And More Babies!

As we were getting ready to put the animals up for the night so we could settle in to enjoy our Easter meal I noticed Sadie laying down with her legs all locked behind the chicken coop. Chris secured our meal so the dogs did not eat it and came out with towels. I sat with Sadie, in the rain, while Chris put up all the animals.

Sadie is a seasoned mom and within 20 minutes she had two beautiful girls on the ground and cleaned. I was amazed to watch her with her babies, especially with all the trouble we have been having with Lela not wanting to be with hers ... yet! The girls were having a hard time getting the milk to flow from mom so Sadie reached her neck around and started massaging her own udder with her mouth to aid in the dropping of the milk.

I will work to get pictures of Sadie's babies as well as Lela's!

Lela is bonding well with her babies. One of the boys is able to nurse from her unaided. The other boy (Duke) and the girl (April) are not yet at that point so I am assisting with bottle feeding until mom takes that over. The family was able to all sleep together for the first time last night and is spending the day walking around my basement so I can supervise and continue feeding.

Hope you all have a Happy April First!

Happy Easter!

We certainly have entered kidding season with a BANG!

This past Thursday - Petunia delivered one healthy boy and one healthy girl.

The girl is the fawn colored and the boy is the more white one.

what a great hiding place!

This Saturday - Coco delivered one healthy boy and one healthy girl.

The boy is the brown/black one and the girl is brown and white.
Coco came over to where we were working on the barn and started hollering for us to come over to her. Once we got over to her, she began having strong contractions and finally after an hour and half she had her two babies. Coco certainly prefers for us to be with her when she delivers and does whatever she can to get our attention when its time!

This Saturday - Lela, who is a first time mom, delivered 3 boys and 2 girls! - wow that's a lot of baby for one small goat! Sadly, one boy and one girl did not survive the delivery, Chris and I missed the delivery and cannot say for sure that our presence at her delivery would have changed the survival rate of the two babies. Lela is still in shock and has not yet accepted the babies as her own. Chris and I are working with Lela to make sure the babies are fed and working to get them acquainted with her. This afternoon Lela started sniffing them and began to lick them a little, so there is still hope!

Pictures of Lela's babies will be up soon!

More kiddings to come!

Barn Update!

Well due to the mild winter we have had construction of the barn has not been delayed! Three out of four sides have been framed in (the fourth has not been done yet because there is still quite a bit of material under the barn and we need a way to get it out!) Two of the sides have been sheathed!

Things are moving quickly around here and we are all getting very excited! The end feels like it is almost here!

Here are some pictures of the progress from this past weekend!

A few weeks ago we had a minor emergency with one of the goats! Mamma cracker her horn and it needed to be removed. Since she had cracked it basically all the way off, we were able to remove it quickly and she has been healing well. Here is a picture of the old girl with her new "uni-horn" look!

Barn Building Continues

Well, Chris informed me that I need to keep up with the blog on a more regular basis, so I am going to do my best to spend time updating the blog, facebook, website, etc!

This weekend Chris and I spent time cleaning out chicken coops and working on the barn. Chris' dad came over on Sunday to help with some more barn progress. The barn is coming along, and it is hard to not get excited about the girls being able to move into it!

The back wall is almost completely sheathed, the second stories windows are sheathed. Here are some pictures of our progress. 

Three views of the back side of the barn. 

Windows at the very top

Second story hay storage

And Deva was supervising the guys the whole time, she is pleased with the craftsmanship and was cracking the whip to get the guys moving!

Here's to hoping the winter stays mild so we spend the cooler days working the barn. (I prefer this time of year for barn work then the summer, too hot and too much gardening/canning to be done)

Happy New Year and Happy Birthday Dad!

Merry Christmas!

Love - Dragonfly Farm

Happy Winter!

Well it certainly has been a while since our last update! I think a New Years Resolution for the farm is going to be more regular with updates to the Blog! (and website!) anyway ....

We have been busy around the farm, all of the babies from Spring were sold. We decided to retain three, Sable (Sadie/Donnie), Jayden and Melanie (Misty/Elvis). The three are doing well and are continuing to grow and become a part of the herd.

With the cooler weather Chris, Myself and Joe (Chris' Dad) really pushed work on the barn. The barn now has a room, the top is framed for windows and has been sheathed. We are working on sheathing the back right now. Then all that is left is, adding windows and doors where needed, sheathing the other three sides, deciding on siding material and putting it up and the interior work. There will be three sections to the inside of the barn. 1) a feed/storage room, 2) a nursery and 3) main goat area.

There is still a lot of work to do, but if we can continue with this momentum the barn will be done in no time!

Over the last few months we have lost two of our peahens, leavings one male left. We have plans to get him some females, just having some trouble locating someone that has any right now. One of the hens we literally lost, she flew away, and the second died from a parasite overload. Some lessons you just need to learn the hard way, but know that I have an idea on what to look for in a sick peafowl the better I am with preventative care.

We have added a few animals to our clan, we adopted a female turkey and 5 chickens. They are doing great. We also purchased 30 standard cochin chicks in May. We had some major issues with predators breaking into the chick pen, but after a few weeks and about 10 losses we got everything straightened out and the chicks have grown into beautiful looking hens and roosters. We have already begun to receive eggs from them. I can also see that Chris and I will be enjoy plenty of fresh rooster this Winter.

As the weather began to get colder in October, we began to plan our breeding season. We have already had quite a few mating sessions and are waiting to see if any of them took. We are hoping for an early start to kidding season with the first babies being born in March. We are continuing to breed females as well so we hope for a long season for Spring of 2013 as well.

Oh yes, I almost forgot!
This fall I began creating homemade Goats Milk Soap to sell. Our product line is called, Body By Dragonfly. This has been a wonderful experience so far, selling mostly at craft fairs in the area. We did create an etsy page and hope that sales will pick up from there. Come and check us out!

Baby Pictures

Well as promised, here are some baby pictures that were supposed to be in the last post.

Sable - from Sadie and Donnie - she will be retained as Sadie is due to retire.

Jayden and Melanie - from Misty and Elvis - Jayden is the black and white and Melanie is mostly black

Dottie, Stella and SweetP are due to kid in July/August - i will keep you posted to their progress!

I know that there have been lots of requests to see updated pictures of the barn ... so here ya go!

Since these pictures were taken the roof has been put up on both sides and an over hand has been installed to protect the windows that will be in the split of the roof. The barn is coming along nicely. The next step will be to frame and side!