A sea of little goatie faces

After milking the boys have a chance to enjoy a little peace and quiet before the hordes of noisy females all come charging back into the barn.  Here's Daramac, Fremlin and Max tucking into the nice fresh hay. 

Beamish had decided to come through the parlour and so he was outside with the throngs of ladies ...

As the weather is so warm at the moment, we have opened up all the big barn doors and so all those girlies stand around outside, peering in whilst we fill up their hay racks.  Looking out of the barn, there was a sea of impatient little goatie faces staring back at me:

 

Hurry up and get that hay sorted out!



And make sure you put plenty in all the racks .. there's a long night ahead!

That was a hot one!

Lordie that was a hot weekend!!  Glorious weather for the Kent Show but a little too warm for most people I think.  Certainly too hot for cheese ... but at least we didn't have as many problems as the chocolate lady!  And our friends at Solley's Ice Cream and Simply Ice Cream were rubbing their hands with glee as they restacked their freezers for the umpteenth time over the weekend!  Made a change from last year when we were in wellies and jackets for 3 days.

Once again I shared a stand with Jane the Cheese:

And we were next to our blue cheesey colleagues from Kentish Blue:

Karen is opening her new on-line shop at the beginning of August and so you will be able to purchase their delicious unpasteurised blue cheeses direct from her.  We will keep you informed of all the details as we know how much you like that raw cheese!

David spent the weekend hay making, although there has also been a lot of swearing going on as the tractor decided to throw a tantrum.  It started to change gear all by itself ... I figured that it was possessed but apparently it was a fault with the electronics.  Multiple engineers and a new 'black box' got it going again but I am not looking forward to the bill for that one ... Wonder if we can pay it off in cheese?!

The goaties have been lying around panting in the heat and are bearing up pretty well, although there are a couple who clearly are not happy to be so warm.  Lots of fresh cold water and damp towels at milking time have kept them going!

Here's a couple of the young milkers absolutely flat out in the heat of the day!

Husky has settled into a routine now as well.  She spends the day in with the milkers and her little boyfriend, then comes into the parlour right at the end of milking (again with her little boyfriend). 

 

When we have finished milking and bring everyone back into the barn for the night, she comes out of the milkers' area and settles down on her bale:

I think she has got her little life pretty much sorted!

Goaties in the sunshine

Another glorious hay making day!

And here's a pic of our young man Toggy enjoying the sunshine in his new home with his friend Socks:

Toggy managed to break into the neighbour's garden a couple of weeks ago and made himself very ill by eating some of their plants which are poisonous to goaties.  He was a very poorly boy for several days but with the help of the local vet and lots of TLC from his new family, he survived the experience and is now back to his usual naughty self.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch ... Husky started the day off nicely as she enjoyed breakfast with her dad Daramac (with uncles Fremlin and Max in the foreground):

And one of our little chaps decided that the best way to attract the girls was to wear a considerable amount of hay on your head:

Seemed to work a treat!

First hay of the season

And here it is ... straight out of the baler this evening.  The first new hay of the season. 

It's such a shame that we don't have smellyvision as it smells just divine.  And the goaties could hardly contain their excitement when they found such deliciousness in their hayracks this evening. 

David was under strict instructions to take a photo of one of the first bales out of the new baler.  And he duly obliged ...

I think that the new baler is making life so much easier for him.  And much quicker to bale all that lovely hay as well.  He is going great guns at the moment with around 200 of these huge bales done already.  And plenty more to come yet!

It is such a relief to get fresh hay baled in July .. the last couple of years have been so awful that we have really struggled to get anything decent baled at all.  Haymaking may seem a trivial thing to many people but this is our main forage crop for those goaties and we need hundreds and hundreds of bales to keep everyone full and happy throughout the year.  Plenty of good hay goes a long way to making sure that we keep milking through the winter .... and many of you will remember what a horrendous time we had last year ..

Once again it's been a week of mixed fortunes ... The hot weather is good for haymaking but the goaties are suffering a bit in the extreme heat and we have unfortunately lost one of our little female kids to pneumonia.  Hot days with little air followed by misty, chilly nights are perfect conditions for snuffly noses and chesty coughs to start ... little girlie goat number 495 (she didn't have a name yet) started to look a little under the weather on Thursday and, by Friday evening, was quite poorly despite medication.

She settled herself down in the hay barn for the night and I decided that I would spend the night with her as I wasn't at all happy with the way she looked.  So, it was a long and uncomfortable night snuggled down next her on the straw floor of the barn listening to all the rats rustling about and squeaking.  She finally passed away around 3am after a pretty restless night.

