Time To Dry Off The Goat Mommas!

Dot will miss her fresh milk daily!

We're hoping that Randi the Buck has done his job, and that our Goat Girls are now pregnant.  He's been with the ladies 24/7 for over a month, and was very enthusiastic to get on with his work!  We are currently still milking the does, but the time has come to dry them off.  Once a doe has been pregnant and produces milk, theoretically you can keep milking for a long time: we've heard of does that milked for more than two years steadily!  That is, as long as they're not pregnant again.  Making milk takes a lot of energy, making babies takes a lot of energy so it's either one or the other.  Apparently, you can milk a doe through the first three months of their five month pregnancy, which means we could milk until the end of December.  However, two considerations for us: first, we had a Randi 'break-out' before we put the buck and the does together and Choco may have gotten pregnant early.  Second, we're about to get so cold weather-wise, that we'd rather give the girls a longer, healthier break from milking.  And us, too; we'll actually be rather happy to have a break from the routine of milking.

Drying off a doe - getting them to quit making milk - is going to take us about six weeks.  Like everything around here, we're going to do it fairly naturally.  We have started this week by going to milking just once a day, in the morning.  The first night was quite amusing - we went up to the barn at our usual time but instead of taking out a doe, we just gave them a little grain ration to share, right in their pen.  Mabel, always first to get milked, stood up on the gate, watching and waiting.  She didn't head for the grain, she kept waiting to be taken out of the pen.  From there, usually, she would go on the milking stand and get her own (private) grain ration to enjoy at her leisure.  As we gave a little grain to the kids, tossed a little scratched for the chickens in the barn and fed the cats, Mabel continued to watch our every move from the gate.  She seemed to be in disbelief.  Feeling sorry for her, we put a little more grain ration in the girls' bowl, taking the scoop right past her to entice her, then said good night and turned out the lights.

The next morning we went up a little early, not sure what to expect.  None of the does seemed in any discomfort, although all three were very enthusiastic about heading for the milking stand when their turn came.  There was no bulging milk bags, no cries of pain - all things we thought possible.  Mabel and Chocolate produced about the usual amount of milk, Goldie produced a little more than usual.  Again, in the evening, we just put everyone to bed as usual, giving the does a little grain ration in their pen.  During this week, this has easily become the new normal with no problems.  We'll do this for a couple of weeks, lessening the grain ration that they receive each morning, which will also help with the transition.  In a couple of weeks time, we'll go to milking every second morning, then milking every three days, then we'll just stop.  And with that, the does will be dried off, ready to grow beautiful, healthy kids!

We'll miss our fresh, raw milk.  We're an all-goat-milk-all-the-time household right now.  We do have milk frozen, which will get us by for a while.  Probably late winter, before the new kids are born, we'll have to buy commercial milk.  We're not looking forward to it: our fresh milk is beautiful and delicious!  Probably, the one who will miss it the most is our little barn kitty 'pet' Dot, who is in the habit of following us to every milking and getting a little bowl of fresh, warm milk to enjoy!

It's Officially Mating Season for the Goats!

A little primping!

It's time to start thinking about having adorable baby goats bouncing around next Spring!  No, really, you've got to plan for these things!  Last year we bought our buck, Dandi Randi, in the middle of December.  We thought we were being so smart; we'd have babies in May, when the weather was nice.  We wouldn't have to worry about babies getting chills, there would already be nice, fresh leaves and grass for the Mommas for sweet milk!  Well, turned out to be a critical error: we should be planting out our seedlings in May, and keeping up on the weeding of newly seeded rows!  Between the late nights monitoring the Mommas, sitting with goats in labor and bottle-feeding babies - we were worn out and weedy before our CSA season even started!

So, this year things will be different! Although Farmer Man and I have had some spirited discussions on just when to put the buck and the does together, we agreed on October 1st, looking to have baby goats in February or March.  Maybe the beginning of February, if one of the girls is receptive right away.  February is a little early for my taste; we can still be very cold in February but we have heat lamps and insulated boxes so everything should be alright!

A bit too enthusiastic right away....

Fall is the normal mating season for goats.  It can be manipulated - apparently the females can come into heat just by being around the male or smelling a rag impregnated by his scent.  Brambles Nubian Goat Farm, where we got all our lovely goats, is having babies now.  Our late Spring baby girls: Marble, Cherry and Chica, are really too young to breed right now, so that's a disadvantage we hadn't thought about last year, either!  Boys mature early, Gaffer, Marty and Myrvan are ready to breed (boy, they really think they're ready) and are currently for sale.  Their dairy goat genetics are excellent and their temperaments are all delightful, and they should make awesome sires and be a great addition to some dairy goat farms somewhere.

