Happy Steer

The steer loves the baby goats. They know it.

Unfortunately I don't have photos of the kids jumping all over him, which he seems to enjoy.

Here's a photo of one taking an afternoon rest with his big buddy.

He loves them so much that he licks all the Blu Kote off their disbudded heads!

If we pick one up or if we are feeding the little bottle kid, he's always there to check us out and make sure his little friends are okay.

Mastitis, Again

It's been a long few days. Four kids were born last Monday (4/22). We dried them off and got them in sweaters like we always do.

We made sure they had their first drink of colostrum, like we always do.

Gave them each a squirt of Nutri-Drench, like we always do.

The next day they seemed a little slow, but doing okay. Zoe is a first freshener and seemed to be a bit confused about the 2 kids at first.

Then she was okay.

Wednesday we lost one of Misty's kids. When I put Misty on the stand that night I realized she had a bad mastitis infection in her left udder.

It's been crazy since then!

The vet came out on Thursday. She's wonderful and we love her. She gave her a shot of Excede (a broad spectrum antibiotic) and Banamine (for pain and inflammation).

We were given instructions to strip out her udder twice a day and warm compress the udder twice a day. Also, give Equioxx paste (non-steroidal anti-inflamatory) twice a day to reduce the swelling in her udder, help control the pain, and help bring her 105F fever down. We also have to administer Spectramast L C once a day into her left teat.

By Saturday night Misty was worse so I texted the vet.

Dr. Wright came out again on Sunday morning because she's that type of vet... kind and caring.

She explained that there are four main types of mastitis and she had treated for the most common, and more easily treatable, first three. Apparently Misty had the fourth type. Good thing we called.

She placed a line for IV Ringers Lactate (Misty hadn't been eating or drinking), then she started on Baytril injectable (diluted with LRS) once daily, and Oxytetracycline injectable (LA 200) once daily.

Unfortunately she was so dehydrated that the line didn't stay in and she had to come out again on Monday and put it in the other leg.

Here she is today. The only thing she will eat right now is bananas.
So that's what we are giving her!

She seems to be doing better. We know she'll live, we're just waiting to see if she sloughs the lining of her left udder or if it heals.

Her surviving kid is doing great. She's on a bottle because the vet didn't want her on her mom. Thankfully we have Annie, who is a power milker. She's already feeding two kids, but has no trouble giving us an extra 1/2 gallon to feed the bottle kid.

I think part of the problem is that we couldn't get the mastitis vaccinations we needed last year because the company switched owners and stopped making it for a while. We didn't give them their vaccinations at the usual time. By the time I got the meds, I completely forgot about vaccinating.

All the other does have been started on their sequence of boosters and vaccinations now. Prevention is always best.

All the links to the meds are active if you are interested in looking up what they do.

A New Duck

We were given a duck by a neighbor. She had three ducks as pets and for their eggs. One was killed by a mink or racoon. Another had it's bill ripped off by the same animal. We took that one to the vet to have it put down.

You may think that is odd since ducks are farm animals, but since these were pets. It was best for the family to have the vet take care of Cornwallis (female duck with a male name, long story, but she was the favorite).

My friend was so worried about the last duck that she asked us to take her.

Bianca is the black and white duck. She has fit into the flock without any trouble. She's the only one with a name since we don't name our chickens or ducks unless they happen to have a 'personality'.

We were lucky to find a vet who cared for 'exotic' animals. Farm animals are considered exotic if they are pets instead of living on a farm. At $60 it wasn't cheap to have the vet put down Cornwallis, but it was comforting to the family to know that she was cared for like any other severely injured, and beloved, family pet.

Goat Kids 2013

The kids seem to be healthy and strong. I think they are stunning little goats again this year!

The buckling is in the striped sweater in the back.

The doeling is in the blue sweater in the front.

They are a little skittish, which isn't unusual for kids from this doe. Once we hold them, they calm down and are fine, but some days it's a little hard to get close to them.

They both have beautiful backs, stand correctly (the doeling especially stands beautifully without any stacking), and have a gentle slope on their rump.

Vet2Be won't be showing this year, he is too old for 4-H. The little doeling would do well around here so we hope she gets sold to someone who has the chance to show her off!

