Photos, Photos, & More Photos

What is the quickest way to catch you up on what's been going on at the farm... how about a few photos?

Lynn has twins: 1 buck, 1 doe. This is the doe: Mystic.

Lynn's twins, just born.

Kids at play on the rock pile.

Big kids at play on their new ramp in their new play area.

Wisteria has twin buck kids.

Another addition to our busy weekend

We thought our busy weekend was over... not so fast! On Sunday evening Jetta decided to go into labor with triplets! Yep, one of our first freshening Nubians gave birth to 2 does and one buck kid. She even tried to push 2 of them out at once. These kids are sired by our Jr herdsire: Silverwood Prince Merlin.

Twin does arrive!

Jasmine freshened today with twin does. We are so excited to actually have does! But so tired at the same time. This means that we have had a total of 5 doe kids and 16 buck kids born so far in 2010.

Eventful Weekend

Another eventful weekend around here. As the weather gets nicer and new kids arrive, more and more people want to come out and visit. This makes for some very busy weekends. We are not complaining! We love seeing friends and family, and the goats love company too. It's just that we do't get as much time to catch up on our sleep. If there is such a thing.

We knew Saturday would be a busy day. We had to get feed, go to our tax appt and we had 3 groups of people coming over in the afternoon to visit the babies. That all got a bit more hectic when Raven, one of our Nubian does, decided she was going to start kidding at 10 AM. So, Laura stayed home and Chris went to get feed and to our tax appt on his own.

Raven decided to take this process very slowly. Laura noticed the water bag emerging at 10 AM. Raven's first kid wasn't born until noon (a buck kid). Then a second one finally followed at 12:45 (another buck kid). As neighbors were getting the new babies dried off and taken care of (navel's dipped, etc.) Laura milked Raven to get colostrum. Then Raven got some nice warm water, grain and alfalfa hay. We got the babies fed and tucked in under a heat lamp. That was about the time that group of visitors #1 showed up.

As Laura was explaining about the goats, she noticed Raven grunting. Then another grunt. Thinking it was just Raven expelling the placenta, Laura didn't give it much thought. Until another grunt... that is when Raven pushed out buck kid #3! Shortly after that group of people #2 arrived. As we were drying off this kid and making sure he was taken care of... group of people #3 shows up.

All in all it was a wonderful day of visiting, but a lot of work and waiting as well. We did chores Saturday morning at 6 AM and got in about 8 AM. Then Laura went back out at 10 AM and didn't get back in the house until 4 PM. Then, both of us were back out at 6 PM for chores. Luckily Chris volunteered for the midnight feeding. We will laugh about this some day.

A Busy & Exciting Day

Lexus's buck kid

FSF Merlin Illusion

Today turned out to be a busy day at the farm. After Wylie kidded at noon, her daughter Lexus decided to kid at 5 PM. And... drum roll please... WE GOT OUR FIRST NUBIAN DOE KID OF 2010!!! So Exciting! Lexus had 2 lovely twins, 1 buck and one doe. That means that we have had 15 kids born so far this year, and had 3 doe kids out of the whole lot.

Lexus did a fabulous job: she milks out like a dream and is eating and drinking like a champ. We are so thrilled with our new kids! We have named the little doe: "FSF Merlin Illusion".

Wylie kids - 1 big buckling

It is beginning to sound like a broken record around here this kidding season... yes, we had another doe freshen... yes, we got another buck kid! Wylie freshened around noon today. One of our neighbors checked the goats today while Laura was at work. At noon she called Laura to say that one kid was out. So, Laura raced home... thinking that another kid would be on the way. After all, this is an experienced 4 year old, who has always had twins. She is pushing 200 pounds, and getting more uncomfortable by the day. She had to have at least twins, if not triplets. NOPE! One big buck kid. He was so big, that we decided to weigh him... eight pounds! Eight pounds for one Nubian baby is pretty large!

We waited and waited for 2 hours hoping that another kid would arrive, but no luck there. Guess we need to be happy that we have a healthy kid and healthy mama. And, the sun is shining.

Surprise... It's a buck year!

Well, it must be a buck year here this year... Claira freshened 2 days early with a set of quadruplet buck kids. She was sneaky about it - we didn't expect her until Saturday. When Laura came home from work in the afternoon, she found the kids (although one had died). Claira is our Nubian matriarch. She is 10 years old now, and this is her 9th freshening. She typically has triplets of quads each year, and until 2009... most if not all of those had been girls! I guess she had some making up to do!

Claira is a champ - and doing fabulous. Back to eating, socializing and producing lots of milk. All three remaining kids are doing great as well. These are the first kids from out new Jr Herdsire: Silverwood Prince Merlin. Boy, are the cute!

