It's that glorious time of year when the farmer across the street has ripening melons in the field. The time when flies multiply by the hundreds, thousands and finally millions, making time spent outside miserable beyond words.
I had decided today was the day I needed to get the hoof trims done, as the last time was April 15th. I've actually known it was "time" for the past couple of weeks. As I milk the does, I observe the condition of their hooves and of course if they need trimmed, the rest of the herd does.
I got a late start; gave dh a haircut first, and then went out to milk. About 6:30am. That's already too late this time of year. Milked Miss L. first, she's been dropping her milk production for several weeks now. She dropped to under a pound on May 12th, 409 days into her (third) lactation. She gives from 6/10ths to 9/10ths, but hasn't cleared a pound since May 12th. I spoke with my favorite goat mentor and she suggested I just keep milking Miss L., even if she gets down to an "eggcupful" which I'm assuming is as much as would fit into half an egg?
I've actually been experimenting since yesterday's milking - I'm milking her and milking her and milking her, to see if I can increase her production. It should work, as that is how the baby increases the milk supply for a human mother. Sometimes a new mother will think her supply is low because the baby wants to nurse often and her breasts feel empty. But it is normal, and the best thing to do is nurse the baby frequently even if the breasts feel empty. The time spent nursing increases production. So usually I milk our does until they feel empty and the stream of milk has dwindled to nearly nothing. I bump them at least a dozen times, to get all the milk they have available. But I'm trying to continue milking Miss L. for about fifty squeezes past completely empty. The interesting thing is, even though I thought she was already empty, I'm getting a very, very thin stream of milk as I continue to milk her. So far she has brought up her production by a tenth of a pound. I'm just curious to see if I can get her up over a pound since it's been almost a month since she's given a pound. If that works, I'll keep trying to milk her 50 squirts past empty and see what she can do.
The main reason Miss L. is drying herself up is because her first and second lactations were typical "long". Miss L.'s was bred for the first time on October 17, 2003. She kidded, beginning her first lactation on March 15, 2004. We pulled her kids and she was giving as much as 8 pounds with 2x/day milking with a daily average 5.8#. She was bred for the second time October 19, 2004. We did not force dry her; she dried herself off at 121 days into her pregnancy. (Gestation length 145 to 155 days.) She was giving 3/10ths of a pound. Her first lactation was 339 days.
Her second lactation began on March 17, 2005 when she kidded twin doelings. She nursed them both until they were six months old. She was bred for the third time on November 26, 2005. She dried herself off this time about six weeks prior to kidding. Her second lactation lasted 367 days.
So she's 409 days into her third lactation, and I want her to continue on for another 223 days. Hee. Ain't gonna happen. But we'll see how long I can coax her to continue lactating.
They say that the doe's body remembers how long she lactated the first time and tries to dry up at that time period for each lactation. I should be able to lengthen her lactation this time by continuing to milk her, even though she's dropped so low. 1 pound of milk is actually about 2 cups of milk, and she's still giving me close to one pound.
My goal for our milkers is a longer than normal lactation. Most breeders striving for a "long" lactation expect their does to produce for 10 months (300 days) out of each year. They breed the does while they are in milk and continue to milk three months into the pregnancy. Then the doe is forcibly dried off, some books recommend to just stop milking, period. This can and often does cause the doe to contract mastitis. It is also uncomfortable to the doe, as her udder is tight and full until her body gets the message to stop producing milk. Some breeders do a combination slowing down on milking, usually they milk twice daily so they'll go to once daily milking, at the same time limiting grain and water consumption to help the doe dry off more easily. Then milk every other day. Some breeders also routinely use a drying off teat infusion antibiotic, which I think is very wrong. They inject antibiotics into the udder via the teat orifice! I have never been able to persuade myself to use teat infusions on our does, and I would never use antibiotics prophylactically. First off, the udder is not this big empty bag that you can squirt antibiotics into via the teat. The milk comes down into the udder through passageways and those are so complex and there are so many, you would be hard pressed to get the antibiotic worked into the entire udder. But people use them all the time. One breeder who is against teat infusisions basically says you've now ruined the udder.
Drying off is quite a big topic of conversation, and my methods are in the minority. I like the methods used by breeders in other countries. They often breed the does every other year, instead of breeding the does every single year (as is common in the U.S.). They continue to milk through the year that the doe is having her rest. My goat mentor says often you end up with more or at least the same amount of milk in the "milking through" year because the doe gives milk continually instead of the eight week dry period, plus the milk she gives to her kids once they are born. Technically, you lose a minimum of 4 months worth of milk since the doe is force dried off eight weeks prior to kidding and most people allow the kids to nurse until eight weeks of age. Now we also wean our buckling kids at eight weeks, because ours are not worthy of becoming sires. However, our doeling kids are allowed to stay with their dams nursing until they are six months of age. We do separate the does from the kids at night and milk in the morning, leaving the kids with their dams for the entire day so they can nurse all day and be with the herd and learn how to be goats.
