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As you know, we rehomed Lily, but her owner has given us updates. Lily kidded yesterday, with a single, lovely doeling.

On April 26th, 2018, we welcomed this little doeling into the world. Her dam is an unregistered doe that we rehomed a few years ago named Sage. Sage and April are identical in almost every way. They are plump, sweet, black and brown does. April’s sire is Parks Oasis Bijou.

April surprised us with a little buckling, Eutychus last year. He unfortunately had a very unique look to him and was not symmetrical, so we think that he was just not right. He passed away at a few months old, after dealing with untreatable scours. April was a doting mother.

This year April surprised us, yet again, with twin doelings. Both are strong and healthy. They are Hadassah and Jochebed. April is less attached to them, than she was with Eutychus. We’ve noticed this before that when a doe loses her first kid, she is a little cautious about bonding with more. She is still a good mom though!

She is a good milker with decent sized teats. She is good on the stand and of course loves her grain.

April will likely be available for rehoming in June. We will be rehoming her because we are keeping both of her kids.

So, as you may have guessed, Summer was never pregnant. We thought she was having symptoms (not eating sometimes, vomiting, tiredness, digging a ton), but all the symptoms are things that regular dogs do as well.

The baby goats are doing great! They are getting huge! Jochebed’s ankle straightened itself out after a couple days and some B-Complex. We will be retaining both Jochebed and Hadassah.

We rehomed Lily and Tigris just a couple days ago. Lily is due to kid any day now. We are rehoming Talitha, so please leave a comment or contact us if you are interested. Talitha and Penny are due to kid in the beginning of May.

We started suspecting that April was pregnant a few months ago, when the buck was here. April never came into heat. She hadn’t had any obvious heats since September. She was noticably getting rounder and rounder, and her udder was getting bigger as well.

The father is either Jasper or Euphrates.

The day before yesterday, April’s udder was noticably round and shiny. That night I went down to the barn at 3:30 am. April was contracting and pushing. Around 8:00, the first baby’s hooves emerged. April is a wonderful mom, but gets very panicked in labor. She screemed so hard, that she didn’t seem to be pushing very hard. I pulled the baby and between me pulling hard and April pushing, a seven pound, beautiful baby girl was born. Once we saw her face, we knew that this must be Jasper’s baby. If you disagree, leave it in the comments. I included pictures of both possible sires. April was excited when she met her kid. We named this one Jochebed. Leave a guess for her name in the Bible, in the comments.

Immediately after Jochebed, another baby came with only one leg forward. The baby was big, and April was panicked. I reached in and the next kids leg was back, but the hoof was forward. This was an easy fix and the second seven pound doeling was delivered. If you haven’t experienced it before, one leg back can be difficult to deliver, if the hoof is back. Occasionally, a large kid presenting this way, will even break their neck as they’re delivered. This kid’s name is Hadassah, since she was born so close to Purim (a holiday that celebrates the book of Esther). You can leave your guess for this name in the comments.

Both kids are doing good. Jochebed has a bent leg, and walked on her ankle for a day, but she is already getting better.

If you don’t remember, April was Eutychus’s dam. Eutychus was the buckling who died at a few months old from scours last year.

Beulah Valley Talitha was born in 2017. She was Kuchan Lily’s firstborn kid, who was actually mostly born, under our back deck, when we found her. Her sire is Cold-Spring Lad’s Rocky, a gorgeous, high quality, Alpine buck.

Talitha, or Tali, as we call her, is notorious for having big, strong, gorgeous bucklings, but so far no girls! She gave birth to Skip in 2019 and Jasper and Onyx in 2020. Tali also adopted our little doeling Cadence in 2019, who unfortunately passed away.

Tali is currently our best milker. She has a perfect udder with a compact attachment and nice long teats. Her stanchion manners are pretty good, except for an occasional impatient stomp or hoof in her grain bowl if she eats too fast.

Talitha is our herd queen at the moment and will do anything for a treat. She loves people and is an outgoing, energetic doe.

Happy 2021! Here is the count of the animals on our farm.

1 Dog:

• Summer

6 Cats:

Splash

Willow

Tractor

Banjo

Hosanna

Dixie

3 Rabbits:

Blossum

Poppy

Lilac

1 Horse:

Valor

15 Chickens:

5 Black Australorps

10 Easter Eggers

3 Ducks:

Daffy

Donald

Lucy

3 Geese:

Tango

Piper

Melody

7 Goats:

Lily

Talitha

April

Penny

Tigris

Beulah

Hephzibah

Which brings us to a grand total of 39 animals!

I am going to start posting fact files on each of our goats.

Up first is our Matriarch, Lily. She is an ADGA registered, Nubian doe. Lily was born on May 3rd, 2016. Her dam is Kuchan Alandra and her sire is Nubilop-Acres Believenjustice. Lily’s mom was pregnant with her when we bought Alandra (we called her Alannah). Lily was the oldest of her litter and her twin was Kuchan Ruby. Lily had her first kids in 2017. She had twins, Beulah Valley Talitha and Cosmo. She had Cyrus in 2019. She had quadruplets in 2020; Beulah Valley Euphrates, Tigris, Pishon, and Gihon.

Lily is a decent milker with a little bit of sass on the stanchion. 🙂 She is one of our only does who doesn’t love grain. She loves black oil sunflower seeds though. Lily is persistent, but gentle. She gets along with most everybody. She’s an ok mother and takes care of her kids, but doesn’t pamper them like some does. She is a lovely doe.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted any detailed updates, so this will be a long one.

First up we have the goats. We rehomed all of our bucklings this year and kept three doelings: Tigris, Hephzibah, and Beulah. As far as adults, we have four does: Lily, Talitha, Penny, and April. Lily, Tali, and Penny are all bred. We think April was bred by Jasper or Euphrates in September, but it was accidental, so we aren’t positive.

Next up is horses. We rehomed Patriot yesterday and bought a lovely Quarter Horse about a month ago. We named him Valor. He is a wonderful, registered, gelding.

Our fowl are doing well. We currently have fifteen chickens, three ducks, and three geese.

The cats are doing good. We have six cats right now. Willow, Tractor, Splash, Banjo, Hosanna, and Dixie. Hosanna and Dixie are two of Willow’s kittens from this year. Hosanna is black with small white markings on her feet, face, and chest, and Dixie is grey with white markings.

Summer is getting really close to her due date, but isn’t really showing, so we’re hoping she is pregnant, but no guarantee.

We currently have three female rabbits: Poppy, Lilac, and Blossum.

The fish are doing great! Most of the fry now live with the big fish. We have a gorgeous speckled baby!

We borrowed a neighbor’s buck. We think that he is mini La Mancha. He is already back home and bred at least three of our does in the first two days! Beulah Valley Talitha, Kuchan Lily, and Penny are bred. April is exposed, but didn’t have a confirmed breeding. The buck is black with a lot of white markings and blue eyes, so get ready for gorgeous kids! He has thrown lots of color on his kids, and many of them have blue eyes! So, hopefully he’ll do the same for our herd.

Our Purebred Great Pyrenees, Summer, just came home from a week with a champion, male, Great Pyrenees. She is bred and is hopefully due on New Years’ Day. Please let us know if you are interested in a puppy. We will post the rehoming fee, etc. when the puppies are born.