Princess kids with twin bucks

Last Thursday, March 11, Princess (one of our Saanens) decided to kid and give birth to twin buck kids. We did have to assist in this delivery as the first kid was breach and the second kid had one front leg back. Needless to say it was an eventful evening. Especially since it made Laura late for a class she needed to be at for work!

Sundance has Twins! Congratulations Tempo!

We are so excited that one of our 2 year old Nubian's freshened this morning... even though she had twin buck kids. Sundance kidded at approximately 8 AM this morning and is off to a great start.

The reason these kids are so special is because they are sired by our Senior herd sire: CH Blissberry Wild Tempo. And - if you remember, Tempo made an emergency trip to the vet hospital last fall. Well, after getting a grim diagnosis, we brought him home to care for him the best we could. Not only has Tempo recovered tremendously, but shortly after being home he bred 2 does. And - this is one of them. These kids are miracle babies! We have never been so happy to see healthy buck kids before!

Welcome to the world little guys! This brings the kid count up to seven: 5 bucks, 2 does.

Prius gives birth to Twins!

Hi everyone!

What a great weekend we have had! Prius, one of our first freshening 2 year old Saanen does, freshened this afternoon with a set of healthy twins: 1 buck and 1 doe. We are really excited about these two - and they are extremely tall! The new kids were happy to drink from a bottle and Prius was thrilled with some alfalfa and warm water.

We did have a bit of an eventful evening. We give pre-kidding Bo-Se and CDT shots to our does to help with muscle tone, kidding and to pass immunity on to the kids. After giving a Bo-Se shot to one of or Nubian does tonight, she had a reaction. She had what seemed to be an allergic reaction. Although we were extremely scared, and she was most likely scared as well, we got her calmed down and her breathing returned to normal. We did call our vet in the process and she informed us that this can happen and the best defense is to have epinephrine in your medicine chest. Luckily this doe was able to come around after this spell. She went back to eating and socializing with the other does. I guess this just shows us that life is always unpredictable!

We are loving the chances we get to play with our new kids! Here is a shot of the group of them.

Kidding Season begins with Triplets!

We are so excited that kidding season has officially begun! This morning at about 9:30 AM, one of our Saanens, Sherry's C Tilly gave birth to a healthy set of triplets (2 bucks, 1 doe). Everyone is doing well - the kids all drank from a bottle right away and Tilly was thrilled to have a nice snack of alfalfa and warm water. Here's hoping that all of our kidding go as well as this one!

These kids are aslo the first kids from our first home grown buck: FSF Nitro Cosmopolitan. So far, we like what we see!

We will be keeping the doe kid, who we named Seattle. The 2 buck kids will be available for sale.

Enjoying the calm before the storm

Hi everyone! We are still here, things have been quiet the last 6 weeks or so, which is a nice change of pace. Chores are getting done and the does are getting bigger. It's nice to be able to do morning chores in less than 30 minutes before work. Then in the evening everything takes about an hour. During evening chores we make sure all the hay feeders are full, water buckets are freshly filled and everyone gets a grain treat. Of course, we also have to allow time for a scratch on the head, a neck rub, or whatever attention each one craves at the time.

The first doe is due on March 4th and we can already see that she is starting to change her routine due to her ever-growing belly. All the girls in the barn are getting a little anxious (and a little bit crabby) as they get bigger. We are really excited to see our new arrivals soon!

Before the babies start to arrive, we have a lot to do in the next few weeks. We have already started giving does their CDT and Bo-Se boosters. This will help give the new babies immunity for the first few weeks of life. We will be loading in hay to make sure we have plenty of nice grass hay and wonderful alfalfa to get the does started right when they freshen and start their lactation. We will get the barn cleaned out and everything freshly limed and bedded so that everyone has the best environment to live in and be born in. We will also have to change our groups of animals around in the barn, to make room for the new babies. This will lead to a little bit of friction for a day or so. But, in the end, we will try to group goats together that get along well.

As we anticipate the new arrivals, we are also thinking of name options. Each year we use a theme. We are thinking that themes this year will be around "magic" or "stars". Names that we have come up with so far include: Chant, Charm, Potion, Spellbound. We need names for gilrs and boys... so start thinking! If you have ideas for names please leave us a comment on the blog and we'll take them all under advisement!

Last Set of 2009 Kids Born

On Wednesday, June 3rd - the last set of kids were born for this year at Four Seasons Farm. With all the excitement about the Buck Show this weekend, it has taken me a little while to get these posted. Sienna, our only Nubian yearling milker for 2009 had 2 very nice buck kids. All are doing well, and the new boys will be looking for homes soon. We have named them Black Velvet and Jack Daniels. These are also the only 2 buck kids we have left that are sired by Tempo in 2009.

