Lorihadams-- hi guys...been busy!

[lorihadams]

K-- do you milk through the first few months of pregnancy?

If so, what do you feed them on the milk stand....I don't want to give her too much grain and cause the babies to grow too large too rapidly and have problems birthing but I need to give her something on the milk stand to keep her production up too....could I switch her over to just alfalfa pellets or a mix of alfalfa pellets and BOSS with no commercial grain pellets?

She would be due to kid out around the 25th of Feb to 3rd of March if the breeding took. I plan on milking her until December if she keeps up and drying her off to give her the last 2 months of pregnancy as a break.

 

[freemotion]

If you are going to milk her while preggers (I do) feed her normally on the milking stand. You don't want her heading into the final weeks of her pregnancy on the thin side.

If she is a decent producer, you'll want to start drying her off well before the three month mark so she'll have two full months of putting everything into the babies and nothing into the bucket. So maybe start reducing your milking and her feed on Dec 1 or so. Then you can reduce it nice and gradually and not milk on Dec 24-25.

 

[savingdogs]

Thanks free, that answers the same question for me. I have a doe that will be due right about the same time as yours.

 

[lorihadams]

Even if she's a little chubby now? She's partial to animal crackers.....

 

[ksalvagno]

I would still feed some grain. You can cut it down and add more alfalfa pellets and BOSS but I wouldn't cut it out. I have to admit that I have been drying my girls up before being bred but if I was still milking, they would get the same thing on the milkstand as usual.

 

[emilosevich]

I would still feed some grain. You can cut it down and add more alfalfa pellets and BOSS but I wouldn't cut it out. I have to admit that I have been drying my girls up before being bred but if I was still milking, they would get the same thing on the milkstand as usual.

I do dry mine up before breeding we still feed grain all the way through pregnancy, just go to a lower protein and a lower amount fed. We make sure they get lots of hay. We prefer grass hay. I've heard you're supposed to use alfalfa, but its way to expensive out here and not many other goat breeders that I know in the area use it.

 

[lorihadams]

Thanks guys...she is giving me 16 oz steadily per day and that is enough for our needs right now so I will continue to milk but if her production drops to 12oz or less before December I'll go ahead and dry her off. She seems to be unresponsive to the buck rag...still some discharge but no tail flicking or interest in the rag. She is quiet too so I'm thinking I'll watch her for 2 more weeks to see if she shows any signs of heat again and we'll have babies in February!!! Bethoron still isn't interested in the rag either but I have Friday marked on my calendar for her so knowing my luck, we are going on a day trip to a safari park Saturday so she'll be in standing heat that morning....

If she shows any interest in the rag Friday I may just take her up to the breeder Friday evening and see if she can stay overnight or the weekend if she shows signs but with no interest or tail flicking from her today I don't know what to think. I'll keep checking her.

 

[lorihadams]

So, yesterday we had an art marathon....the kids painted haunted houses and we made a mix and match halloween character game and then we made these!

And the felt backdrop for them

Today they are going to draw jack-o-lanterns and we are going to read quite a bit cause it is pouring today. I will probably do some computer stuff too. I also printed off some Halloween vocabulary words that you match to the pictures so we'll do those and I am going to do some word scrambles with Tyler to help with his phonics practice and then we are going to do some puppet shows with the puppets we made yesterday. They turned out really cute, I got a pack of 75 extra large popsicle sticks at the Dollar Tree and I had all the felt so I let the kids help me and I cut and glued everything cause we used a hot glue gun. I let them do some of the painting on them and then let them paint their own haunted houses on some butcher paper. They turned out really cute! Depending on what time Grandma C gets here Friday we'll carve pumpkins with her that night. They are excited about Halloween so I'm trying to gear some of their school work to that. I also may see if I can find some poetry and I know youtube has some really cute halloween songs done by Kidstv123.

I also did a particularly gross project with life cycles and decomposition. I left a couple of the chicks that died out in a box in the yard so the flies could get to them....we've been watching them the last couple days and yep, full of maggots now. I poked around in the carcass with Tyler and let him see the various stages of larva and explained the life cycle of the fly. Then we fed the maggots to the chickens. I know it sounds barbaric but he gets it....just ask him about decomposition! We also talked about scavengers and what role they play in nature too. My hubby was a little shocked but oh well, he'll get over it.

 

[lorihadams]

I also wanted to share some pics from the pauwau this year...I forgot to do it earlier.

 

[sekinkead]

Those puppets are adorable! Do you have a pattern or did you do them freehand?

I think the decomp project is a good thing for him to learn, it's a great idea to turn something bad into a learning experience.

You do so much everyday, it makes me tired just reading about it.