I know it has been a while since I blogged, so just a short one here so you can see my milking set up. This is Lollipop on the milk stand. We are getting about a gallon and a half a day from our goats. Not great, but enough for what we need right now. We are miking 5 now, but Jill is only milked once a day because we are letting her raise her babies, May and Max.
Here are some of the first pictures of May and Max. May looks just like her mama and Max looks li
ke his daddy.
ke his daddy.So this is May getting her first drink of milk. I can’t believe the difference in the development of the kids when they are taken care of by their mama’s. May and Max were up on their feet and eating in about an hour. This is so different from Sugar and Beethoven who could not stand until they were a couple of days old.
Max looks like Val, his daddy who we no longer had, but he was a full blood Nubian.
Jill is 1/2 Nubian, 1/2 Boar. We are really happy with her milk production and this is with only milking her once a day. We shut the babies up at night and milk her before we let them eat. Now I don’t want anyone to think we are being cruel and not feeding the babies, because Jill will not let us have all of her milk, she saves back what she needs for her babies.
Echo, who would not have anything to do with her kids, Sugar and Beethoven, has now decided they are okay. Of course we are still bottle feeding them since she has no milk, but she does eat with them and watches out for them a little bit. They are eating grass and grain a lot better since she is in the pen to show them.
I even caught Echo baby sitting for Jill’s two kids, May and Max. They were playing on the slide and Echo was close by watching over them while Jill was wandering around eating. May and Max are also eating grass and grain.
We are still waiting for Rosie to have her kids. She is getting so big. I had to leave on Sunday and I just knew she would have her kids the first part of the week, but it is Thursday and when I talked to Steve she still has not had them. I don’t know if she is just waiting for me or what.
Since I have been gone this week Steve has taken over the farm duties and is doing a great job with it. I think he is getting more milk than I have been so I might just let him keep helping me. He really loves it when I “let” him help! He sold a couple of gallons of milk this week, has skimmed cream so I can make butter when I get home and has even frozen some of the milk so we will have it for soap making.
If you know of anyone in the Pryor area who wants fresh, raw goat milk, just let us know. We sell it by the gallon, 1/2 gallon or quart. We also sell cheese and yogurt. We are still not able to sell it at the Farmers Market, but you can come by the farm and pick it up there. You do need to call first to see what we have.
If anyone wants to buy a cute little bucklins’ I have two for sale. Beethoven and Max would make great pets or bucks for your head in a year or so. They are bottle babies, so use to human contact.
Until next time.