June Baby Arrival

We had a new baby born last night (Tuesday).  Jasmine, one of our 2 year old Nubians gave birth to a lovely doe kid.  We've named her "Wild Tequila Sunruse".  As with all of our kids - there is a story.  We were both at work yesterday.  We have had a 4-Her comming to our place a few times a week after school to work with the goats and help with chores.  She usually gets to our house before we get home, so she sets up for milking, does some feeding and works with her animals.  Well, the phone rang a Laura's work - and it was her saying that she had been out to the barn and she found the new baby.  This was all a great surprise because the babies weren't due until Thursday!

What is not a surprise is that this baby is already spoiled!  She's a keeper for sure!

Babies in April

Gazette was giving us little signals during morning chores that she might have her kids yesterday.  She would look at us in a far off sort of way, she was  lot more talkative or vocal and she was extremely uncomfortable.  The poor thing couldn't find a position that was comfortable.  She kept getting up, and laying down.  Only to get back up again.  All of this was enough for me to say "Okay sweetie - I'll stay home with you this morning in case those babies come."  And, she was not pulling our leg.

By about 9 AM we had another set of babies born yesterday (April 6).  Gazette, our best Saanen doe, kidded with a set of twin bucks.  I guess this just proves the point that we are having a buck year this year!  So far out of 22 kids born, we have had 7 doe kids.  I swear it is written somewhere in the universe that we are only going to have a maximum of 3 Saanen doe kids on our farm in any given year.  Gazette was our last Saanen doe to freshen this year.  I guess I should just be grateful for the 3 Saanen doe kids that we do have.

We are expecting 2 more does to kid (both first time freshening Nubians) - but not until June, so things should calm down around here for a while.  That will give us time to catch up on other chores like hoof trimming, fire wood, and a few very old recorded tv shows!  (that's a joke...)

I'll try to get photos up soon of the new kids.  We also opened up the outdoor kid play pen area which contains the rock wall we made a few years ago.  The kids were pretty amazed at how large their world had become!  We'll be sure to include a few photos of that as well.

Feeding Babies

Many people have asked how we feed all of the babies.  They do get fed with bottles for the first few days.  But after that we use a lambar bucket.  This a a bucket that has 10 niples in it, with hoses that run into the bottom of the bucket.  We put a pre-measured amount of milk in the bucket, then let the babies drink.  This video should give you a better idea.  Enjoy!

Playing Catch Up

It's been a while since I posted an update. I had the best of intentions - things just got a little hectic around here over the past week. We are up to 19 new babies at the farm. We had a new Saanen doe kid born on Thursday, March 19. We've had some ups and downs over the last week, but I am happy to say that we are finally getting back to some sort of schedule. By we I mean Chris and I - not the goats. We adjusted the babies to 2X feedings yesterday. That will be a huge help. Now we don't have to run home in the afternoon to feed or arrange for someone else to fill in for us. Also, we are starting to get to sleep at a reasonable hour - for the whole night! Now, we can actually do chores at 6 AM and 6 PM. This means that Chris gets to work on time in the morning, and we both get to bed before 10 PM. I know all of this sounds fairly boring - but, right now this is our life. Just trying to fit everything in to one day and trying to get enough sleep for the next day. It all seems very busy right now, but it will all be worth it.

We had lots of visitors this weekend. Family came over to see the babies and celebrate birthdays. Friends stopped by to see the babies and pick up milk. We love seeing everyone.

More Babies... More Bucks

It must be the year for buck kids.  We had another  doe freshen on St. Patrick's Day around 9:30 PM.  Raven, a beautiful black Nubian doe that we purchased as a kid finally freshened with no trouble at all.  She even has a perfect udder for a first-timer.  The only problem was that she had 2 buck kids.  I had been hoping for doe kids - so badly.  She is such a beautiful girl, and I wanted to start a line in our herd with her at the beginning.  At the very least, her boys, who we have named "Guinness" and "Bailey's" in honor of the holiday are extremely handsome.  My hope is that someone will see them and want to include their great features in another herd.  

You may notice that the photos of these boys do not have the barn as a background.  That's because these 2 lucky guys got to spend the night in the laundry room so that we didn't have to trek out to the barn at midnight.  How lucky are they?!

We now have a total of 19 babies.  There are 6 does, and 13 bucks.  There is still 1, possible 2 does due from now until the beginning of April.  Then, there will be 2 more due in June.  

We have started getting a number of visitors at the farm.  We love having people out.  This is the time of year we get to see neighbors, friends and relatives that we may not see very often.  Many people want to know when the best time to visit is.  We generally ask people to come during chore time (5-7 PM) since that is the time we are milking does and feeding kids.  Also, we are already in the barn, so having people there is not an inconvenience.  We do ask that you call us first, to make sure we don't have something planned.  Sometimes we do schedule larger groups (scouts, 4-H, etc.) and would like to put a limit on the number of people at that time.  Also, we do still have to get the work done here- so sometimes we may ask you to have a second choice of visiting time in mind.  Thanks for understanding - and we look forward to seeing you!

