Breeding time is here!

We had a few cows that didn't move to the new pasture with the rest of the herd.  They had new calves and didn't seem to care about staying with the group.  Saturday, Mr. Broome and his pastor brought their border collies and together managed to move those cows across the road with the rest of the herd.  Now of course, it wasn't as easy as it sounded.  It took a few tries......I'm not sure if you can tell by the pictures butit was very foggy that morning.

Moving calf back down the road

Mr. Broome with his border collie

We worked all of our does Saturday and separated them into their "breeding groups".  We have Gold Digger in with the purebred and commercial does; Rooster is in with the 100% New Zealand does.  Kimba decided to jump in the driver's seat of the mule while we were sorting the goats in the catch pen (a good picture opportunity.) 

    

Rooster is finally with the does

Gold Digger checking out the ladies

I'm hoping to be posting some new information about some other goat breeding that might be going on here at our farm........Until then............................

Update on pups

I have finally been able to get a few more photos of the pups to share.  It has been a job to try to get a halfway decent shot of them.  They move around a lot!  I've got random shots below of them in the pasture.  We wanted to let everyone know, these pups have been around cows, horses, and of course, goats.  They are trained to a self feeder.  We put a 50 lb bag of food in it, and with the two adult dogs and 5 pups, it only lasted 5 days.  They are eating real well.

Hanging out with dad

Checking out the cows

At first we intended to have no contact with the pups, but when it came time to give them their shots, I couldn't catch them.  They wanted nothing to do with me, because we had had no interaction with them.  We now try to go out a couple of times a week and at least try to put our hands on them.  The kids really are loving that!

Shane bought a LGD locally a couple of years ago.  He ended up being a fantastic guardian for the goats, but not one of us could get our hands on him.  He would run way off from us and bark.  We had the hardest time catching him to take his collar off that he was outgrowing.  It was digging into his neck.  Our vet had given us "ace" to give him in his food, and that didn't even work!  Him not wanting us to touch him ended up being the death of him.....we couldn't catch him after he had been bitten by a rattlesnake numerous times; until it was too late.  I feel like the LGDs need to have some human interaction so they will not be like he was. 

Cooling off

Self-feeder

Learning from mom

We had a man come by yesterday to look at one of our adult LGD's that is for sale.  He really wasn't ready for a dog yet, but he went ahead and paid a deposit on one of the males to give him time to get his animals set up.  So as of now, we only have 2 females and 1 male out of this litter of pups left for sale.  If you are interested just give us a call or email.  We also may be able to deliver.

Swimming Sally and Shaggy

Sally and Shaggy decided to take a dip in the pond today to keep cool in this 90 degree fall weather!  I noticed she was soaking wet the other day, but couldn't figure out how she got that wet.  Now I know how, she rolled around in the pond even getting her head wet.  The other horses decided to stand back and watch them from a distance.....I guess they thought those two were being childish.  It looked fun to me.  I'm glad I was able to see it.  Sorry for the picture quality.  I was pretty far from them, but this is as close as my camera would zoom. 

Saturday's work

So this is what we've been up to today. We had some land cleared in our back 40 last year. It was around 12 acres in the bottom of our pasture. Well it has grown up this summer and Shane has wanted to see some goats out in the back 40 for a while. This week he has worked on getting the perimeter trimmed back to run hotwire around it. This is a panoramic shot of what it looks like from on top of the hill.


You can see how thick the weeds and brush are behind Shane. He took his machete after we ran the wire and knocked down the weeds that were in the way. We are using a portable solar fence charger, and weeds will pull down the charge pretty quick.




We loaded our bucklings and some of our yearling bucks into our cattle trailer after we checked FAMACHA scores on them. Shane hooked the trailer to the tractor and off we went. We had to drive through our 15 acre pasture that our main doe herd is in. I wanted to get some pictures of them when the fellas passed by....I wondered what they would do when they smelled the older guys cologne. (We have had some come in heat and they have had many attempts made at getting in with our bucks. We are trying to wait a couple more weeks so we will have a later kidding.)

