ACF Maddie - Miniature Toggenburg Doe

Weighing less than two pounds at birth, ACF Blue Mocha Madison's life is one of those you can call a miracle. She was born in March of 2007 along with two bucklings as the first freshening of our original miniature Toggenburg doe, HM Kari. She was the runt to her two five pounds brothers and needed extra care to get started. Too weak to stand to nurse, we resorted to tube feeding the first two days. Her mother was content as we were to keep her with the bucklings and was devoted to her, but she just seemed to have a hard time pulling together the strength she needed to nurse on her own. By the end of the second day, however, she was doing just fine. As this was a case of triplets with a first time doe, we almost hesitated keeping her on mom, but she was a determined little kid and got her fill at the udder.

Maddie never gained the stature of her brothers, but favors the Nigerian in her. At the county fair, she was shown in the 4H miniature dairy goat class and took first place. She repeated this the following year and moved up into two different championship classes.

During the fall of 2008, she was bred to the Nigerian buck we favored for this year, Ben. She surprised us with twins a few days sooner than expected. You can read our post about that experience here as well. We joke that she's a young mom and turns her kids over to her mother, Kari, to tend during the day. But in all actuality, she's doing a great job as a first time mom.

Mini Nubians have arrived!

Yes, our newest Doe, Wroxy, a mini Nubian finally got down to business after 11:30 p.m last night and delivered triplets ... one buck before midnight, a doe right after midnight, and a stillborn buck a while later. I would have guessed two kids or the possibility of one larger one but never three! She carried them down low and not too wide apparently so it was harder to tell.

She seemed a little distracted Sunday a.m. but we left her out anyway while we were gone in the morning. Early afternoon, however, we decided it was time to convert one of the horse stalls into a kidding stall. She roomed there all evening with a dry yearling to keep her company, but we could tell she would kid that night ... arching her back and stretching ... milk bag filling very full ... calling more than normal.

Just after getting a heat light set up along with a cot for Megan to spend the night and the rest of us getting ready for bed, Wroxy decided she would have her kids that night. After several serious pushes, it became evident that there was a lot of pressure going on. While inspecting her, the bag broke and relieved that pressure. It was then apparent that the kid wasn’t lined up right. But before we could think about it, she pushed out that kid butt first! A little buck, probably no bigger than three pounds. She didn’t take to licking him right away … a new mom thing … but finally got the hang of it. Pretty soon another round of pushes brought a little larger doe presented the correct way, thankfully. While concentrating on getting these two dry in the freezing temperatures, we realized that she wasn’t getting up to let them nurse. I began to think that there just might be a third. She did finally begin another series of pushes and delivered a stillborn buckling even larger than the doeling. Looking back, we probably should have gotten her up and “bounced” her to see if there was another kid and assisted in getting it out sooner as she didn’t deliver it right away. But, as with everything, you are always learning.

Round Two Coming

Our mini Nubian, Wroxy, is due on April 1 so ... the next post from here may be one of her kids. Hoping for an uneventful event!

OHSET Photos Are Finally Here!

Well, it took about three weeks, but the DVD just came in last night with the long-awaited photos from the Equestrian Team meet in February. It's amazing to see the stride-by-stride shots and the expressions. We're fortunate to have a professional photographer come and capture their rides. He ran a special last month whereby we could purchase in advance DVD's containing all of the pictures from all three meets. We didn't take him up on the offer last year, but this being Nicole's last year, it seemed to make sense.

Here's the link to shutterfly.com where they are at:

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0BZtG7lw0bMWFN&notag=1

Time Flies

Well time flies, and the kids are already a week old. Just about time to start thinking about disbudding. I'm thinking it would be a good idea to get them advertised on Craig's List so that if anyone would like to keep the one little frosted guy as a buck, we could make those arrangements before banding them. The club 4H meeting is tomorrow night, and we'll bring photos to show just in case someone is looking for more goats to add to their herd.

We have another doe ready to kid in 2-3 weeks, so we'll be starting the cycle all over again real soon!

Kari's Quad Kids - Day Two - 3rd Video

Well if two videos aren't enough, here's a third:

Kari's Quads Video - Day Two - 2nd Video

Video clip of Kari's Quads - Day Two

First Kids of the Year are Here!

