This week we began separating the babies from their mamas overnight.
The first night was chaos. First of all, getting all fifteen baby goats on one side of the fence and all their mamas on the other side was a goat rodeo. You can imagine: we push two kids through the open gate, and one kid comes back the other way, escaping to the wrong side. And then, some of the babies cried all night long. By morning, their little voices were squeaky and pathetic. I could hardly stand it. Really, it broke my heart. Not to mention keeping me up all night.
On the other hand, some of the babies were happy to be away from their mamas, and some of the mamas were overjoyed to get a rest. I know I’ve said this before, but it seems to me a design flaw to give a being two teats and three offspring. Many mornings it looks like World War III is going on underneath some of those poor goats. Their babies battle it out, head butting not only their siblings, but their mama’s udder.
Now that the babies are beyond the baby gate in the morning, we bring all the mamas to the milking parlor before we let their babies return to them. We get all the milk that has been accumulating overnight. And we get a chance to rub healing salve on some of their chewed up teats. For some reason, the goats who have a lot of boys are particularly chomped on.
The first morning after separation, we were milking Rosa, and we looked at the milk coming through the tube of the milking machine, and it looked as if it had been mixed up with Strawberry Quick. Do you remember that stuff? Our family physician prescribed it for my brother - apparently Dave didn’t like cow’s milk. The physician told Mom to stir in Strawberry Quick, which was a sugary, strawberry-flavored powder. They discontinued its manufacture in 2006. But, we drank pink milk for years.
Rosa, however, must’ve burst a capillary in her udder. We had to throw out all the milk in the machine that day. The next day her milk was much better and by the end of the week she was fine.
Maria was our other remarkable goat of the week. She’s always skittish, and Jan has been a paragon of patience in working with Maria to get her onto the milking stand.
A couple of weeks ago, a friend gave us a hummingbird feeder shaped like a hot air balloon. Jan filled it with sugar water and hung it up just outside the milking parlor. Nothing happened until the first morning after we separated the babies and mamas. That was the morning we finally got a regular hummingbird visitor - during milking time.
Unfortunately, the hummingbird so spooked Maria that she forgot everything she’d learned about getting onto the milking stand. She stood out in the breezeway, craning her head to look at the air where the hummingbird was hovering. I don’t imagine that there are birds who are natural predators of goats, but you couldn’t tell Maria that.
By the end of this week we were milking early enough in the morning that we were getting Maria in and out before the hummingbird arrived. Whew!
Kat and I painted the new chicken coop this week. Here’s the before photo:
Here’s the after:
We still have to stencil chickens on the sides. I’m hoping for pink and black chickens for this coop!
Oh! Jan got a great photo of something that happens often when we have babies, but we rarely manage to dig our phones out of our pockets in time to catch it:
In this, Lolly is standing on her mother’s (Lulou’s) back. Lace has got her hooves on her brother (Luke’s) back, while their mom, Lezlie watches.
This photo is just before the dismount.
Right now we see Lolly on Lulou’s back nearly every day. I love this part of the year. It seems like there’s somebody every year who likes to make like a circus goat and ride their mother.
OH! Look what Jan ordered!
It’s for trimming hooves. It's electric - runs on a battery pack you clip to your belt. Jan bought a big hardwood board, and she’s practicing using the Hoof Boss on that, before she tries it out on the goats.
Hoof trimming is really important. Here’s what hooves look like when they haven’t been properly trimmed (I got this photo off the internet):
And here’s what they look like when they have been trimmed.
Goat hooves just keep growing and growing. I guess if they lived in a real rocky circumstance, perhaps they’d naturally wear those hooves down. I don’t know.
Kat and I continue forging ahead with the exotic soaps. Here are our two most recent creations:
We’re excited to announce that we’ve been accepted as vendors at the Railyards Market in Albuquerque. Come see us there on June 6th! Or, if you live elsewhere, visit our website: https://www.serenasoaps.com/
Our exotic soaps will begin appearing on our site soon.