Tragedy of the garden

Goats and gardens don't mix well.  We had, key word here is had, a lovely garden fertilized by goat manure when the goats busted out and proceeded to devour the lettuce, sunflowers, broccoli, and beans.  The tomatoes were untouched.

More goat play time!

More pictures of all the baby goats enjoying their playground!

Goat Playground

In preparation for the baby season we put together a little playground from scrap wood and tires AND a slide we found in the woods.  Once we found the slide I knew we had to make a goat slide and voila!  All the goats, big and small love it!

The Move

I have finally moved the goats to Florida!!!!  After extensive land searches involving the worst luck ever we found the perfect place.  The land can't really be compared to Maryland but it's great for our Florida area.  We hired Athena from Horse Jitney based in Maryland and she did an amazing job babying the goats and our guard dog Leksa down to Florida.

And the next best part? I have a barn.  An absolutely authentic barn.  No more goat shacks that get destroyed-eaten-stomped on by the goats as fast as I can build them.  It may be overkill but it's sooo nice.  And one day we'll get electric and water out there too.

Goats like round bales

I am an awful blogger.  First post since October 2012.
So here goes...

Winter in Maryland.  A foot of snow coming tonight but the goats have been enjoying their new hay bale.  We spent the money once on a $90 bale of alfalfa, but after they consumed it in three days, we were forced to return to less expensive grass hay.

Fixing Jeanie's Ear

Last month, Jeanie caught her tag out in the woods and ripped her ear lengthwise.  At first we left it alone to heal but then the lower portion of ripped ear became necrotic and Jeanie was very sensitive and painful.  Intervention time!  This is where being a veterinarian in training comes in useful.

First step: Sedate Jeanie with the appropriate dose of xylazine.  I gave Jeanie a "standing" dose meant to make her only a little sleepy but Jeanie is apparently sensitive and went down like a rock.

Next: Clean and examine ear.  I gave a local lidocaine block to desensitize the ear.  Use sterile instruments to cut away the dead tissue.  The larger part of the ear was healing well so I left it alone.  Cleaned the infected part thoroughly and applied triple antibiotic ointment.

The great thing about alpha-2 agonists like xylazine is that they can be reversed. So I gave Jeanie tolazoline and she perked right back up.

All the other goats had to watch what was going on.

Jeanie gets some grain as a reward.

Goat Cheese on tomato slices

At the end of the summer, there's plenty of goat cheese and plenty of tomatoes from the garden.   A very easy recipe that's yummy and works great as a snack or appetizer.  Simply slice tomatoes then add the cheese.  I used three week aged pressed goat cheese.  Then I added some fresh oregano and a few drops of extra virgin olive oil.

Fair week

I haven't posted anything in a while so I must apologize to my "numerous" followers.  Last week was fair week which I juggled this year with my full time job.  Fair week is the time of year which I spend lots of time getting the goats ready for and then realizing that I'd need to spend waaaay more time to make my goats look as nice as everybody else's.  Here is the itinerary of fair week.

Sunday:   Bring the dairy goats in to the fair.  This is pretty easy as we only had to shove five goats into our redneck "trailer" of a stock panel strapped to a flatbed.  Oreo the baby nigerian dwarf got to ride in the car since I was afraid he'd die if he got loose.  Unloading at the fair is easy since we've done it for the past ten years and I have a pretty good system.

Monday: Junior dairy goat show.  All the babies did great! Everyone placed very well and no temper tantrums.  Went to work after the show.

Tuesday: Senior dairy goat show.  Only two goats to show.  Diamond decides to throw a tantrum: refuses to walk in a straight line and attempts to bite me and then the judge.  So Diamond does not win grand champion,  but placed reserve which is not too bad all things considered.  Claidi the dwarf struts around like a queen this year which is an improvement on last year where she fought like mad to escape the show ring.  She wins grand which turns out to be a curse in disguise as I have to sit around for several hours till the end of the show where no judge is going to pick a nigerian dwarf over those larger beauties. 

Wednesday:  No show.  But the day where we drag the boer goats to the show grounds.  This undertaking would have probably been smoother if I had put collars on them earlier.  They did not understand the concept that I tug, they follow.  Instead; I tug, they lock up.  So it turns into a goat carrying day.  The older does were easy to get into the trailer.  Shake bucket of food, and in they go.

