It’s been a challenging month on the wee homestead. We’ve had some successes and I am still hopeful for more positive outcomes, but I focus on them overly, because I’m being a bit avoidant, because really, I’m still concerned.
So I’ll share about that this post, along with some happy snaps and surpluses, to help the medicine go down. I know it’s part of the lifestyle. Life, that is.
Yes, I’ve gotten better at it. That is, the death part of life. But also, we must understand our own limitations, and for that we must first broach them.
So if there are still any rose-colored glasses sort of readers remaining here, armor up.
(I share more about my observations on her death at the end, for those who choose to go there.)
I’m so sad to say we’ve lost one of our new mamas, and her mama, our herd queen Summer, has also been very ill. Several of the does are too thin and are not producing enough milk. This all happened quite suddenly. I was training them on the milk stand for a month, even getting a bit of milk from one, I had high hopes of daily cheese-making by now.
Instead I’ve turned suddenly nurse-maid/dietician/worry wort.
The learning curve is so very high and I’ve set myself impossible standards. I do understand that, though that understanding changes little.
I want a treatment-free herd, or no herd at all. Like with the bees, which took me years of failures, I simply cannot stand the industry standard. I cannot abide such total reliance on pharmaceuticals and exotic inputs from far-off lands. I cannot trust the science. I refuse to believe the only way to raise healthy pets and livestock is to poison them with vaccines and parasite treatments and feed them full of processed foods.
There has got to be another way! A much better way!
And I aim to find it.
We are not directly poisoning our garden and still have plenty of success despite the manufactured crazy weather.
I truly believe a large part of the problem is the processed foods causing the need for the supplemental treatments. It’s a vicious cycle and I want off, and I want ALL I see around me every day off it also, including the land, the water, and the air and ALL the critters!
Is that so much to ask?!
But I already know the drill, thanks to the bees. Every professional and expert says that’s impossible. Like with the gardening when we first got here. Every farmer, every gardener, every Farm & Ranch professional, repeating—You’ve got to spray. You’ve got to treat.
“Here, follow this quarterly poisoning routine, and all will be well.” NO!
Is it any wonder they all readily accept without objection whatever the hell is being sprayed over our heads at regular intervals?
We’re not giving up yet. As long as we have irrigation it will be a jungle out there. But without it we’d be screwed, that’s for sure. It hasn’t rained for nearly 3 weeks.
(Photos below Left to Right) The datura is a blessed monster. The sweet potato vines are prolific and a favorite snack of Summer’s. The melons and green beans are thriving. The indeterminate tomatoes and some of the peppers are doing fairly well under the shade cloth and I’ve been succession planting the cucumbers.
We’ve also been lucky to get some wild grapes, which are now fermenting along with the mead and the blackberry and mulberry wines.
It’s not an easy life, but it’s a life well-lived. Our first figs of the season, along with our last blackberries.
*The observation which I’ve found most interesting from Bluebonnet’s death, was that her kids adjusted immediately. She died the evening of the full moon last week. She left the corral with the rest of the herd in the morning, she seemed to be improving, I thought. But then in the afternoon she planted herself under a tree on a hill and wouldn’t leave, even when evening came and the rest of the herd returned to the corral. I went and sat with her there at sunset and stroked her neck and she laid her head on my shoulder. I wanted to be hopeful, but I felt she knew, and I felt horribly helpless. I hope that the feeling of helplessness is the worst feeling in the world. The next morning I woke before dawn and I went back to the tree in the dark, the full moon shining on her corpse.
There was a bit of relief for me that her kids adjusted so quickly. I find it odd really, it was like an immediate weaning. While her mama, Summer, is so ill she stopped producing milk, but her kids are still so attached to her their health is also suffering because they won’t go out and eat with the rest of the herd or accept being bottle fed. I’ve been mixing them special feed dosed with milk replacer and they are doing ok, and Summer today joined the herd again to forage, which I’m praying is a good sign. 🙏
Thanks for stopping by, even in the hard times!
we crossed our nubians with a boer goat. the offspring were much healthier then the nubian and not as thick bodied as the boer. plus we still had the milk fat. not as much as the nubian purebreds but pretty close. not enough to worry about. in fact, our best milker was a boer/nubian cross.
nubians seem to go from live to dead overnight. or healthy to sick in the blink of an eye. i think the massive inbreeding they do to create the perfect goat does a lot of damage to their genetics.
just my 2 cents for what is worth.
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Well worth a lot more, thanks again H! You bring up an excellent point with the purebreds, which these are and I hadn’t thought of that, though with our dog Shadow I have definitely wondered if that’s the cause of some of his issues.
I’m really trying to tackle 2 issues at once and it will help to keep those defined, since we’re still so new with this, especially goats. But, there’s the short-term of getting them through this immediate issue(s) and the long-term of if/how to keep them. I’ve been reading and watching so much and there’s so much contradictory info swimming around in my brain! 🤪
But maybe trying a cross is a possibility long-term, and boers and Nigerian dwarf are very popular around here. But like you said earlier, maybe goats will be too high-maintenance for us. I’m hearing a lot of folks online say similar things about them being high-maintenance, which surprises me so much really. I’ve traveled in poor countries where they keep goats tethered on a postage size stamp of desert for heaven’s sake! How is it we bring them to the West and they become spoiled divas??!!