We find that our Nubians are not screamers when the dams are allowed to raise their own kids and the kids don't look to people and think "that's my mother" and scream bloodly murder either.
We bottle raised Miss L. and she used to be a screamer. We took her first kids at birth and bottle fed them. She continued to be a screamer, as did her kids. Her kids went to their new home when they were three weeks old. But we had her tested for CAE (the biggest reason people want to bottle feed the kids, as CAE is passed from the dam's colostrum and milk) and she was negative, so we let her raise her own kids the next year. She stopped that screaming and has never done it again.
Now how did I get off on a tangent about lactation? Where was I? Oh yes, I was saying I milked Miss L. After I finished milking her, I trimmed her hooves. Next on the milking line is Little Screamer. We are hoping Little Screamer stops that screaming once she has her own kids and gets to raise them. She was bottle raised and so she thinks humans are her mother. But confusingly enough, she also thinks we are her kids, since we milk her. Poor thing. [Little Screamer is 492 days into her first lactation and today gave me 3.6#. Miss Z. is 433 days into her first lactation and gave me 2.6#. Miss M. is 380 days into her first lactation and gave me 3.1#. This is typical for each doe. So... so far, so good with longer than normal lactations.]
So I milked and trimmed all the milkers. Then the herd queen. And then it was time to start on the yearlings. Four doelings and three wethers. As I let the herd queen back into the pen, three of the yearlings shoved their way out, so I decided what the heck, may as well get them all out here. The wethers are all skittish and none have collars on, so it's hard to catch them in the big yard. I decided to leave the one wether, because he inherited his father's hooves which need trimming about once every six months. Oh to have more of that in our herd, but he is half Nigerian Dwarf. My dh about came unglued because it was just too overwhelming for him. I grabbed onto the doeling who is most skittish and hauled her onto the stand. I gave her some grain. MISTAKE. The other five crowded around and shoved and jostled, trying to get their heads into the grain tub that is connected to the milking stand. Finally I had to remove the grain tub so they would leave, so the poor girl getting hoof trims wouldn't be forever terrorized by the experience. She's the one I've been working with every weekend, taking her out of the pen for her time on the milking stand to have some grain. I got her done, then struggled one of the wethers onto the stand. Got him done, then the remaining wether. The other three doelings are quite tame so they weren't too hard.
I was worn out by the experience. It was hot and dusty. Even though we moved the milking stand into the milking parlor where we at least had protection from the direct sun, the flies were out in droves, lighting all over my sweaty face. My nose even started bleeding at one point and I couldn't stop the spasmotic sneezing from the dust.
I came in, processed the milk, took a shower and decided to take a nap. I stayed in bed until noon. I don't know how much work I'll get done in the house this weekend. I have to at the very least wash and fold my clothes for next week.
We think we found a church we can go to and feel comfortable with. It's 41 miles away. But it will be worth it.
I ordered a few books by Maurice S. Rawlings. The one called Life Wish arrived today.
Until next time.
Saturday, June 09, 2007
Hoof Trims in the Summer with a Side of Flies
Sunday, May 20, 2007
It's a Good Day to Clean
Labels: Body Acceptance, books, goats, knitting, work
I'm thinking weekly posts are going to be my best hope at this point in time. I'm trying out the "working 15 minutes, taking a 15 minute break" FlyLady idea today. I think that's her suggestion. I figure I can get four hours of housework done if I stay at it all day long. (Hah, that worked for about 1 hour and now I've been here since.)
So I'll be here on and off for the next couple hours or so. Depending on how much I end up fonting about. Pretty cool on the new Blogger feature - auto-saving drafts. NEAT.
My keyboard and mouse arrived. The mouse is awesome, now to learn how to use all the buttons all over it. The keyboard's spacebar isalittle funky... as you can see I am having some spacebar issues. I hope I'll get used to it.
On the baby sweater front... well, it's looking like I might be giving it to someone else's baby. Maybe. I've become a bit annoyed with the previous recipient baby's parent who didn't even know I was knitting a baby sweater, so will never even know what the baby almost had. I was confused about the front and blogged about it here. I think I solved the problem. I'm pretty sure I was backwards on my sides. I will try to remember in the future to use patterns which show the layout of the pieces. This pattern doesn't, so I have no idea how the individual pieces are supposed to look. But this is what I have for now. I think the piece on the left is the right side. The piece on the right side is the first side I did and I had to take out several rows to be redone correctly.