Later on wednesday after work I stop by to feed everybody.  On the chair in my tack pen is a note from the superintendant,  "please see me before you go".  Uh oh.  I learn that one of my goats has bitten someone and has to go home tonight to be quarantined for rabies.  Oh crap.  I was pretty sure it was Diamond.  She's always trying to bite someone and must have finally succeeded.  Instead it was Hippo, the little ober/alpine/togg cross:  Look at this face: obviously a killer:

At least Hippo lives up to her name, Hippos being super deadly in Africa.  Now you know.  don't mess with Hippos. 

Ruby the baby oberhasli happened to break with an odorous diarrhea so I took her home that night as well.  The ride home was one of prayer, "please don't have diarrhea all over the back seat".  I reached home without mishap.

Thursday:  Nothing with goats at the fair except routine feeding, etc before and after work.

Friday: See Thursday.

Saturday:  today is the big Boer goat show.  the babies still do not understand how collars work.  Luckily, my dad, husband, sister in law and her significant other were all on hand to help show.  The percentages did well.  Due to a respiratory outbreak in the 4-H Meat Goat Barn there was decidedly less competition and walked over the non-competition in the group classes.  The fullbloods did not do as well.  One year we will pull off our showstring from pasture and beef (or should I say goat?) them up with grain.

After the show the Boers went home.  And an animal services police officer came to check on Hippo's confinement.  Hippo was not pleased.  She did not understand why she was locked up and not allowed to play with the other goats.  the culprit of the goat bite was a fifty-five year old man that "did not know goats had teeth".  Who knew?   Only one more week left of quarantine for Hippo the rabid goat.

Sometimes goats get itchy and the fence is just not enough.  Here is Claidi the nigerian dwarf.

For fun

The Goats- They're a getting pregnant

It's that time of year where the goats are getting bigger.  We then start a guessing game of how many babies we think are in there.  A safe bet would be to say twins, but some goats seem so enormous already with a month to go that maybe they have triplets!

Fall Logistics

Fall tends to be an easier time of year for the goats.  No babies to manage, milking is minimal, and the weather's not too bad yet.  In past years we've managed pretty well with pens of to breed and not to breed.  No question.

Unfortunately this year has been a bit of hassle.  We have a new awesome Boer buck and new ober baby buck I got in the spring.  Whiskey, the Boer buck has been doing his job admirably.  We've been introducing him to does little by little to spread out the kidding season into two bunches.  So instead of one week where we're showered with goat babies, we get two such weeks! mid march and mid april.  See below for a nice movie of Whiskey flirting with Gaga.

That takes care of one breed.  Then for our dairy goats, we put Silver and Claidi together in the do not breed section and put Diamond and Ayrlawn with our pretty ober buck Copper.

A slight issue ensues.  Apparently the does scared Copper so much during their non heat time that when they actually liked him for a few hours he was confused and unable to complete his only allotted task.

On Thanksgiving, both Ayrlawn and Diamond came into heat.  They tail wagged, rubbed along Copper and talked to him contentedly.  After futile attempts by Copper including our assistance with pallets and milking stands, Copper remained a failure.  Huge FAIL.  He still gets next year.

So the does got hauled up on Black Friday, no shopping for me, to meet a lovely ober buck at Blue Ridge Farm (they have beautiful animals).  Thus all the obers were happy except for a frustrated little buck.

You'd think that's the end of the saga, but no.  What to do with Mehmen?  the little nigerian dwarf buck out of Claidi.  He has no one to breed.  We placed him in a small pen near the Boers.  He escaped.  It wasn't until we saw him scramble up the side of a goat house and vault from the house over the fence five feet away that we discovered how agile goats can be.  he was very impressive especially since he only comes up to our knees.  So he's with Copper now, the fail baby buck of the year. 

But breeding season is almost over. thank goodness.  

Story of a Goat Eye

Five weeks ago, Ayrlawn got her right eye scratched while out in the field.  What's pretty amazing is that the goats dont whack themselves in the eye more often.   Her eye then got infected and looked terrible.  We were afraid she was going to lose the eye.  See below...

You can see the massive inflammation going on.  At this angle it's hard to appreciate but she has severe corneal edema and corneal ulceration as well. So per several veterinarian's recommendations, she was put on Terramycin opthalmic ointment, 3x day.  Three weeks later:

A huge difference.  The eye is starting to clear up.  A large ulcer is still present but the inflammation is starting to simmer down.  What's cool about this picture is that you can see some sediment in her anterior chamber from the infection.  Another two weeks of medication three times a day and her eye looks like:

Tada!!!  So much better.  Still on opthalmic ointment though since there is mild cloudiness from the ulcer site.  But she can see!  She only went through three tubes of expensive antibiotic ointment but is looking almost new.