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what kind of goats did they have in poor countries? purebreds or mutt goats? i would bet mutts. or a cross you would not identify. our neighbor has kiko nubian cross and they do very well. brush goats. and hardy.
your idea of nigerians and nubians or alpines and nubians. cross them and you will have a lot healthier offspring. if your wanting to breed show goats you would want purebred or you can’t show them but for your purpose and ours…our boer nubians produced a lot of milk and milk fat and good to drink better in fact. better tasting. and they would go out in the field and eat instead of waiting to be hand fed like the purebreds.
find a cross and breed that to your girls that you have left. you will probably get just want your looing for.
you can also find a mini jersey cow that produces only 2 or 3 gallons a day and if you do like us we share with the calf. we take the calf off in the morning and separate mama and calf. we get the evening milking and the calf gets all night and early morning milk. right now we get 1/2 a gallon a day and he gets 4 gallons….yes…calves eat that much….when people bottle feed a calf a powdered milk replacer twice a day they are starving the calf…barely keeping them alive. when we bottle fed calves so we could have more milk we fed them 4 bottles and then up to 6 bottles a day…two at a time…or a gallon each feeding.
seems like a lot and they can scour…you just start slow and build up. a week old calf doesn’t drink that much…2 months later they are drinking that much…we milk feed to 5 to 6 months of age…they do better and put on more weight then early 8 week weaning. calves on their mothers wean naturally at about 6 months…some close to a year when left to it. mothers always kick them off themselves when it is time.
more info then you wanted!! but there it is. hope it helps some.
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Yes, spot on, I bet they were relatives of the Nigerian dwarf, they called them cabri, and I doubt they were doing much milking for cheese. You got me thinking and it inspired another post, I think you’ll like it!
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so sorry for your loss of goats. i lost a few before we figured out they had barber pole worms. where creeks and springs exist and wet ground there too are barber pole worms. deadly. difficult to kill. cydectin was the only thing we had that would kill them. it works but isn’t organic of course. one thing that works for sheep and goats but i don’t now if it would work on the barber pole worms is tobacco. snuff actually. the stuff in a can or even the package of leaf….they eat it. my goats loved it. i don’t smoke but a neighbor did and visited us. he put out his smoke on the ground and my goat ate it before i could get to it.
tobacco is organic sort of…not cigarettes of course. and if you can find it the leaf…but even coppenhagen canned tobacco wormed our sheep and goats very nicely. just sprinkle it on something or hand them the can they will lick it right out of the can.
castor oil…2 tablespoons per goat is another wormer but again. i don’t know how well it works on certain worms. experiment. black walnut hulls but doseage and how much i don’t know. .i used cydectin once a year and the tobacco in between.
i found Nubian goats to be the weakest of all breeds…they go from healthy to dead in no time. they start downhill it is difficult to bring them back. i sold all our goats…too high of maintenance for us. went to milk cow instead. 4 to 5 gallons a day. i use it all too. cheese.
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Thank you Highlander.
Yes, I assume barber pole as well. Never heard of trying tobacco, thanks for the idea. I’ve been making them a mash of garlic and rosemary with molasses and I think it’s helping and they do mostly like it.
Going to keep trying everything possible! Castor oil is another possibility and I’ve also read turpentine—have you heard/tried that one? Anything to not rely on the Cydectin, or the Ivermectin, or the Safe-Guard.
Glad to hear your cow is much easier! But wow, that’s a lot of milk, I don’t think I could make so much cheese!!
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yes on turpentine…i take that myself…gum spirits of turpentine i buy from a place in georgia. make a sugar cube stack and pour 1 teaspoon on top of it of turpentine or 1 tablespoon of sugar to 1 teaspoon turpentine. and down a glass of water…for myself that is what i do. for a goat i mix it in water and take a syringe with no needle of course. hold the head and dribble it into their mouth…they don’t like it but it does work. diluted with water makes it not so strong. if you can get them to take a sugar cube at a time with it then great but it depends on the goat. drenching with it carefully so it isn’t inhaled in the lungs.
you would be surprised how much milk you would use…plus. you can feed extra to pigs…chickens like a bowl of milk. i never thought i would either but after skimming creme, making sour creme, yogurt, butter, butter milk, and then cheese. i find i don’ t have enough. the whey makes cottage cheese. and other things like whey as well.
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This’ll be a bit off topic – so please forgive me.
My wife is rewatching the Stranger Things series on Netflix, and in one episode the camera shows the sky and (wouldn’t you know it) the chemtrails are everywhere.
But I swear the “trails” were never a thing in the 80s.
Large fluffy clouds were everywhere. Not those chemtrail things. hahaha
The lies run deep.
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I think they’ve gone back and added them to some popular old programs—read that many years ago when the Mandela effect started to become a thing.
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Yes, I heard you can’t have a show now without the trails showing so people think it’s normal! It’s called programming for a reason. Very sorry to hear about your goats. I hope things pick up soon for you all.
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Thanks Sharon! Yes, programming for normalizing, starting to wonder where good ole fashioned non-agenda driven entertainment has gone?! Or if it ever existed!
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