Surprise!

We have been waiting for little Coco to kid, and when Chris got home from work today he discovered that we had a baby! . . . but it was not from Coco. We were kind of surprised because we were not expecting anyone else to be kidding until May. After some quick detective work Chris figured out that it was Florence that had kidded. She had a beautiful single doe! I will have to post pictures of her tomorrow. 

I really hope that Coco follows Florence's lead and kids soon!

Accomplished Weekend

Wow, it has been awhile! So here is what has been going on:

We found out that Coco is pregnant, at this point, she is due any time now! I know she is getting uncomfortable, and he udder is filling nicely. I hope that all goes well for her in delivery, and would prefer for this kidding that she only have one, but she may have other plans. We do not know who that Sire is, she decided she wanted babies and took care of this one herself, so it will be a surprise for us when they arrive. 

The chickens have begun their production. I am sure the warm weather has helped a bit with that. We currently have 17 hens and todays egg count was 11! We have begun selling to people at work and posting ads on craigslist. I would hate for them to go bad, because there is no way I am going to eat 11 eggs in one day!

Chris has decided that he would like some chickens that lay blue and green eggs, so he put me on the look out for hatching eggs. We have an incubator, mine as well use it! Chris' friend found a guy close by that sells the blue eggs for hatching rather inexpensively, so I am trying to get his information so I can pick some up. He also has turkey eggs and peacock eggs. I would really like some fresh turkey this year so after the chicken eggs I will get some turkey eggs from him. Peacocks are an interesting idea and I would like to have some, but I think I am going to need to wait on them until I can get more area cleared away. 

I was able to sell Ash and Midnight today, a nice man from Pilot Mountain is purchasing them together as pets. He will be picking them up in a few weeks when they are closer to being weaned. I was also able to see my left over eggs this afternoon, so it was a pretty productive day! 

We found out that we will be having family down for Easter, which will be very exciting. It also means that we need to get working on the Barn lay out so the guys can get cracking on getting it started. We also need to get going on the barn so we can get more goats! We are running out of room in our shack at night. 

I started planting my seeds inside today, I have tomatoes, okra and scallion currently started and will start the majority next month. I need to have my garden space enlarged and turned up so when the warm weather hits I am ready to go. 

So as you can see things here have been busy busy busy. We never stop moving since there is always something to build! (or a goat that needs so love!) 

Welcome Home!

Well this weekend we adopted 6 chickens and 2 new goats. Everyone is settling into their new homes nicely. The goat, Gallahad and Diva were in a bit of shock to see everyone else, but are doing great tonight. The chickens are doing okay. We had a problem this morning with a chicken fight, which resulted in Shadow being brought into the house for wound care. We have since built a new pen for the rooster and his wife that caused the injuries. We were very happy to collect 3 eggs this morning from the new girls. We will have pictures of the new residence soon, it has been chilly and gets dark pretty early now. 

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!