Lorihadams-- hi guys...been busy!

[Windyhillfarms]

Oh, and I finally found a way to get the goats to take the stupid wormer. I mixed it with molasses until it made a paste and spread it in between animal crackers. I fed them at the same time so they all fought over who was gonna eat what and the competition created a feeding frenzy and they all ate their doses...much easier. I should have figured that cookies would work. Just like children, I swear.

I had NO idea I could give the wormer like that! I am new to goats but know that I have to bite the bullet and worm them and wasn't looking forward to it at all. The horses are bad enough, but this idea might just apply to both... Thank you for the idea!

 

[lorihadams]

You're welcome, Windyhill....I just wish I had thought of it on day 1 of their regimen instead of day 3

I have 3 girls and one will eat anything I put in front of her, one is so-so about stuff and the other is a regular diva and snorts at me over most things I give them. I found that making the sandwich out of it worked really well and stood outside the fence to feed all of them....I was afraid I was gonna lose a finger. When my diva found out it was animal crackers...they're like crack to her, I swear, the breeder even sent me home with a bag of "her cookies"...she dove right in. She bit some of them in half so I had to repeat feed her the rest but I was able to get it in them by splitting the recommended dose into a morning feeding and an afternoon feeding. I did 1/2 TBSP for each in the am and again at the evening milking and that seemed to work better than trying to give it to them all at once. I spread it thick enough that I ended up with 2 "cookie sandwiches" per girl for each feeding.

I tried everything to get them to eat the stuff, first try was a simple top dressing on their food....yeah, not having it. Second try was top dressing and mixing the entire feed ration with molasses to make it stick. Nope, not having it...got them to eat it but I think they would have rather starved to death. Third try was the dosage balls with just molasses...better but my diva wouldn't eat them. Fourth try was dosage balls with peanut butter and sunflower seeds sandwiched in between a leaf and rolled up like a jelly roll...still iffy about it. Fifth try was dosage balls with molasses and peanut butter with oats and sunflower seeds....yeah, whatever. The last try was the simple molasses and wormer mixture to the consistency of peanut butter spread between the two animal crackers. Jackpot!

See, I was desperate. Desperate, but creative! I finally got the whole 3 days dosages in all of them but the first two days was a struggle, especially with Aliana. I even tried shoving them in the back of her mouth the second day...not having it. With her I just broke the dosage balls back up on the second day and mixed it with her feed and she ate it but not happily. Hopefully they take the second part of the treatment better...it's only one weekly dose for the next 7 weeks so I'll do the cookies again and hopefully it will work again.

Goats=crazy.

 

[Windyhillfarms]

Which wormer did you start out with? I'm trying to figure out what to buy but everything is for horses, not goats

 

[lorihadams]

I use the molly's herbals....she has a two step formula that you can order but you have to specify that it is for horses.

I use the wormwood wormer (not for horses) for 3 days and then follow that with a once a week dose of the second formula, the toner I think. I'm just glad they won't get anything until next Thursday....that was a PITA!!!

It wasn't that expensive either. You can go on her website and order it and have it within the week.

I am getting ready to breed the girls so I wanted to worm them before they got pregnant. Now, if I can just figure out that heat cycle....seriously, anyone want to send me a buck rag???

 

[Javamama]

Nice job Lori You probably never thought you could potentially lose a limb over goat snacks huh?

 

[lorihadams]

Ha! As I have learned from OFG....anything is possible when it comes to goats!

The funny thing is that Tally, our "special" goat...that may as well be a wether but we love her, will eat anything on the planet and proceed to head butt and bite anyone else that tries to eat anything around her. She is so fat it is ridiculous and her hair looks like someone gave her a finger wave

This morning hubby is hurting but after making in one week with his buddy what he makes in one month at his job he is dealing with it beautifully. Yesterday they had to cut up 5 big leland cypress trees that got mangled in the hurricane and they managed to get everything done in 8 hours. Today they are taking a break. His fingers are all swollen up from his arthritis and he is finally gonna break down and take something for it.

