Slippery elm and bicycles

Not a bad few days since I last blogged.  A few new arrivals and some more new mums but things are really starting to quieten down on the kidding front now.  Only 11 more goats to kid right through to 22 May when we finish with young Martha.  I think we have a total of 127 babies at the moment.

Here's a little pile of them:

Very warm and comfy.

Next door are a couple of little white people - the smaller one is the one whom you met in the last blog being fed by foster mum Cilla:

Cilla has now gone back into the main herd and so Meryl is being her foster mum.  She is slowly learning to feed from a bottle but it looks like it's going to be a long slog.  So, to make sure that she gets fed, she goes visiting any Auntie who looks like she may have some spare milk for her!

We have a couple of tiny brown people who have not been doing so well and have had a bit of an upset stomach for a few days.  We have started to mix a little slippery elm powder in with their warm milk and they now seem to be picking up quite well.  Here are the ready mixed bottles - notice the colour is darker than the nice white milk in the jug behind:

Slippery elm powder comes from elm bark and is a wonderful herbal rememdy for upset stomachs.  It is also very nourishing and so the babies are getting a little something extra with their milk.  They certainly seem to enjoy it and come running to the fence to be lifted over for their feed.

I spent most of today at Balham Farmers Market.  As well as the numerous street signs for the market, there is a lady who takes the market bicycle out for a couple of hours around the local streets - can't really miss this when it goes past!

It was lovely to see GeeGee Parrot's Mama again and we had a nice chat at the end of the market when it was fairly quiet.  Although it is not the busiest market, I do have quite a lot of regular milk customers there and more and more of them keep coming back.  Repeat business - that's the name of the game.

Right then - I'm back off up to the barn to see what the night will bring.  Persi was due to kid on Wednesday and is looking a bit thoughtful this evening, as is JoJo our lovely Anglo Nubian who isn't due until Monday.  It would be nice if they would let me sleep and then kick off in the morning but you can't reason with a goat!  Especially a very large pregnant one .. or two ...

Night night everybody ..