Our beloved goat Mothra crossed a spectacular threshold this week. She has given us over 1,000 pounds of milk since her babies were weaned at the beginning of the summer. She is one fantastic goat. She is the boss of all the other milkers, and the one who is the most friendly to humans. When I go to the gate of her pen in the morning she runs to meet me. On the days when it’s my cousin’s turn to milk, Mothra runs to the door of the milking parlor and Jan lets her in. But on the days when it’s my turn to milk, she gets to the door and then runs back to get me, sticking with my pace till we get there. I'm usually lollygagging in the yard with the other goats, handing out treats.
Here's Mothra, getting her daily post-milking peanuts:
Oh, and speaking of milk, we got our blood tests back from the lab this week. None of our goats have Caprine Arthritic Encephalitis, and all of them are pregnant! Every single one of them! Well, all six of them that we bred.
It’s amazing. With four of our does, Jan waited until they were in season, and we took them to the appropriate buck. They ran in, bred, and we took them right back to their home pen. It took just a few minutes, and for those four girls it worked. The other two does were living in the back pen, so we weren’t as sure when they were in season. We left them (together, so they'd have a friend) in the pen with the buck for an entire three weeks - which is the length of their cycle. We don’t know when they got bred, so we don’t know when they’re due.
Our only experienced mother, Lulou, is due at the beginning of March. Elena and Bella are due sometime between late March and mid-April. This is Elena:
This is Bella:
I’m really worried about this kidding season. Last year was so hard. None of our does gave birth without our help except for Delta, and she kidded early - alone in the middle of the night - and her two babies died. Elena and Bella are both small, and Lezlie is old. And our vet - who was reputed to be one of the few surgeons who excel at performing caprine c-sections - just retired and sold his practice to two lovely small animal vets who are happy to learn about goats, but have no experience with them.
On the other hand, when it's all over, we’ll have, probably, between twelve and eighteen baby goats cavorting around the milkers’ pen. There’s not much in this world that is cuter than baby goats dancing for joy and jumping up on top of their mamas’ backs for a ride.
Speaking of pregnancy: you may remember that we sent three goats to live in Oklahoma last year. Rain, Delta, and Puddle. Puddle (Rain's daughter) was too young to breed, but Rain and Delta are both pregnant. We’re happy because their human is a vet, and Delta has never delivered babies who lived (she miscarried the year before last). If anyone can pull her through a pregnancy and get her kids to thrive, it’ll be her new human.
Meanwhile, I’ve been spending time knitting patches for my socks. I am now putting patches on top of my patches!
We are having rooster issues. Remember those cute day-old chicks we got back in July? They were all supposed to be hens. But, chicken sexing that takes place when the hatchlings are only a day old is only 90% accurate, so you have to expect some accidental roosters. We have two. This guy, who is either called Handsome George or Rico:
And this guy, who we call The Roo:
They are both pretty aggressive with the other chickens, and if one rooster sees the other rooster going after a hen, he attacks. There haven’t been any feather-flying fights yet, but there have been some pretty amazing high-speed chases around the chicken yard. I’m not sure how this is going to turn out.
Aside from all that, I am making shampoo bars, preparing for them to go on sale January 15th. Did you know that approximately 552 million shampoo bottles are thrown away each year? I am cutting my tally short. I switched to my shampoo bars back in April, and I’m never going back. I’m still sending out sample shampoo bars with all soap orders, if you’re interested in a low-risk trial. https://www.serenasoaps.com/
