Little climbers, breeding our goats, ducks and chickens everywhere, gardening

It is always interesting to see our little ones find the tree in the goat lot that all of them have found at one point or another. Our newest little ones, the three we bought as bottle babies, found the climbing tree this week and have kept the bark worn and dirty since then. The tree grows at an odd angle at its base then turns upward about five feet off the ground. The lower slanted part gives the little ones about five feet of trunk to entertain themselves. They will only be able to play on the tree for a couple more weeks at which time they will be too large to make the climb. I have not figured out what keeps them from climbing as they grow larger, but we have seen it happen with each batch of little ones growing in the lot.

Over the weekend, we will move the nanny goats into the paddock with Midas. All four have, in the past few weeks, expressed their interest in our buck. When they are in heat, they will stand at the front corner of the lot nearest the opposing corner of the buck enclosure, and show their interest in getting together with our buck. For his part, he is always interested in having the females visit him. Tomorrow, he will get his wish. Not only will this serve to get our nanny goats time with Midas to get bred, but it will also give us time to ensure all our younger girls, our six month olds, have time to get their fill of feed without the larger goats beating them out of the troughs at each feeding. Plus, our bottle babies will be weaned at the end of April, so we will have a month, while the nanny goats are with the buck, to ensure they grow large enough to get their share of the feed once all the females are put back together at the end of May.

While we were at the funeral in Florida, the Fox’s took our male goats to the sale in Bowie. We had one large buck, Julian, and four six-month-old little bucks. They check they walked away from the drop off with was for about $725. Mama and I were thrilled by that. So, as we breed the nanny goats this year, we are far less concerned about the amount or little boy goats we get. Now we have a market to sell them at a healthy profit. Of course, we are always a little more excited about getting the female little ones out of the birthing. You cannot count your little ones before they are born, but we can reasonably expect to have between eight and twelve kids in August from the four nanny goats we are breeding. In another year we will have eleven females to breed. We are looking forward to that.

Because of several small purchases and successful hatching of eggs, we have ducks and chicks everywhere. I am currently looking for places to put those tiny birds somewhere other than in totes in the garage. I spent an hour yesterday evening enclosing a wire cage in a stand that would allow us to place the four new ducklings in with the ducks. If that works out, they may be taken care of for a few more weeks, and we have a couple cages in the barn side of the coop to move the eighteen chicks, now a week old, into. The concern with moving the tiny fowl is the exposure to snakes. The cages in the coop are not totally snake proof and we are entering the season when we will have to deal with snakes in the coop.

Recently, Mama and Grandpa have populated the garden with vegetable plants. I am not sure what they have planted to date but Grandpa is fastidious about tending to the plants in the ground. I hooked up a hose to provide water to those plants and will hook up a second hose tomorrow to care for the far end of the garden. I will need to till more rows this evening to plant the corn seed that was bought today. That should fill up the West/far end of the garden while the East end is filling with vegetable plants. I admit to having higher hopes for a successful harvest from this garden than in past gardens. With Grandpa’s help, we stand a far better chance of beneficial outcomes than when those outcomes relied on me and Mama alone. It is fun to see just how focused Grandpa is on the plants. It encourages him to have something he can do with his currently limited physical abilities, and he is very good at gardening.

If you doubt me, just ask Grandma.