On Monday, Phoebe, was 30 days away from her due date. On Wednesday, Loulu was 30 days away from her due date. They’re going to kid in less than a month! The countdown is on!
When the goats reach this point in their pregnancies a couple things have to happen. First, they need shots. They get a vaccination (CD/T) against tetanus and "overeating disease". I had no idea goats got tetanus! And, is there a vaccination against overeating for humans? I would like one of those, please! They also get a nutritional supplement (Bo-Se).
And then, they need to start eating two cups of oats every day in addition to the regular alfalfa and millet that they get in their pens. Below is Phoebe on the milking stand, looking very pregnant and telling us that she does not WANT to eat the oats in the bucket!
Anyway, the project of this week was to bring Phoebe and Loulu into the milking room, get them up on the milking stand with a bucket of oats, and while they were eating, to give them the two injections. Once we give them their injections, they come in for oats every day. It's only the first day that they get the shots.
Getting them used to coming into the milking room, getting up on the milking stand, and eating means that by the time they need to be milked, it’ll all be routine for them. This is Phoebe, eating the oats out of a bowl Jan is holding for her. (The only way we could get the oats into that grumpy goat).
Of course, our goats all have opinions. Mothra wants to be in the milking room at all times. She stands on her hind legs, pounding on the door with her front hooves trying to get in. Although, with every passing day this is harder for her, because every day she’s bigger! Luckily for her she'll be at 30 days from delivery this coming Monday, and then she'll be one of the goats that gets to come in.
Another thing that happened this week on the farm is we made a sort of jungle gym for the kids. The kids that will be arriving in about a month.
This was a big family project, and took us most of Sunday to accomplish.
We went to the store and bought cinder blocks. They only cost $2.00 each. Who knew? Our entire goat jungle gym cost us a total of $36!
We hauled all the cinder blocks out into the field, and our curious goats were delighted to watch us struggle to figure out the most stable way to build their babies a little structure to play on.
These are our milkers above. They all have opinions about the pyramid we're building. Below is a photo of Casey, in the back pen. This is their little jungle gym back there. Often I see six or seven of them on this one, sometimes rubbing each others' necks, sometimes butting each others' heads in some sort of "King of the Mountain" game for goats.
At the end of the afternoon, we completed our cement block pyramid: Look! Lezlie is on top of the pyramid, Mothra is climbing up, and Rain is kind of inspecting the foundation at the right. That's one of the things I just love about goats. They are so curious about everything.
My niece Kat has been staying with us this week. She and I have been digging out gates all week (I think digging gates is like Sisyphus' Rock. Never ending.) The goats all love when we come to their pens to dig gates. Some of them snuffle our faces with their noses. Yesterday, Triscuit fell in love with Kat's boots!
Like every day that has goats in it, it was a good day.