Baby Goat Movie

I've been playing around with a new movie program so here's some kids playing!  This is Salmon as a kid playing with her brother Snowflake.

Butternut Squash and Goat Cheese Bake

Here's another recipe in an attempt to use up all of that lovely goat cheese ricotta.  I'm usually not a fan of butternut squash but this recipe was really good!

Ingredients:
1 4lb butternut squash- peeled, seeded, and cubed
1/2 yellow onion- minced
1/4 cup olive oil
3/4 cup italian bread crumbs
1 tsp thyme
6 ounces of crumbled goat ricotta cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:
Preheat your oven to 400 F
Mix onion, squash, olive oil, thyme, goat cheese, and 1/2 cup of italian bread crumbs in a large bowl.  Add salt and pepper to your taste.  Pour it all into a baking dish and sprinkle the rest of the bread crumbs on top.
Bake in the oven for 40-45 minutes until lightly browned.

Goat Cheese and Mushroom Quiche

With several dairy goats, I find myself often overwhelmed with large quantities of milk.  An easy way to condense the goat milk down to to make lots of goat cheese, ricotta being the easiest.  Unfortunately there gets to be a point where I'm swamped with goat cheese.  An easy,  goat cheese involving, recipe I like is to make quiche.

Crust:
1/3 cup salted butter
1.5 cups flour
1/2 tsp thyme
1/4 tsp pepper
1 tbsp white vinegar
~3/4 cup cold water

 Place all ingredients except water into a bowl.  I like to hand combine the ingredients as the key is to have pieces of the butter still intact.  You can use a food processor.  After the butter is broken down and mixed in, add water little by little until you get a ball that is compact and sticking together but not wet.  Put the ball in the fridge for 10 minutes while preparing the filling.


Filling:
1 tbsp olive oil
1/4 medium onion, peeled and diced
1 large garlic glove, peeled and diced
4 ounces of mushrooms- use your favorites, sliced
4-6 oz of goat cheese, depending on how you like your quiches.  I've used up to 8 or so oz to clear some freezer space.
8 eggs
1 tbsp basil
1 tsp oregano
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp salt

The mushrooms, garlic, and onions can be sauteed on medium in the olive oil for about five minutes until the mushrooms are soft. 

Whisk the eggs, basil, oregano, nutmeg, and salt and pepper together.


Putting it together:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit
roll the dough out to cover the bottom of a 9" pie plate
scatter the cheese and mushroom mix over the bottom of the pan
Then pour the egg mix over the cheese and mushrooms.

Bake for 35-45 minutes until a fork inserted comes out clean.  The center is puffy and is no longer fluid when gently shaken.  Enjoy!  It's great for breakfast or even dinner with a salad.

Getting Whiskey to a New Home

 

This is Whiskey Shine.  He's our new buck!  Getting him home from six hours away in West Virginia proved to be more of a hassle than I expected.  My idea was to fit him in the back of my husband's Jeep Liberty which was at least much larger than my Toyota Echo.  I can barely fit our dog in the Toyota Echo, which doesn't stop Harry the dog from trying to get in it all the time since he loves car rides, even if he does prevent us from seeing the back seat.

On arrival with the Jeepaloo at Chestnut Springs Farm, I was all ready to load up the goat.  Slight hitch; Whiskey is a bit massive and there was some debate about whether or not he would actually fit in the Jeep.  We then looked at Whiskey, looked at the car, Whiskey, car, Whiskey, car.  You get the picture.  I was outvoted 2 to 1 about putting him in the car.  What if got scared they said?  There goes a window, a three hundred plus pound goat and probably whoever was in the car behind me.  

Fine.We'll get the goat home another way. 

New plan: My dad meets Chad, the CSF man, up in PA to bring him home, now only a three hour trip from home.  While our ford truck was a truck, it's kind of old and we have no idea how it manages to survive at all.  Hauling the massive Whiskey proved to be a challenge for the truck.  Up every hill it chugged like the little truck that could before whooshing down to the bottom before starting the next hill.  But it made it home with Whiskey.

At home, he was installed into a new pen to be isolated for important biosecurity reasons.  He got bored after two or three days and busted through the back of his house to join the baby bucks.  We were afraid he'd hurt them but he actually really likes them.  They try to tag team him to beat him up but since one is a nigerian dwarf and comes up to Whiskey's knees I don't think Whiskey even notices it when they hammer him.  Life lesson learned: the next buck I buy will be a baby or I need to buy a truck.