Names have been decided!

I would like to introduce you all to our babies (who finally have proper names)

Midnight - doeling (Sadie)

Ash - buckling (Sadie)

Ariana - doeling with waddles (Stella)

Willow - doeling (Stella)

I am also excited to announce that we will be adopting 2 new goats this weekend, along with some chickens. We are pleased to welcome Diva (doe) and Gallahad (wether) along with their black star friends. We are hoping to pick them all up this weekend, and pictures will follow. 

I have heard from Jasper's new family and he is doing well, making lots of friends and lovin life!

Everyone grows up!

Well I listed Jasper online yesterday morning and around 4:00 I got a call about him. They came out and met the cute little devil and decided to take him home. Thank you Jeff! He is going to a cattle farm where they have other goats and a donkey to keep some of the ladies company. There he will have a very loving home, and the best part is that he is only 5 min away so we can go and see him now and then! We are glad he found a great home, but still sad to see him go. Now we are down to 16 goats, and we are discussing selling a few more (not sure on which ones yet, tough decision). 

Our next task though, is to name all the babies we now have. If we don't name them soon they will be known as the twins or so and so's baby. So we need to get to naming. Out of four babies we have named one, midnight, the black doeling. We need to name 2 silver does and 1 silver boy. The boy will be either cinder, ash or cole. The girls, who knows! Any suggestions, throw them at me!

Sadie kidded!

Well this morning I noticed that Sadie has a little white on her back end and decided to email Chris. I asked him to check on her when he was home for lunch because she was close to having babies, but I am not going to stay home because she was a few more days to go. Boy was I wrong! Chris found two little babies when he got home for lunch! Sadie had a black doeling named Midnight and a big buckling who we are considering naming Cinder or Ash (aaash). 

Midnight - black doeling with frosted ears, tail and head

Cinder or Ash - grey buckling

The buckling is almost identical to Stellas babies from last week. He is just a little darker. Well we should be done with kidding until Spring, so we get a little break, and hopefully can figure out who we are going to sell. We are now up to 17 goats, we started last Jan with 6! It is an addiction!

Stella had babies!

I came home at 3:00 today to find one of my pregnant does missing. I quickly found her laying in the barn. She was going into the first stages of labor. I checked her every 30-45 minutes. Chris and I did our last check around 6:15. I decided to do one more check at 7:45 and she had a set of identical twin girls! 

I helped dry them off since it is cold out and called Chris in the house so he could bring me some supplies. The only difference in them is that one has waddles, just like her mom!

As of 10:00 tonight they are both doing well and snuggling with their mom. I am sure they will be okay thru the night and in the morning the loving begins! They both need names at this point, so if there are any suggestions we are open to hear them!

Crazy chickens everywhere!

Well we adopted a new chicken this past week and have appropriately named him Shadow. Not only is he black but he is willing to follow you around the basement and outside since we keep the other roosters away from him. He is much smaller than our other roosters so we don't really see him much. He was perching on the satellite arm, but the past two nights he has been sleeping in the woods somewhere. He comes to the back door when he is hungry and the parents that we are open the basement door for him to come running in and to get a good meal. ::shakes head:: never thought i would say that about a chicken! We decided today to put him in the buck pasture since the other chickens stay away from there, and in hopes that the higher fence would deter him from flying over. It will give him a safe place to sleep and a warmer place (since he is not a fan of sleeping with the other chickens). Here is a picture of Shadow from todays basement lunch. 

He is a very handsome man, hopefully he will warm up to little bit and we can have some nice cochin hatching eggs! 

We have been talking about the up and coming goat barn, and what it needs to have and should have and all the details so we can start debating and then get to leveling and building. I am excited about this! So far we have a 20x30 structure and an existing small structure that has to be moved. 

Here are some Christmas fun pictures of the goats! Enjoy! 

Its almost here!

We had a wonderful weekend with friends and family in CT/NY. The trip was way to short, but very worth it. While we were gone Miss Hatti and her grandkids watched over everything for us. From what I hear they had a wonderful time and are considering purchasing some animals in the future. 

We are ready for Santa here, our stocking are hung by the chimney, the tree is up and decorated as well as can be, and the presents are wrapped and tucked away in a clever hiding space. Now all that is missing is the snow (which is not going to happen since we are supposed to have a 50deg Christmas).

Oh, I was cleaning this weekend and stumbled across something Chris wrote for me one morning, wanted to share his cleverness and cuteness with all of you:

After the dogs were out

they ran back to be fed

finishing that, they sneaked back to bed.

The girls were crying

as I was trying to

convert ounces to cups in my head.

The girls got the milk they needed

were filled with water and grain

while they bleated .

A quick prayer was said 

to the empty cage that

was set up for the birth of food.

The eggs were rolled

as a story was told.

Tucking them back into bed.

It was a very clever note that was created to let me know that all the morning chores in the house has been done.  We had baby goats to bottle feed, a cricket cage that needed to be cleaned, dogs to feed and walk and our first set of eggs in the bator that needed to be turned by hand.  

Hope you enjoyed his little poem! Well time for work, have a Merry Christmas!

Another weekend down

We finally got our second pasture finished today! Only took like forever :) The ladies have plenty of room to eat the brush. Hopefully this will help us keep our hay cost down a little bit. 

Chris also managed to start siding the run thru to keep the ladies out of the wind. We talked and decided to side it all around and turn it into a small shelter. The more places that are warm and not windy the better. 

On an exciting note, we will be going to CT soon to see the family. It will only be for a few days, but I am excited. I am baking cookies out of my ears to take with us. 

Guess that is all for now. Thanks for stopping by!