Ranch Update!!

Well, its been a little while since I posted last.

~ Meesha the new goat!
Meesha is a beautiful 2 year old Nubian doe that we got. She kidded about a week before we got her.  Meesha is a tri-colored moon spotted doe (she is black, brown and white).

Here is a picture of her ~ 

~ Rhia kidded!
Capering-Valley P Rhia kidded January 21st, 2011. She kidded to twins, one buck and one doe. Their sire is PawPawNin Junior Mint. If you would like to find out more of what went on then you can go here to find out - http://goodgoats.blogspot.com/2011/01/rhia-kidded.html .


Here are some pictures ~


This is the buckling.

And this is the doeling.

~ Emory lambed!

This is our first lamb of 2011! Little Hills Emory, one of our Desert Sand ewes that we own, lambed January 22nd, 2011 in the late afternoon. I did not get to see this lamb be born (thankfully she had her just fine), oh well. I found her just a little bit after she was born (she was still wet when I found her). Emory had a single eweling. The eweling is a VERY pretty girl! She is red and white in color, she also has light red speckles on her body. Her sire is a Texas Dall ram with 40" horns.

Here are some pictures ~

Here are some pictures of Emory and her eweling. 

Here are some pictures of Emory's eweling.

Goof ball!

This is Little Hills Emory.

And this is the little ewelings sire.

~ Sad News. . . . :(

Well, January 23rd, 2011 was a sad event. Little Hills Little Maria (Painted Desert ewe) had bottle jaw for a little bit and was loosing weight. So we wormed her. The bottle jaw went away for a little, but she was still loosing weight and not looking good. She then got the bottle jaw back, came down with scours and was getting pretty weak. We put her in a separate pen and gave her some scour halt. On Sunday night when we were feeding the animals we went to check her and she was laying flat on the ground. We attempted to sit her up, but she just fell right back down (it was apparent she was going to die very soon). She was in with a HUGE Texas Dall ram for awhile and another ewe (Emory) that (was in with the same ram) just lambed Saturday (January 22nd, 2011). We figured that she was most likely bred and could lamb any day, we decided to put her down and do an emergency C-section on her to see if we could save any lambs. You only have 3 minutes to get the lamb out after the mother dies. We were able to get the lamb out in  just over a minute. But, sad to say the lamb was premature :( It was a double sad event :( :( :( :( :( :(

Here are a couple pictures of her - 

~ Ewe Neek lambed finally!

Ewe Neek FINALLY lambed!! This will be our 2nd lambing of 2011!! She had some clear mucus around 10:00pm January 26th, 2011 at night. We had brought her back in the stall that is under where we sleep (around midnight). We all went to bed. Mom had been hearing lambs making noise in her sleep, and then woke up and realized that she was hearing Ewe Neek's lambs in the stall below her. She already had all the lambs out on the ground when we found her, but she had just had them. She had triplets (thankfully, otherwise the lambs would have been HUGE if there were only twins), one ewe and two rams. The sire to the lambs is Ames (our dairy ram), and the dam is Mary's Lil' Acre Ewe Neek. They were born Thursday, January 27th, 2011. The lambs would have most likely frozen if we did not put her in a stall, because it was 17 degrees this morning outside. Since the lambs sire is a wool breed and the lambs dam is a hair breed the lambs are part wool and part hair. That is why they look a little different:)

Here are a few pictures of them ~

This is Ewe Neek.

Here is a picture of her a couple weeks before she lambed.

And these three pictures are of her the day before she lambed.

Here are the pictures of the lambs.

This is the ewe lamb.

This is one of the ram lambs.

Here is the little lambs sire. These pictures of him are not recent. They were taken in July of 2010.

Have a good day!

~ Haleluyah

Baby Llama!!

Well, Thursday (January 6th, 2011) me and one of my sisters was loading hay. When we where done loading hay, my sister went to let the girls (does, ewes and the llama) out to pasture and she saw a foot sticking out of the llama!! Yikes! Our male llama left about 11 months ago, so he must've bred her right before he left! This was our first llama birth, but thankfully my sister read a fair amount online about llama births (and we have attended a TON of other animal births). She pushed his head and front feet out, and she let my sister come over and clean his nose off so he could breath. A few minutes later, she pushed the rest of him out. Normally the llama doesn't like us near her very much at all (unless we are feeding her grain!), but she let my sis clean him off and make him a bed of hay, because he was flopping *everywhere* and getting covered in dirt, which was kind of freaking us out a little!! Thankfully, my sister stayed pretty calm tho, because word had spread and several neighbors had come over to watch :)! Whenever we have an animal birth we often want to pull it out once the head has been there for a little bit. Llamas don't lick their babies (crias), so it was good that she let my sister help. Oh, yeah its a boy!

Here are some pictures of the birth ~

~ Haleluyah

Baby goats!!

Well, it has been a long time since I have posted. We have been very busy on the ranch (as usual). One of our Nubian does, Free Spirit Rosemary (for short we call her "Rosie") had twin boys January 3rd, 2011. It was around 2am that we got up and checked on Rosie, and sure enough, she was pushing! After a little while, she pushed out a HUGE buckling... we did not weigh him, but I'm guessing he was a good 10 lbs. A little while later, she pushed out another buckling who came out back-feet first, which I think was easier since their heads and shoulders were so big! Thankfully, the second kid was not as big as the first. Their sire is our Boer buck, Ace. Rosie's dam is, Laports Mahogany Sage. The first buckling looks more like a boer and second buckling looks more like a Nubian.

Here are a few pictures - 

Here is a picture of Rosie the day before she kidded.

These are the first kids feet coming out!

The first buckling . . . 

And here is the second buckling.

Here are a couple pictures of the two bucklings, taken Friday. This is the first buckling.

And here is the second buckling.

~ Haleluyah ~

4 new goats!!

Well guess what, we got some new goats. 4 beautiful Alpine/Nubian (Nupine) cross doe kids that were born early this year. Yes, they all have horns - but, they were just given to us (along with about 30 chickens) and they are really nice does so they are going to be a "project." My sister plans on using the banding method to remove their horns. If you would be interested in reading more about the banding method on horns the you can go to my sisters blog  - http://goodgoats.blogspot.com/2010/12/new-goats.html . 

Here are some pictures of them! They are all very friendly, which is nice!!

Buttercup,

Cleo-Patrick,

and Friendly, 

Anne,

Have a good week!!

~ Haleluyah

Some picture around the ranch

Well, it has been a while since I posted last. We have been pretty busy lately (as usual) with all the animals, hay loading & unloading and whatever else is going on up here on the ranch. We picked up 20 new ewes Monday afternoon. I will tell about the new sheep in another post hopefully:)

Salty the Llama.

Goofy Frenchie.

Doris the queen.

Appalachia one of our registered Painted Desert ewes.

Bubbly the Champagne meat rabbit doe.

Cougar, drinking the goat milk foam.

Calevah (the 13 year old dog) & Cougar (the cat)

 Ewe Neek, and Butter Mint peeking under Ewe Neek.

~ Haleluyah