Spring Worming for the Goats

In the photos below you'll notice that there is alot of hair loss on our buck. That is one way we can tell that our goats need worming.

See the thin hair on his withers?

He is also rubbing himself on every fence and post because he is so itchy.

We wormed with Ivomec Plus because it does a very good job in our area. It's extra-label use for goats so check with your vet, just like we checked with ours, to make sure it is okay for your herd.

We follow up with a week of Mineral Max because we know that in our area most goats don't get enough copper.

We buy Mineral Max from The Farm Store because it seems to be the cheapest place for us to get it.

We also worm the does right after they kid because the stress of kidding seems to increase the worm load. The does also get a week of Mineral Max after they kid to help them stay healthy and strong while they are feeding kids and we are milking them. We keep them on the Mineral Max once a week throughout their milking and we seem to have fewer health problems.

Goats Who Unlock Fences

We have no idea how the buck and wether are opening the gate and getting into the back yard. But they are!

Crazy goats!

This is our temporary fix until we can figure out something better. 'Better' means we don't have to take off a bungee cord each time we head to the barn. Not the easiest task when we have our hands full of things.

See the clip at the top? That's what they manage to open. We haven't caught them doing it, but we catch them in the backyard (and in the neighbor's yard) often enough that we know they can.

The bungee is holding them in for now. We would rather have them out eating the grass then penned up eating hay, so we're stuck with this for a little while.

Hubby tried to add the chain link gate latch, but it doesn't fit on our fence. We need something the goats can't open, and something that we can open from either side of the gate. Something we can do one-handed when necessary.

I'm thinking about taking the photo to IFA and asking one of the nice folks there to come up with a solution. They always do their best to help down there, which is why I keep going back.

If you have any ideas, feel free to post them below! There has to be something easy that I don't know about, or haven't thought of.

Freezing Aspargus

I've processed more asparagus in jars this week than I want to admit. I had 6 bunches left to process and I wanted to try freezing some.

We haven't eaten any of the processed asparagus in jars, so I'm not sure how it turned out. But I am confident that it's safe to eat and I've been saving asparagus casserole recipes just in case it is mushier than we want to eat straight out of the jar.

I hot packed about half of the asparagus in 1 1/2 pint jars because they are tall. I raw packed the other half in pint jars. I prefer processing it raw pack in pint jars because it's faster and I waste less space in the jar because I can cut the spears right in half and they fit.

Onto the freezing experiment!

Here's my set up:

I used my steam canner because the pot is big enough that I can fit the whole bunch in one pot without having to cut any spears in half. I lined my canner basket with a round cake cooling pan so the asparagus wouldn't fall through the bottom of the basket. I use the same set up when I process 1/2 pint jars of jam, too. Small jars seem to sit on the rack without tipping when loaded on the cake cooling pan.

 Blanching foods kills the enzymes (gasp! I know there are lot of people who will never allow this in their home, but since we are not able to eat fresh, raw foods every day, we like to be able to have food available to eat all the time.... even if we have no income!)

Killing enzymes stops the food from breaking down and spoiling. It also kills any harmful bacteria that might be along for the ride.

Place the asparagus on the rack, lower into the boiling water, and blanch for about 2 minutes. I make sure the water is boiling for at least 1 of the 2 minutes.

Immediately remove from the boiling water (the canning rack with handles helps do this very quickly) and place in an ice water bath. Leave the asparagus until it is completely cold... not cooled of... completely cold. This usually means leaving it in the ice for at least as long as leaving it in the boiling water.

Take the asparagus out of the ice water bath and place in a (mostly) single layer on a cookie cooling rack and place in a freezer. The more asparagus (or other vegetable) you are trying to freeze at once, the longer it will take to freeze. The quicker you can freeze the asparagus, the better texture you will have when you eat it in the future.

When the asparagus is completely frozen, seal it in freezer bags with as much air removed as possible, or use a FoodSaver. Label it, place in a deep freeze (if you have one) or the regular freezer and use within one year.

 That's it!


It isn't possible to flash freeze foods at home (I can't afford a freezer that will freeze my food in 12 seconds!) so the texture isn't the same as what I buy in the store. However, it's nice to be able to process food at home and to know there won't be a recall on it.