Gordon Longfoot

My brother and I used to brew beer and I'd take the grains home for my chickens. If I remember right, we were extracting sugar from the grains then the yeast goes in once the mash is removed. So no fermentation in brewer's grains unless they collect natural yeast after sitting for a few days.

Pigs out here get 60% corn and 20% oats all soaked in water for atleast 24 hours. But not the alfalfa, that doesn't need soaking. From what I understand the soaking helps them absorb nutrients with less pass through. But pigs eat their food twice, sounds kinda gross but it is what it is.

Since it's winter right now the feed bath has ice on it until day 3, then it's warm to the touch. I figure I'll stick some buckets in my green house once that's built, to keep plants warm but also to help the fermentation process.

The smaller doe had triplets this afternoon. Everything went smooth, we have three healthy kids. Everyone is eating or drinking and the placenta came out about 40 minutes after the last baby.

The white doe doesn't look as pregnant as today's mom. But we'll see what happens, she does look pregnant.

One of them for sure got mated in August.

Thea Carmella wrote:

Martin Mikulcik wrote:Rabbits probably won't breed till spring if you're in a temperate egion

Interesting! I've heard of a lot of people breeding their rabbits through the winter though? Perhaps that's it though, it is pretty cold lately.

My son's rabbits mated on the last week of December. We're still keeping them separated until we figure out how to colonize them, but as soon as we let them out of their cages the buck was on the doe.

We're planning a meal worm habitat. Our roosters are eating too much of the layer feed and getting a high dosage of calcium. This can damage their kidneys. So I want to put together a feed with different things I can grow on the farm, and leave out the oyster shells.

Meal worms seem like a good option. I already found a #50 bag of oats to feed them. These will need to be ground up a little.

That's a great looking rooster.

My kids came home with 6 Bielefelders but three of them ended up being Cream Legbars. All hens.

Mylow Bear wrote:Yep, they look bred to me! I have lamanchas mostly, but have a couple ND crosses. The ND does look like lil blimps like that. You've got kids coming in the next monthish for sure. Have you had goats kid before? If not, watch for them to sudden udder growth, drooping tails, pawing at the ground then laying down. Sometimes experienced does get milk a lot sooner, but I've had first timers fill out less than 24 hours before (that was quite a thing to wake up to in the middle of the night!).

These will be our first goat kids, we had a sow give birth in September but we're still new to this.

The white goat had kids last year with a different owner. The other girl (Daisy) is her first time, she's just under 2 years old. We'll be cleaning out their stall on Friday and adding a clean layer of straw. Then we get to start watching for signs. I think the earliest breeding date is around August 20th, so I'm thinking we have till the second week on January, but we didn't mark a calendar when it happened so we're not really sure.

All of our kid bucks had horns removed but one of them had a stub growing back. I was planning to remove it with a wire saw, but he was butting heads with our adult buck in early November and now it's gone.

We noticed some bleeding when he knocked it off and sprayed him with Blu Kote for the next three days.

Here's some pictures of the does

Leigh Tate wrote:Gordon, welcome to the wonderful world of goats. And welcome to Permies! I've been keeping goats for about 15 years, so I can offer what I've experienced and observed. I've had the same thing happen to me, with the bucks breaking in to get to the girls! (Talk about a 3-ring circus).

If it was me, I would mark both possible breeding dates on the calendar and then both potential due dates. For Nigerian Dwarfs, gestation is about 145 days. Typically, they lose interest in the bucks once they're pregnant, but I've had does go into false heats three weeks after their first date with a buck, get a second date, and then deliver full term kids near the first due date. It must have something to do with hormones.

So I think it's best to be prepared. Keep a close watch on them when the first due date approaches (a range of 140 to 150 days would all be considered normal) and have your kidding supplies at the ready. Then enjoy those baby goats!

The smaller doe is looking pretty wide. She was a year old but the other doe is about 5 so she's bigger. We'll be ready for them at the end of December even if they come on the later due date.

I'll post a picture of them tomorrow.