We're Back on Schedule... Maybe Not

We have a schedule for feeding the babies when they arrive.  They get fed every 6 hours (4X daily) for the first two days, then every 8 hours (3X daily) from day 3-7.  We decided to adjust all the babies to 3X feeding yesterday.  That way we feed them at 6 AM, 2 PM and 10 PM and we get to sleep like normal people!  In addition we are training them to use a lambar bucket instead of bottles.  A lambar bucket is basically a pail with about 10 nipples all the way around it.  Inside the pail, each nipple has a hose that reaches the bottom of the bucket.  This way they still suck on a nipple to drink, but it is a lot faster and easier to clean.  When they get really good at it, we can feed 10 babies at the same time in under 1 minute.  We'll post a photo of the babies using the lambar bucket soon.  All of this means we can get in the house by 10PM, have time to catch up on a few things, and crawl in bed before midnight.

That's how is should work.  Not this time.  As I was going to bed about 10:30 I checked the camera monitor in the barn.  Claira, our Nubian herd matriarch, was clearly in the process of pushing a baby out into the world.  We got our there as fast as we could and in the course of 15 minutes we welcomed 3 new babies.  Claira had 2 buck kids and 1 doe kid.  They were a little slow to drink, but after we dried them off with towels and the blow dryer and re-warmed colostrum (the first milk from the doe that contains all the good antibodies) they took right off!  All are doing well today.  By the time we got back in the house it was 12:15.  I guess we could have fed at midnight after all.  So, for now, we are in between schedules again.

Whoa Baby!

To say that Thursday, March 12th was an eventful day would be an understatement.  We started the day at 4 AM thinking that one of the goats was showing early signs of labor.  Chris went to work around 5 AM, and I (Laura) continued to watch the monitor for another hour.  Then I went out and did morning chores at 6 AM and everyone was fine.  No new babies over night.

At about 9:30 I saw Wisteria, one of our Nubians, starting to show strong contractions.  I went out to the barn, prepared for the delivery and the first kid ( a pretty black doe) was on the ground by 10.  No problem, I've got another 20 minutes before the next one comes, right?  Nope.  Try 5 minutes.  With the addition of a handsome brown and white trim buck kid, now I have 2 soaking wet babies in a barn that is 20 degrees.  So what do I do?  Call in reinforcements!  My neighbor Mary came over and helped dry off/blow dry the babies and get them fed.  All of this was in time for me to go to work by noon.

Chris came home about noon for the afternoon baby shift.  I had to be gone for the rest of the afternoon because I teach a class on Thursday nights from 6:30-9:30 PM, and had another appt at 2:30.  We asked Chris's Mom and sister if they would come over and be available to help "in case" a goat should freshen.

Well, my appt wrapped up around 4:45.  When I returned to my desk I had a message from Chris at about 3 PM that LuvBug, one of our Saanens had just given birth to twin bucks.  Everyone was doing well.  When I returned his call, he informed me that Wylie, one of our Nubians, had started showing signs of labor.  By 5 PM she had given birth to TRIPLETS!  1 doe and 2 bucks.  By this point I think he was happy to have extra help at the barn.  I was feeling a bit left out of al the action!  When I left the barn this morning, I had 7 babies, now there was 12!

By about 7:40 PM I called Chris to see how things were going.  At the start of the day we had agreed that he would bring a few babies to my class for everyone to "oooh and aaah over".  We had agreed that he would be there between 7 and 7:30.  So, I call... and he answers to tell me that he will be on his way in a couple of minutes - after he milks Tilly.  Wait... did he say Tilly??  When did she come into the mix?  Tilly is one of our Saanen does.  He then tells me that she freshened nearly effortlessly at 7 PM.  Oh my gosh!  

Chris, his mom and sister were absolute champs.  They did all of this work, and then they did bring down Tilly's twins and Wylie's triplets for the class to see.  Everyone loved them of course.  They just couldn't fathom that they had just been born a few hours before.  I am very grateful to have such an understanding, hard working spouse.  And my adopted family (in-laws) are just gems.  Who else would put up with and dive into all of this?

We now have 14 babies on the ground - and I missed the last 7!  What kind of mama am I?  As soon as I get a chance to snuggle all the new little ones and take their pictures, I will post some for you to see.  I'm sure Chris's account of all of this is different than mine.  I'm going to see if he'll jot down his thoughts sometime tomorrow so that we can compare notes.