Baby animals are here! They sure threw me for a loop. Let’s see if you can catch up. We have 3 goats (Lacey, Angel and Polly) And we have 1 sheep (Paula) First I thought Lacey (one of our goats) was due any day. I watched and waited and woke up in the middle of the night numerous times to check on that dang goat. The next morning, Kevin woke me saying, “Well, there’s not any baby goats, but there’s two little lambs out there.”
I shot out of my bed and ran outside.
I couldn’t believe that Paula(our sheep) had babies. I mean, I knew she was pregnant. But normally animals show sign of impending labor. They stop eating, are louder than normal. You know. OH wait, you probably don’t. Well, anyway the bottom line is they act different. But not Paula. She dropped two little lambs and I didn’t even notice because I was too busy checking on stinkin’ Lacey.
We decided to name them with “P” names just to make it more confusing.
Introducing Peeta & Prim.
We have already sold Prim and we are planning to raise Peeta to butcher. Well, that is, if we can get actually follow through with it. We don’t have a great history of following through as you can read in THIS POST and THIS POST. We’ll see. Poor Peeta.
I was determined to be there for Lacey’s babies. Not because she would need my help, but I wanted to catch it on film so I could send the footage to my sister with sappy music for her graduation present.
But again, I was woke this time by my son saying, “Mom, Lacey’s eating a placenta.”
Nice.
Even nicer is the fact that my 8 year old son can recognize a goat placenta.
We all ran out there in our PJ’s and oohed and ahhed at the little kids.
Triplets! 1 buckling and 2 doelings.
As annoying as goats are, these little guys are pretty darn cute.
Introducing Gale, Katniss & Rue.
We bred Lacey to freshen her milk. Now she’ll have plenty of milk for us for the next 10 months. We are selling all her babies in a couple months.
Hi. I have just started reading your blog today and love it! We are seriously considering moving from our suburban neighborhood to a homestead in the country asap (we’re in Tennessee), and I have always wanted goats, but know very little about them. Your blog has taught me a lot in a short time! I have a couple of questions about goats that I haven’t seen covered here: How do you find someone to buy the babies? I saw where you mentioned joining the goat association. Is that how you sell yours, or do you just do craigslist? Also, how do you keep from getting so attached that you can’t bear to part with the babies? It might just be me, but I’m a sucker for animals, especially cute baby animals. I am afraid I would want to keep all the babies! Finally, do you use a milking machine at all, or just straight hand milk? One thing we would want to do with our farm would be sell goats milk and products made from it, like cheese, soap, etc, as well as have it for our own use. (We’re hoping to do this as a business as well as for fun.) In your opinion, would three goats yield enough surplus milk to do this? Hope you don’t mind all these questions. I know I’m a noob, but I am really interested in doing this and want to learn all I can about it.
Hi Becca!
I normally just sell on craigslist, and we tend to not get attached because the babies start to get a little too naughty as they get older:) We just do hand milking here, and yes, you can definitely produce enough to have a surplus, but I would recommend Nubian or La Mancha breeds to get the most milk:)
Hi DaNelle,
We have about 8 acres and had cows on it but looking to change to goats or sheet instead. Based on some research it appears the Rams actually smell pretty bad! We have since been thinking that may not be a good choice.
In one of your blogs you mention that your goats have babies but you don’t seem to have a male goat. Did you artificialy inseminated her?
I Love your storie and can’t get enough of them!