Our Buck, known as Dandi Randi, has been ready to breed since the middle of summer!  A goat buck's idea of making himself attractive involves urinating on his face...so Randi has been smelly and sticky and loud and pushy for some time!  He has continually tried to get out of his pen, tried to get at the girls and generally been a little hard to handle!  His name became Readi Randy and we've been getting tired of his antics.  Finally, the last couple of weeks, we noticed the ladies were getting a little difficult.  More obstinate, petulant, cranky and milk production has been down!  Seems everybody is getting in the mood.

A little dinner...

So, October 1st started with a wee grooming for Randi - to get him ready for the ladies!  After milking the girls and putting them all out to pasture, we got Randi on the milking stand and fed him his morning grain ration while doing his hooves and giving him a (fairly) good brushing.  Having his scent on the brush may help the ladies get in the mood!  When we led Randi out to the pasture - did his attention perk up!  We let him loose but stayed to monitor things.  He was immediately on the hunt - pursuing poor Choco around the field for a good five minutes.  Strange noises, licking, sniffing - quite the sight!  It was interesting he picked Choco because she was the last to have her babies this past Spring, so the last to succumb to his advances!  Maybe he could smell that she was in heat, or maybe he likes a challenge.  After a little while, things settled down and we went and cut willow for everyone, and it seemed quite quiet in the pasture the rest of the day.

The buck and the does will stay together 24/7 for more than a month now.  Does are in heat (known as estrus) for only about one day, but will come back into heat in about three weeks.  We want to make sure the 'deed' gets done so we'll give them lots of opportunity - as long as Randi stays a gentleman and doesn't appear to be getting rough with them!  We will not take the chance of the ladies being injured so we're keeping a close eye on things - one of us will be around them regularly throughout the day!  Kind of like a chaperon, don't you think?  

The End of One Chapter for the Goat Triplets!

Farmer Man feeds Marble, one last time!

This morning was the last morning that our little goat triplets will get milk.  Yes, Marble, Myrvan and Marty are now officially weaned!  They grow up so fast!

If you follow this blog, you know the triplets were rejected by Mama Mabel at birth, and we've been bottle feeding them since the beginning.  It was, originally, a big daily chore:  the babies got milk four times a day for the first few weeks!  We'd milk the does in the morning, feed the triplets, a few hours later we'd warm milk in a 'bain marie' style, and feed again.  We'd do that again in the afternoon, milk and feed again in the evening.  The chore went down to three times a day, then two times a day.  Two times a day was fairly easy to fit in because we fed them at milking time, morning and night.  Our Mama Goldie takes a long time to milk; we'd milk Mabel first, fill the babies' bottles, then Farmer Man would feed them while I milked Goldie.  The feeding itself never took long - the babies could empty a full bottle quickly!  Not necessarily neatly, but quickly!

Myrvan and Marty are big boys now!

Milking has been a messy, sloppy chore!  We got used to coming back to the house somewhat splattered and changing into clean clothes!  Bottles would drip, goats would stop to sneeze, milk moustaches would get whipped off on Farmer Man's shirt!  It was, however, good bonding time and we really see the difference in how comfortable the triplets are with people, particularly in contrast with the twins who came last and were well cared for by Mama Choco.  Gaffer, being the first born and only kid for a few weeks, has always gotten lots of attention.  The twins came last, almost a month after Gaffer and two weeks after the triplets, and it's not that we were bored with babies...it's just we were busy with the triplets, and busy with planting, busy with weeding and Choco was keeping them in line!

The amount the triplets have been getting at each feeding has been slowly reduced over the weeks from ten ounces each feeding, to eight, back up to ten when we went to down to two feedings a day, then eight, then six, then four ounces.  We went to just a morning feeding a couple of weeks ago and bumped the volume up a bit, then reduced, reduced, reduced until this mornings' feeding was really just a mouthful!  It was all over in seconds!  The triplets have all taken to a grain ration with gusto, enjoy their hay and love, love, love some willow tree!  We're sorry to see the shared time go...but perhaps we'll just turn it into grooming time - so we can still hang with the triplets! 

Our Little Manitoba Dairy Goat Herd!

Mervy and Marty, two of the triplets.

An update on our little herd of goats!  We've had goats a little over a year now, starting with our three Mamas: Goldie, Mabel and Chocolate arrived last June.  We currently have a herd of ten - having added Daddy Randi in December and having seen the birth of six kids through May and June!  What an adjustment it's been; the time has been full of laughs, joy and yes, quite a bit of frustration and worry!  Being new goat keepers nothing is familiar, routine or 'to be expected'.  You can read all you want and watch all the videos you can find, but the best lessons learned are the ones you experience!