Because this part of the pattern takes so much thinking effort, I decided to start my sock gauge. I hear a lot of grumbling about making the gauge, but then I read a blog somewhere - did I already link to it in a previous post? I see that I haven't. Anyway, I decided to embrace gauge swatch-making and use it as a tool, which is what they say it is anyway. That said, I discovered why I couldn't get my gauge without using needles 3 sizes smaller with this knit baby sweater. It's because I knit freakishly loose. So I decided to tighten up my knitting on the sock gauge. I left this image extra big so you can click on it and maybe see what I'm taking about. The bottom few rows are very loose and stretchy. But as I continued on perfecting my technique my knitting became tighter and more uniform. Later in the day I worked on the baby sweater again and was still able to achieve the loose knitting effect which is important if I ever want to finish the baby sweater.
I like this article about gauging.
Rethinking Thin arrived. I've had a chance to read a bit of it, and frankly am astonished at how long people have been dieting, and learned that like fashion, diets resurface their way through the generations.
Yesterday dh had another side job. It's actually a continuation of side jobs for an elderly woman. We neglected to call to let her know our estimated time of arrival so naturally she was a bit annoyed at us. It was getting late in the day so we had almost decided to wait until next weekend to finish the job, but then we decided we just wanted to get it done. We refinished her back gate, and replaced the door frame (the decorative part) around one of her side doors. We stained the back gate and painted the door frame. It took longer than expected - four hours both of us working steadily. These jobs always do. I told dh yesterday to start doubling the time he's estimating for jobs. If the person doesn't like the cost, then they won't hire us for the job. That's fine.
The lady knows we work four days each week and made a point to comment on how she only has two days each week to get things done and can't sit around waiting for us to arrive. Well, her roommate also drives but doesn't work at all. I say she should do the errands and running around during the week. Whatever. It's not we slept in until 10am and finally decided to get going. I was up by 4:30am, out milking by 5am and we were finally leaving just about 7am. It was a non-stop day. We finally arrived home at 8pm. Ds2 had a wonderful dinner ready for us. Butter fried chicken breast (no batter coating), a lovely tossed salad, eggplant and zucchini and fried rice. It tasted so good. I got overheated while working in the sun and at one point had to sit down and kick off my shoes and socks. I was just too hot. The lady had some friends over, a man and woman and their young daughter, for swimming. They're splashing and yelling (Marco - POLO - Marco - POLO) and we're burning up from the heat.
No one has any time anymore. Today ds2 said the weekend never even started and it's already over.
I was late for milking this morning. The girls were yelling at me. I started milking around 7:10am. Very late indeed. I noticed Ms. Z was still in heat (I questioned whether she was yesterday but wasn't quite sure) and have been toying with the thought of some off season breeding - especially since I'm noticing my girls coming into heat this late in the year. Usually they stop showing signs of cycling by end of March. So I decided to take her over to visit Elvis once I was done milking. I have been worried about his fertility since I stupidly didn't pay attention to the important things when choosing a buck. Things like positioning of the equipment... when humans have fertility issues, men are advised to switch from jockey shorts to boxers for maximum fertility since having the scrotum snuggled near to the body keeps the sperm warm. God designed the sperm to be cooler, thus the hanging design. Elvis' ahem seems to be very near to his body.
Today I moved our other buck, a Nigerian Dwarf -- who is excessively sexy (iow, constantly peeing on his own head) and always ragingly in the mood (and quite frankly he seems more like a dirty old man pervert the way he's always leering and snorting and sticking out his tongue at the girls, lol) -- into the hallway which separates the does from the bucks, while Elvis and Ms. Z had a chance to get to know one another. Ms. Z immediately reared up and popped Elvis one on the head, so I had to hold her to stop her from doing that. One of my goat mentors says there is nothing worse than a young buckling being bashed by a doe to make him less likely to perform his job successfully. Finally he covered her and was done in a fraction of millisecond.
I debated leaving her with him for the day, to make sure she was bred but ended up taking her back home. Next I took out one of our doelings who is 14 months old. She has always been on the wild side and I've been worried about her ability as a milker. I've heard some horror stories of people trying to milk wild does. So I've been catching her once each weekend, removing her from the yard, putting her on the milking stand, locking her in and giving her some grain. She's taming down nicely.
