. It's just too nasty out there now to plop a newborn into the mess.

 

[Mini Horses]

He looks cute & fuzzy! Yep, disbud for your own use. While my Boers never got that, they were quite docile. Now, are you using goat milk? You need a doe with brand new kids to help you out....at least with some milk.

I'm like you, want mom to do the work & teach them to be goats. However, with dairy it is most common to pull kids as a means to promote the heavy milkers.

I like to "share" but, to get really good production in that way, you have to be diligent! I am not always that. My first full time milk doe, I was. Now -- not so much. I'd like to do better but when you have to be to work at an outside job -- yeah, that sometimes gets in the way! In fact, I have one doe who is still letting her year old doeling nurse!!!! So that should be a "well started" doeling, right? Geesh.

We can watch him grow up. Your work, our pleasure.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Your work, our pleasure.

LOL - true!

I have a freezer full of goat milk. I think about 6 - 7 gallons or so. 'Course I was planning on it for personal use but it'll give the guy a good start. I think I might have a doe out in the pasture who is still letting her 8/9 month old baby nurse. I guess I could rob a little from her if needed. But, when I start getting low on goat milk I'll transfer him over to whole cow's milk and suspect he will do just fine on that.

I've been outside working on the electric fence. Came to the spot where there's a gate and I don't really know what the heck to do there...argh! This is not within my scope of knowledge - so - I'm just gonna stretch the electric fence right over like it's not even a gate, lol. When DS gets chance to come over and help - we'll re-configure the gates and hopefully that'll work. I've gotta get that stoopid dog back out in the pasture. I HATE having to chain him. It's just not cool and it's time for him to get back to work!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Woo hoo! My electric fence is up and it's working! What a miracle. I put Cowboy out back and I guess he's figured it's on cuz he's not loving it out there. He can still go over the interior fences - so he came back out of the pasture into the buck pen. There's no electric there - yet. It looks like I'll be doing the rest of it in stages as necessary. I've got the side fence between me and the neighbor and went back around the corner and across the front of his pasture up next to his neighbor who has an 8 foot heavy duty cyclone fence. I wish I had HIS fence around my place - it's awesome! It may be that I end up doing the whole stinking place in electric to keep him in. But, hoping this will be enough for now.

Conan has figured out that bottles are good things - and (tmi) he pooped! I was glad about that cuz I hadn't seen any thing since we brought him home. But, it seems all systems are go!

Need to get cleaned up and go see mom and dad before the weather falls apart. S'posed to ran and storm later. About time - we need more rain -

 

[treerooted]

Hey, if there's anyway you can get access to it, my mom is watching "The Caregivers Club" by CBC, and says it's a very accurate description of what she went through. I haven't watched it yet, but I thought of you and just thought I'd pass it along before I forgot.
I have a feeling you can't access it directly, but maybe there's a work around. Just thought I'd mention it.