So, you can imagine that I wasn't exactly on top form on Saturday morning!  I made a quick visit to Wye Market to drop off supplies for Jane the Cheese and her mum who were covering the stall for the morning .. then it was back to the farm to load up cheese and goats for our veterinary practice Open Day.

I had selected 5 little girlie goats to take with me ... and they were very popular with all the visitors!

Husky was worn out with all the effort ..

but decided that she would be far more comfortable sitting on top of the bale ..

 

And while we're on the subject of comfortable goats .... here's Polly during milking this evening ...

 

For some reason she decided that it would be far easier to kneel down in the wheelbarrow rather than stand next to it ...  bad goat!

Haymaking starts in earnest

With a few days of good weather predicted over the last weekend, David has started the haymaking season.  After much discussion, we have also decided that we need to replace the baler for a much larger machine that will do the huge round bales rather than the small conventional size.  We need so much hay now that small bales are just not practical so a new shiny baler should be arriving at the farm in the morning.  Our old one is going in part exchange and the rest of it will be paid for over the next hundred years!  At least with agricultural machinery, you do seem to get something quite large and shiny for your money!

Last week we also had the pleasure of Maddy, a 6th form work experience student who is working throughout her summer holidays to make sure that she has plenty of experience before applying to Uni to study veterinary science.  She helped us out with milking and feeding and also spent some time learning to trim feet .. very useful she was too!

Husky and Ginger certainly took a shine to her ..

She has promised to come back and visit us at kidding time next year.

And while Maddy was here, she was thrilled to see exactly how Ginger escapes from her pen.  Here she comes - through the gate with a last little wiggle to get that udder through!

Husky, on the other hand, seems keen to get IN with the milkers, rather than OUT ..  This pic was taken from the milking parlour this evening.  Look at the centre of the photo ...

 

Can you see the small white goat lying down in the middle of all the milkers?? 

 

Then she comes into the parlour and has her dinner ..

 

Accompanied by her new boyfriend ..

Yes indeed ... Valerie's little man seems to have taken a shine to young Husky and the two of them can be seen playing together in the field.  Wonder if Val wants to adopt her?!

Another week flies by ..

I was full of good intentions to write you another post last week but the days just seemed to slip away.  My blogging time (as you can see from the time stamps) is usually late at night, after milking and deliveries ... when all the little goaties are in bed asleep.  But last week, there just seemed to be so much to do with deliveries and getting cheese ready for weekend markets, that I just didn't get a chance.

Feeble excuses, I know ..

On Friday we had to say goodbye to our dear Cora goat. 

At 9 years old she was not particularly elderly but had not been looking at her best for several weeks.  Last week she seemed to be having real problems eating and drinking and, even when we separated her off and brought her endless yummy treats, she still could not eat.  It almost seemed like she wanted to eat but was not able to swallow. 

I spent a lot of time with her last week, just sitting with her and talking to her as I suspected that there may be something wrong with her throat that could not be fixed and that we would have to say goodbye.  Seems that we were right - the vet confirmed that it looked like some kind of abscess or tumour in her oesophagus and there was really nothing that could be done. Cradled in David's arms, dear Cora went to the goatshed in the sky.

But everyone else seems to be doing OK at the moment, even though they were a bit grumpy when they were temporarily evicted from their new field.  As the Gracie Moos have now finally gone out for the summer, David has been mucking out the cattle yard and needed to dump the muck at one end of the field.  With everything fenced off, he was able to run back and forth without having to worry about goats getting in the way. 

The girls stood on top of the hill in their old field and watched his every move ...

Valerie's little white man is getting very brave and can often be found well away from mum.  What a brave boy!  Here he is (front of pic) playing with some of the milkers.  Mum is nowhere to be seen!

Husky is also getting more adventurous especially as we have had the big front doors of the barn open in the warm weather.  She is a very good girl and will usually stay in the barn but only until a human appears.  Then she comes running out and follows you around like a small dog. 

The perfect pet goat!

More about Husky

As I said, Husky spends her day trotting around the barn, pleasing herself how she spends her time.  Today she could be found on top of the hay bales stacked in the barn waiting to be put into hayracks for our hard-working milkers.

Here she is - perched on top.  Looks quite comfy to me!

And for those of you who follow some of the characters in our blog ... here's my little caravan man ...  Looking good!