Daramac goes on his holidays

Those of you who have been following our little blog for some time may remember that our lovely white boy Daramac used to spend a lot of his time in Margate with our friend Mary to keep her boy Gus company.  Sadly, Gus died earlier this year and so Daramac came back to live permanently with us. 

 

He has been a very busy boy again this year but finished his work when we moved the goatlings back up into the main barn a couple of weeks ago.  However, barely had he got his breath back when Mary arrived on Friday to take him away on his Xmas holidays.  She still has a couple of young ladies who require his services and so he will be spending the festive season by the seaside.

He will be sharing his hotel suite with Casper who is only a little chap and a son of his old mate Gus.  I spoke with Mary on Saturday to make sure that my boy was behaving himself as he is rather large and can be quite a handful, but she assured me that he was perfectly happy and that he and Casper were getting along quite well.  Daramac had apparently taken the best spot right under the hayrack, just to let Casper know who was boss.

The weather on Saturday was absolutely glorious and the sun shone on Balham Farmers Market.  But I think everyone must have been Xmas shopping in town as it was a pretty quiet day for most of us.  Just as well perhaps as we have very little stock this time of year - milk and cheese is very thin on the ground.  However, we do have other lovely bits and bobs to sell including our delicious goat meat, handmade goats milk soap and wonderful quince jelly.

I stacked up the jars of quince and let the sun shine through them.  Just like a stained glass window!  It certainly caught the eye of many people walking past and one of my customers stopped to take a photo for me:

Such a glorious colour!

No market for me today so David and I spent some time moving straw and hay around ready for the week ahead.  The weatherman is predicting heavy snow for us on Tuesday night and so I restacked a load of hay bales in the barn to block up some of the gaps and make it as weatherproof as possible.  I just hope that we don't get the blizzards and avalanche like we had  in February .. remember that?

 

 

No point in worrying .. we will just have to wait and see what the week brings!

First snow of the season

As David arrived in the barn this morning he announced that it was going to start snowing around 8am.  And so it did .. The first flurries of the season!  Not enough to cause a problem but just enough to be annoying. 

 

Off I went on my local Wednesday morning deliveries .. very pretty in  the woods on the way to one house:

 

 

The Gracie Moos didn't seem to mind as they were waiting for their breakfast to arrive:

 

 

And there was absolutely no chance of the goaties even sticking their noses outside.  Daphne and Flora were snuggled up watching the snow fall through the back door:

 

 

But as I am now back indoors all warm and cosy in front of my coal fire, it seems to have stopped and is starting to melt.  More forecast for the end of the week I believe ..

 

Think they have had a bit more in Scotland though - here's a photo sent by one of my customers.  Gorgeous!

 

 

 

 

 

Getting ready for winter

We are gradually getting everyone settled and ready for winter.  The cows are all back in the yard at the farm - and very cosy we all look too!

The goatlings are all settled in their new pen in the hay barn:

And the little meat boys are all happy together in their own area:

I have told the little men that they will all be with us for Xmas so they can all hang up their stockings on the wall!  The chaps destined for the butcher over the next couple of weeks are the youngsters who originally went to live with Uncle Phil at the Museum of Kent Life so my lot will still be around until mid January.

The big boys are settled in one corner of the milkers' area - Fremlin, Daramac and Beamish (you can just about see him in the back left corner!):

Whilst Max is still out with all the girls - for another week or so, anyway:

David has moved a load of straw into the barn so that we have easy access to it in case of bad weather:

 

And we also have direct access into the hay stacks without needing to go outside:

As we are located right on the very top of the North Kent Downs we do tend to suffer quite badly if there is heavy snow.  In past years we have had to dig through 10ft drifts just to get into the goat barn and so moving hay and straw around by tractor would be virtually impossible.  We like to be prepared .. just in case!

The milkers rarely venture outside these days and are very content just to wander around in the barn eating hay.  At this time of year, there is an awful lot of lying around going on!

These are a few shots taken this morning.  Goaties just lounging around ...

 

 

Snuggled right under the hayrack (centre of pic!):

 

Or, in Martha's case, right IN the hayrack:

 

And I have managed to book our scanning man for next Tuesday, so we will find out then who is having babies and when we are due to start kidding.  Doesn't seem 5 minutes since we did it last year.

So, off to bed for me.  I leave you with a fab pic of Fremlin doing that 'male-goat-smelling-girls-curly-top-lip' thing ...  Handsome boy!

Has everybody got one?

Four big Gracie Moos.  Four little baby calves.  Oh yes, and the fifth young Gracie Moo who is just a teenager and not old enough to have babies of her own just yet.

Tuesday evening was bitterly cold and very windy and as I did the final check on the cows as I closed up the back door of the goat barn, I could see that the oldest and largest Gracie was sitting at the back doing a bit of huffing and puffing.  David climbed in to have a closer look and came back out to confirm 'yes, we're having babies'. 