I am working with Elvis each weekend (should work with him more, but just don't have the time) training him to walk with me when I hold him by the collar. I need to be able to take him to visit the does and take him back home. Bucks grow to be very big and it's important that they learn to take commands. Once he weighs 250 pounds, it's too late to teach him to walk calmly. By that time he'll be charging and racing to get where we're going and that would be a disaster. I'd never get him back home. So I took Elvis from his pen to walk him for a while. Last week was the first time I went into his pen. While he didn't run from me too much, he did run. But this week he came right over to me. He knows good things happen when he comes with me. Namely he gets grain. But best of all, he'll learn walking peacefully with me will allow him a visit with one of his wives. I did take him over to visit again with Ms. Z. She stood for him this time, that's a good sign that she's at optimum fertility.
If she produces kids in October, his fertility will become less of a question. I will probably breed a couple other does if they come into heat in the next couple of weeks. We have never bred off season before. Usually we wait until September or thereafter to breed. That is the normal season for breeding Nubians. Also, for people who show, it puts their does at the peak of their lactation so they have these huge udders when being shown at the fair. But since we don't show our goats, that isn't a priority for us.
Sweet dreams, kitty.
Until next time.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
My Birthday
Labels: Bargain Hunting, books, Herd Queen Productions, stash
My birthday is the 25th.
My sister and I have talked about how we tend to start buying a few things here and there for ourselves a few weeks prior to and after our birthdays. See, we try to not buy every little thing we desire on a whim, but around our birthdays it's a great excuse to just get what we want. That doesn't mean I go out and buy $1000 stereo systems or a new computer. I'm talking fairly inexpensive things.
Although I tend to buy things for myself prior to my birthday, I would really prefer that those gifting me would wait *until* my birthday. But oh well. I'm not really complaining, but it's up to me to buy myself something for my birthday. Maybe my family will cook a special meal on my birthday. Friday the 25th of May.
So far my family had a surprise party for me, my mother gave me my card and $40 on the 3rd... with which I bought myself two shirts and maybe a baseball cap. I have been wanting to buy some of my Cafe Press shirts just to see how they look in real life and so I bought one of The Herd Queen and the other of LJ when he was a tiny little puppy wearing a sweater I'd crocheted for him. I also bought a baseball cap which I am planning to give to dh and ds2 and I picked out a shirt for dh that we thought he'd like.
I'm anxiously awaiting the arrival of those shirts. I really hope my shirts look good, the image, I mean.
I also bought myself a ironing board cover. A really nice one. It was regularly $11.99, but was on sale for $10.39. The scanner rang me up at $11.99, so I took it back to customer service. At this particular store, if the item is under $5, they give it to you free. If it's over $5, they give you $5 off the sale price. I told the lady it was marked down to $10.39 but I guess she heard me say $10.49. I wasn't going to quibble over a dime. Then another $5.00 off on that. I found the one I bought from my local store from Target online. You can see it here: Ultra Ironing Cover and Pad Set - Tranquil Leaves. It has this neat silicone pad where you can lay the iron down onto it *when it's hot* even. Neat. I haven't used it yet, but I did get it onto my ironing board.
I bought myself a book yesterday, having read an article shared with me by a friend on one of my non-dieting email lists. The article is here: Genes Take Charge, and Diets Fall by the Wayside by Gina Kolata and is actually an excerpt from Ms. Kolata's book Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss — and the Myths and Realities of Dieting which I purchased from buy.com for $10.15, saving $10.00 by using the new Google Checkout.
I almost purchased this yesterday and may yet purchase it today: CERVINIA CALZETTERIA SOCK & FINGERING YARN.NEW.PRINT.. The link won't work forever, since it's an eBay auction. But here is a picture of the yarn:
I snagged the image from Smiley yarn. The color I like is Naples 904, which is the reddish colored yarn. Smiley's is selling this yarn for $2.50 per skein. Minimum order $40 though... and $12.95 shipping for however much yarn you order. I'm not sure I'm prepared to spend $52.95 on yarn today. ROTFLOL. I thought I'd get a better deal than on eBay and I guess I would get a better deal because if I ordered 16 skeins of yarn at $2.50 the shipping comes to only $0.80 per skein. But still! $50 is a lot of money to spend on yarn at one whack when I don't have much time for knitting to begin with *AND* furthermore I already have quite a stash.
And I do have some pink yarn asking me to please make socks with it.
Last but not least, ds2 ordered me a new keyboard and mouse. He researched both items some time ago and he does a great job researching to find good quality items. I can't wait for these to arrive: Logitech MX518 Gaming Grade Optical Mouse and Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 M17-1844.
He ordered them for me from Amazon, where I had a $25 gift certificate so my total cost there was $35.00.
Now I must get to work.
Until next time.
Friday, November 17, 2006
Books I've Read in 2006
Labels: books