Here they are before they realize what is in the trailer coming through.

And this is after they realized what was in that trailer. I drove ahead of Shane to open the gate and I looked back to see the girls making a mad dash to get to that trailer. I just did get the gate shut. Those are some persistent ladies!

They stood at the gate and waited for us to come back through, I guess to see if we might throw a fella out for them!

This is the bucklings getting unloaded in their new home. We have 2 guardians with them. We are going to let them stay here and see how they do with all of this brush. This field is surrounded by the National Forrest and we have seen fox, coyotes, turkey, deer, and even some wild hogs out there. The LGD's will have to really sleep with one eye open back there.

Heading out to enjoy some good eatin'. There's plenty of it, that's for sure!

Oklahoma Buck Test

We have 4 of our bucks consigned to the OK buck test at the Kerr Center. I wanted to mention that we had to have one of ours pulled from the test due to tapeworms. That kind of puzzled me why they would remove our goat because of tapeworms, but they use Valbazen as a dewormer for tapworms, so technically he can't qualify because of it. Mary Penick from the buck test called Shane and told them that they had a buck die at the test. When they did the necropsy, it show he was loaded down with tapeworms. That was what they considered his cause of death. I've always been told that tapeworms were not really anything major to worry about, but I find it kind of interesting that it was the cause of death for one of the bucks. It just may be something to worry about. If you are interested in following along with the OK buck test and their results, they have a blog here: http://kerrosubucktest.blogspot.com/.

DSK News Page

As of now, I am not planning to do anymore "news pages" on our website www.deepsouthkikos.com. I am able to keep things updated here on the blog more often than once a month. It seems to be easier to put it out there as things happen. We will see how this goes...If you have any suggestions, please feel free to let me know, I'm open for any suggestions.

Since Shane has started his day job, he has time in the afternoon just to enjoy the farm. Everyday we let our our bucklings around the barn and sit and watch them do some "weed eating." Now isn't this the life or what!?

It's getting time to round up all of the cows that we purchased earlier in the year to sell at the yard. The "crazy cow" is still just as crazy. This is as close as I was going to get for her picture. Mr. Shows asked Shane how she was doing....she's had a calf and has filled out a good bit. Just wish us luck when it comes time to load her up. I am not looking forward to what tricks she will pull.

We have decided to sell 2 of our LGD's. We have 6 as of right now, 2 in each pasture with their own herd. We will be combining 2 herds later on and figured it was time to let two of them go.

This is Xena. She is a daughter out of Kimba and Jael that is 8 months old. We are asking $400 for her and she will be sold registered through the AKC.

This is AZ. He is 13 months old and we are asking $250 and he will be unregistered.

Pups

I tried to take some photos of the pups today, but none of them seemed to be in the photogenic mood. They are now around 9 weeks old. They have been eating out of the dog feeder along with Jael. I gave them their shots last week and they were wormed as well. Hopefully I'll be able to get some individual photo of them soon.

I did have to share this one... Look at those puppy dog eyes!!!

Coccidia, toxic plants, and did I mention Coccidia?

It has been a battle with coccidiosis around here for what seems like forever! It started out with a few of our bucklings, and spread throughout the whole herd of bucklings. We decided to treat them and move them into the field with our other bucks, and wouldn't you know coccidia decided to show its ugly face again. We have been drenching them individually if they have the symptoms....runny runny runny diarrhea. We did fecals on those that had stool firm enough to run the sample, and it was overwhelming how many of those coccidia oocysts were seen in some of the samples. Shane called every feed store from here to Timbucktoo to see if they carried the rumensin blocks made by Sweetlix. NO ONE had any! He finally talked with a woman at a nearby feed store and she said she could order them, but they would have to be made and shipped to the warehouse, then deliver to her store when the representative came by. At this point, we were ready for anything...Two LOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNGGGGG weeks later, they arrived.