Well, Kari our mini-Toggenburg just delivered four kids this morning right on her due date. There are two bucklings and two doelings weighing around 4 lbs. each. Kidding went easy for the doe and quick being her second freshening. So far everyone looks healthy and strong. Our oldest daughter was at an early a.m. FFA meeting so Megan was the midwife this time around and did a great job.

Cut and paste link below to view video of the birth:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-31489220763991882&hl=en

Cut and past link below to access photos on Shutterfly:

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0BZtG7lw0bMWEr&notag=1

Dairy Goat Conference

Saturday, the 4H Goat Club the girls belong to attended our local goat conference which attracted speakers from all over the county on the topics of dairy and Boer goats. The club ran a concession stand in order to raise money for County Fair supplies and seemed to be pretty successful. A total of four session blocks were offered, and our family attended a goat ice cream making class, fecal count class, skins issues class, youth showing and market goat raising class, as well as others. We learned a lot and took a home a handout packet/booklet just about an inch thick ... plenty of information to reference to down the line.

Kari & Maddie

Hey! This is Megan again. Here are some pics of my goats, Kari & Maddie. Maddie is Kari's daughter, born March 22nd, 2007. Kari was born on April 28th 2005. Kari and Maddie are Miniature Toggenburgs. Kari and Maddie's real names are "Hay Munchers Fudge Bayou Kari" and "ACF Blue Mocha Madison".

This is Kari... (above)

And this is Maddie... (above)

Goats

Hi! I'm Megan and I am writing about our goats. We currently have nine goats: Kari, Maddie (Kari's daughter), Windy, Wroxy, Vega, Tuck, Rose, Tori, and Abby... and of course, many more coming! We started out with just two little Pygmy goats: Abby and Willie. Then we got Kari, a Miniature Toggenburg, that resulted in having to sell Willie because he was being mean to poor, little bottle-baby Kari. Then came Vega, an 75% Oberhasli 25% Alpine doe. Nicole then got two Boer goats to sell in the county fair auction... Rose and Kip. They did not get sold, so we sold dear Kip, and we kept Rose as a breeding doe, who soon became a two-years-in-a-row champion at the county fair. The next year, Nicole got two more market goats, Kippy and "Blue-Tag". Unfortunately, Blue-Tag died, and Kippy was sold in the auction that year. Since my little sister, Hailey, had issues with selling Kippy, we bought a 75% Alpine 25% Oberhasli doe, Windy. Soon following Windy, we got a breeding Boer doe, Victoria (Tori). After that, Rose, Kari, and Vega gave birth to a total of eight kids. Kari gave birth to a doe named Maddie and two boys named Fox and Bunny. Rose gave birth to three boys, which sadly, two of them were born still born. The other kid is named Spud. And Vega gave birth to a cute, fuzzy, little girl named Ella, and a cute, fuzzy, little boy named Tuck. Eventually, Fox, Bunny, Ella, and Spud were all sold. Fox and Bunny were sold to our neighbors, Spud was sold as a buck, and Ella was sold to the owner of the sire. When county fair came up, (which may I say, our goats did VERY well there) I bought a Miniature Nubian, Wroxy. We have four goats that are going to have babies this year, Kari, Windy, Wroxy, and Vega. We are all very excited for more little kids to play with! Check out the pictures of our goats this our blog!

Video of Nicole and Gus daubing at OHSET

OHSET - Day Two

Well, Sunday brought another great day for Nicole and her horse Gus at OHSET. She broke the Tri River Valley district record for steer daubing, just set last year, with a 1.23 second daub. Take a look at the video to see her and Gus daub that steer! As well, her team penning team took first place at the meet being the only team to pen cows for all three of their "goes".

OHSET

OHSET stands for Oregon High School Equestrian Teams. Our oldest daughter, Nicole, participated in her first meet of the season today at a "somewhat local" county fairgrounds. She competed in gaming events and bettered almost every one of her times from last year. By the way, "somewhat local" refers to an hour's drive to get there. She has a blast running the gaming events with her friends she has met during the past three years participating in OHSET. This year her gaming events included the two-man birangle, barrel racing, individual flag race, figure 8 stake race, keyhole race, and Canadian team flag race. We'll be there tomorrow as well for the cattle events: steer daubing, roping, and team penning. GO NICOLE!!!