Originally adding the three does to our routine was not at all a burden.  We already had a pattern morning and night for feeding the chickens and we had, in previous years, had a small group of Berkshire pigs to care for each summer.  We did not bring in pigs for the summer we added the goats - one thing at a time.  When we added young Randi in December the Farmers Market season was over, the farm was quiet and he just went in with the does and was hardly a 'blip' on the work radar.  There were times....like when the does were following Farmer Man around and figured out how to get on the roof of our house!  We got into a nice rhythm of feeding, grooming and hoof trimming and all was well.

Gaffer and Marty: less than two weeks apart in age, but
being an only child gave Gaffer a weight advantage
from the beginning!

Goats are awesome animals: sociable, intelligent, affectionate.  We enjoyed, throughout the Fall and Winter, taking them for walks, without leashes.  We learned not to worry about them 'escaping' because they always just came to look for us if they got out.  We did find we had to improve our fencing a bit - they are smart critters and better jumpers than you might think!  And yes, they like to eat the ornamental flowers and shrubs in your beds, borders and pots! We continued our education, to care for the does while pregnant and into birth.  However, nothing prepares you for actually going through labor with a goat the first time, second or third time!  Of course, each doe had a totally different experience with a different set of problems!  You can read more about the birth of all the kids here, here and here.  Choosing the 'goat', 'Nubian goats, or 'The Goatling' labels from the right-hand side of the blog will bring up all the posts concerning them!  Adding the routine of milking and feeding baby goats has been a bit of a strain!  Our big error was having babies in May/June - when we should have been planting and tending our vegetables.  We thought we were being so smart (!) having less to worry about in warmer weather but it did put us behind in the gardens!

We're still learning lots, each and every day.  Randi was very young when we brought him here: we both laughed when we first saw him and asked if he was old enough to 'do the job'!  He obviously was, and has produced beautiful kids!  Randi is a purebred registered Nubian goat; his father Buccaneer was recently declared on of the top ten bucks in Canada!  Our newest experience is a buck in rut: Randi has decided it's mating season now, and he's already putting on his 'show'.  Fall is officially mating season, as the days get shorter, and we have no intention of breeding the does again until October.  This could be an interesting few months coming up!  The mating rituals of male goats involves weird moaning noises, peeing on one's own face and producing lots of musky odors!  I guess the does don't mind, but I'm not finding him as attractive these days!  It's actually quite 'yucky' to pet him at this time, much to his consternation!  He loves a good rub on the forehead but.....not happening right now!

Marble, the third triplet, and the twins, grazing and nibbling
on their favorite treat: willow branches!

Our females are all high-percentage, commercial Nubian does.  Goldie and Chocolate are 75% Nubian, Mabel is 85% Nubian.  We chose Randi as our herd sire to strengthen the Nubian/milking lines.  Goldie is part Saanen and Alpine, and has the cute little wattles under her chin, which she has passed on to her son Gafferty.  As Gaffer has been fully weaned, we're quickly learning that Goldie is an incredible milker!  Literally twice the production daily of the other two mamas at around two litres morning and again at night!  If you're interested in increasing production in your dairy goat herd, Gaffer is available for sale - contact us!  Mabel, although not a 'happy' mother, is a very good milker, quickly producing her litre and a bit morning and again at night.  Her triplets are high percentage Nubians, with the added milking genes of Randi's lineage.  Her two sons, Mervyn and Marty, are also available for sale and are extremely friendly and people-oriented as they have been bottle fed from birth.  Chocolate has the creamiest milk of all three - although we've never had it officially tested in any way, but by taste, to us, it's the nicest milk.  Her milking capacity is a bit of an unknown, as we are still allowing her to nurse her twins, but we keep them separated during the day and get more than a liter in the evening milking!  I believe her twin girls will be available for sale, because we do not have the capacity for too large a herd right now.

Having baby goats around the farm has been extremely fun!  It's made us very popular with friends and customers; we've become a bit of a destination!  Hey, wait a minute, isn't that agri-tourism?  Maybe we should have made some money at giving tours!  Baby goats are just a hoot - they run and jump and climb and then 'zoom' over to see how you are.  Especially the triplets, bottle-fed from birth, are just like pet dogs, although they're getting a little big for our laps now!  And soon, now that we're getting extra milk - some serious soap making is going to go on around here!  Once we get caught up in the vegetable gardens.......so maybe October for that soap making!