Shane had put them out in an old tub with no cover, but of course the goats had to jump on top of the blocks.....So they are now stuffed into one of our homeade mineral feeders with a rubber flap on top for protection from the hooves. I hope it works at preventing us from having this issue again. Shane has about come to the conclusion, that the coccidia may have come from our pond. Wherever it came from, we DO NOT want to see it again!!
On another note, we have our does in a new pasture with an "unsecure" fence on the backside that joins the National Forrest. They began slipping through the fence and nibbling on all of that wonderful browse. We then began to notice a few does with the scours. First though was OH NO, coccidiosis! Then we came to realize that the does were eating a plant that has been told to us is toxic to goats. We now have a strand of hot wire on that side to keep them exclusively in the pasture. No more roaming around the forrest! Since then, no scours! A local goat farmer pointed out the plant to Shane and told him that it would make the goats sick; and called it purple mint. Their parents must have forgotten to mention to them about not eating this plant, because I would catch them out and most always this plant was being attacked. Here are some pictures of the "purple mint"

***UPDATE*** (2012) a reader has informed me that this plant is called beauty berry.  Click here for more information on beauty berry.

Here is a picture of another plant growing around here that is supposedly toxic to goats. It grows some sort of fruit looking thing on it. They are everywhere on one side of our property. I was told that these trees were used to produce some kind of chemical, but I have honestly went blank on what it was! The goats aren't interested one bit in this plant though.

***UPDATE (2012) *** The photos below are of a "tung oil tree" Click here for an interesting article on the history of tung oil.

This is Sweetie Pie (Mallory named her) She is one of the most curious goats we have. She will come up and check us out so closely, but if we try to reach our hand out to pet her she runs. Mallory is the only one who can pet her, so Mallory thinks this goat belongs to her.

I tried again to get another shot of the new guy on the block. I think his name is going to be Gold Digger. He was too interested in the goats on the other side of the gate to pose for any pictures. We will be ready for the bucks to be put in with the does in the middle of September for hopefully a later kidding than last year. But as you can see by his coloring he and all of the fellas are ready to go right now.

PEEEE------UUUUUUU

Any ideas on how to get the smell of stinky bucks in rut off of your hands??? I've read that you can use lemon or lime and that didn't seem to do the trick.



Even washed my hands with good ole' soap and water and still have that stinky smell. Just wondering if anyone out there has any good recommendations.....

Good-bye donkeys

Shane has just decided to sell the donkeys. We first started out with donkeys to be guardians to our cattle before we goats. It was kind of a learning experience. Our first donkey came from the local sale barn for $20 ( you get what you pay for!) He seemed to be ok to begin with, but we had a cow that had a calf one day and he decided he was going to get his teeth on him and get rid of him. That was such a scary day for me, Shane wasn't home and all I could think was that this poor confused newborn calf is about to get killed because of that crazy donkey! We were told stories about them killing calves, so Shane had prepared me with instructions to shoot him with the 12 gauge if I caught him doing it. ( I really never thought I would have to ) So there I am, telling the kids to stay in our yard, grab the shot gun and run (yes I know, very dangerous; I didn't want the donkey to get the calf OK?) When I finally got a clear shot of him without hitting any other animal around, I pulled the trigger. Not really thinking about what distance I was from him. ( He made me run and get out of breath and I was MAD!! ) I ended up shooting him in the back end with bird shot about 6-8 feet away...Needless to say, he stopped and quit chasing that calf. I don't think he knew what hit him! We led him to the catch pen and shut him up for the night. The next day, he had to go....

We learned our lesson, just because donkeys are great guardians, doesn't mean that they all are. We ended up purchasing these 2 from a man in Ovett, MS. He had around 10 jacks and jennies with his herd of cows. Since we have owned them, we haven't had a loss to any predators. (before the donkeys came along, we lost 3 calves to coyotes the year before) It is getting difficult to keep them seperate from the cows when we want the cows to graze along with the goats at different times. It is deeply ingrained in donekys to hate dogs, so we can't have them out there with our LGD's. I wouldn't want them getting used to dogs anyway.... We just have no choice, but to let them go.

Jenny with her colt she had this year.



Jack, father of the colt above



I just love baby donkeys, they are so fluffy!