Tyler was so happy to see him yesterday Chad slept in his bed with him last night. I had taken the kids swimming at the river for a while yesterday in between mowing the yard and doing laundry and lesson plans for this week. They were both exhausted. Maddie slept in my bed with me. Everyone crashed at 9 last night except me and I read a book until 10 and then conked out.

Today I think we are going to stop by Target, Chad needs new socks, and then go to Maymont Park. They have animal exhibits and a petting zoo...it's basically a free zoo inside of a park except for the aquarium exhibits and that is $3 a person. We'll go have a picnic and may go to the river down there but we'll see what the weather is going to do...supposed to rain later this afternoon.

 

[lorihadams]

So we started homeschool yesterday...wasn't horrible but I did have to pick up the phone and threaten to call the public school and tell them I had made a mistake and could I please send my son to school tomorrow.

He hates to write. I told him to write all his lowercase letters cause it had been a while since we practiced that and it was followed by a 30 minute breakdown.

His daddy sat him down at dinner and told him in no uncertain terms that if he didn't listen to his mama and do as he was told he would not be allowed to homeschool next year. He cried.

Yesterday we had to get the intrepid inspected....$235 later we are ready to go The headlights wouldn't pass inspection...$60 to get the film removed, it needed rear brake pads, it needed an oil change, yadda yadda yadda....good thing hubby did all that side work. Friday afternoon we have to get the durango inspected too. It's gonna need an oil change and the roters need turning....we'll see how much that costs. The good news is that at least we have the cash money to pay for it all.

I am sorely disappointed in Aliana this morning. Yesterday she gave me 8 oz at each milking and this morning she gave me 6oz. I'm dreading it but I'm thinking it is just time to dry her off. Then maybe we could take a long weekend vacay to see my brother in Atlanta if we could get someone to watch everyone. I don't know, we'll see.

I like the fact that I could have a break from milking but i'm really gonna miss the milk. I hate paying $7 a gallon for milk. It's crazy. At least then we will get a break from milking but I am gonna hate having to wait another 6 months for milk. I am hoping to get her bred this month or early October at the latest and hopefully Bethoron will take the first time.

I still have to figure out when they are in heat.

 

[lorihadams]

Friday....thank goodness.

Homeschool was alright this week. I managed to get most of what I wanted to do done this week. We are having problems keeping one occupied while I'm working with the other. Maddie is just practicing her letters and numbers and writing her name for now. She is basically just along for the ride with the rest of what Tyler is doing. She listens to the books when I read and she'll do art projects with us but she just doesn't have the attention span he does so it is tough.

Tyler is doing okay. He is better at writing for me so I have just been doing some simple stuff for a few minutes at a time and not pushing him to hard to write for big chunks of time and that seems to be working out better for us. I'm hoping to go down to Maymont park for a bit this weekend and do some plant and tree identification with them. It'll be fun if the weather holds out for us. We didn't get to go on labor day so we went rock climbing instead and then raced go carts and played mini golf. We had a "daddy day". He took them to see nanny yesterday and today he is going to take them scouting with him.

I'm cooking two of our pumpkins in the oven right now cause maddie wants to bake a pie. We'll see how that turns out. I hope I don't burn them. I'm gonna see if I can find the crustless pumpkin pie recipe I used last thanksgiving. Happy friday everyone!

 

[SSDreamin]

Lori,
I have a newbie question for you - I am growing sugar pumpkins this year (my first year with them) and read somewhere that, in order to make a 'good' pie, you needed to mix in some butternut squash. So I grew butternut too, because I love it by itself anyway. Do you add any squash to your pumpkin? Do you have to bake the pumpkin in the oven?

 

[Britesea]

Lori, do you have Tyler keeping a journal? It's a great way to have him practice both his penmanship and creative writing. Even if all he does at first is something like report the weather, eventually he will start to put things down that he feels are noteworthy. In fact, if he does note the weather and temps etc, you can later show him how useful this is when you both go back to his journal to check again on when the first frost of fall happened, or how much snow you got in December, or something like that-- It's a lot easier to get a kid to do something if he can actually see it's usefulness.