So, I went off on my evening deliveries and David stayed with Gracie for her delivery.  And I have to say that it was quite a novel experience for me to be tucked up warm and cosy in bed later on whilst he was out in the weather waiting for babies to arrive!  I figure that he has to do it once a year to make up for all those freezing cold nights that I spend running out to the goats in my pyjamas during kidding time!

And here she is - the final baby of the year:

So, as last year, a nice balance of 2 bull calves and 2 heifer calves.  Well done Gracies!

During all the moving around of the past few days, one of the feed bins has been emptied and is currently lying on its side waiting to be moved into place and refilled.  Ginger was very excited when she spotted it as she thought it would be an easy way to get food.

Poor Ginger.  The look of utter disappointment on her little goatie face was something to behold.

And, talking of goats in bins .... here's another one:

This is young Ellie in the milking parlour.  She jumps off the ramp, runs round to the feed bin and lifts up the lid with her nose so that she can stick her head inside.  She is such a naughty little goat - I have warned her that if she continues to behave badly, we shall have to change the name of the dairy!  Don't think she cares much.

And so to bed ...  This was Beamish and Fremlin fast asleep this morning. 

 

Beamish is snuggled in the corner whilst Fremlin is sprawled out right next to him with his head on Beamish. Even those big smelly boys need someone to snuggle up to on a cold winter night!

All on the move

Today was the day when we had to bring all the goatlings back up to the main barn and move the female kids down to where the goatlings had been.  About 120 goatie people to move.  The logistics were quite complicated as it all had to be done simultaeously and so we borrowed several large trailers from other farmer friends.  We also enlisted the help of another sheep farming friend so that we had enough vehicles to tow the trailers!

The howling winds that we had during the night fortunately subsided quite early in the morning and then the sun came out - dry weather makes moving animals a lot easier.

First of all, we had to split off the female kids from the male kids who were staying behind at the main barn.  A lot of checking of eartags to make sure that we hadn't missed anyone and then a lot of lifting goats over gates to get everyone into the right pens for loading.

Although everyone was a little wary of running up a ramp into a trailer, they were all pretty well-behaved and loaded very well.

Then, with a convoy of tractors, pickups and trailers galore off we went:

When the goatlings returned to the main barn, all the milkers came across to see who had arrived and so there was a lot of standing up on gates and pointing of ears ..

The babies who moved to the other barn just went skipping around in the new straw before investigating their new home:

And everyone seems happy tonight!

In the midst of all the moving, we also discovered that one of the younger Gracie Moos had given birth to a bouncing baby girl!  Just the oldest and biggest cow left to calve now ..

Gracie Moos come home for the winter

Although the Sussex cattle are a very hardy breed, anxious father David likes to have his girls all tucked up in the cattle yard at the farm before the bad weather really sets in.  Especially when there are very little people around as well.  So, tractor and trailer went off up the road this morning and returned with three of the very large and round Gracie Moos.

Back off up the road to collect the remaining two with their babies and then everyone was home for the winter!

While we were moving the cattle around, I shut the back door to the goat barn.  Obviously, some of the more nosey goats then wondered what was going on.  Here's Polly and Pixie trying to see through the gap in the gate:

But the older ones have seen it all before and showed no interest at all in what was going on ... Here's our oldest girl Tammy just taking it all in her stride:

Tinky and Winky really couldn't be bothered with anything at all:

 

And Dolores just found the whole thing very boring indeed:

 

Our little black escaping man (who has come to be known as 'Nobby' for no apparent reason) seems to have acquired a couple more friends to play with:

The other black kid is actually his brother. 

These two little men have very characteristic faces with a slightly wonky nose.  In the goat shed this is known affectionately as 'a little Beamish face' as our lovely chap Beamish seems to throw kids with very cute little faces.  You can see the family resemblance.  Here's Beamish's mum Cilene:

The big man himself - Beamish:

 

And our little man - see his slightly upturned nose:

 

 

It was always an old saying that if a man wanted to see what his wife would look like as she got older, she should look at her mother.  The same is true of goats as well!  As the girls get to around 3 years of age, they really do start to look like their mums.

 

Our beautiful Gilly:

 

 

And one of her equally lovely daughters, Evie:

 

 

Big fat Footsie goat:

 

And one of her daughters - Rosie:

 

Dear old Betty:

 

 

Oldest daughter Perdita:

 

Younger daughters Campanula and Piella:

 

Same grumpy looking faces!!  And they all stamp their feet in the milking parlour.  As I have said before - naughtiness is genetic.

 

Right then ... I'm off out into the wind to get everyone fed and milked and tucked up snuggly for the night. Though some, like Thelma, were already quite settled earlier this afternoon!