Routine Again and Hard Choices

Life is busy! My sister and I recently got back from a trip to Mexico and ran strait into a brother's graduation and another brother's wedding! Life is good! When it's crazy and when it slows back down again.... I am hoping for some quite days ahead...

Part of life being busy is our goats. Recently I have been just a bit to busy and the barn has been just a bit to crowded. I've also being dealing with some very nasty pain in my hands while milking. I really can't keep it up.
Through a lot of different issues and all the things going on in my life we've decided to sell out of goats. It was a very hard decisions, but I am confident it is the best one for my life right now. We will miss them! We bought our first girls in Jan 1999. Eleven years... Yes, we will miss, miss, miss them!

Thank you to those of you who have already given our goats excellent homes! We do have several left and I'm posting the list here.

Thank you to all of those who have sold us goats or bought goats and milk from us!

I'll be posting some new pictures soon. We are certainly having picture perfect weather here.
Thanks,
Miss Pickwickian

Meat and milk production stock available! $75-$350. Detailed list below. All CAE and CL tested.

We want them all to find good homes. We will give discounts on the purchase of 3 or more.

If you have any questions about our stock or how they are raised feel free to contact us by phone or email. I can be reached at 503-476-4575.

Our stock is raised on hay, alfalfa, free choice minerals, minimal grain, and pasture.

Detailed list below. Pictures available on all stock. Thank you!

~Oberhasli and Nubian Milk Goats Available~

Bucks and Wethers

*Drowsy Waters Sweet Potato Pie*
February 10th 2010 - Quadruplet - Brown
Nubian/Oberhasli grade wether. Excellent pet or meat goat.
$75

The Does

*Drowsy Waters Bristol*
February 10th 2010 - Quadruplet - Brown with some black markings
Grade Nubian/Oberhasli doeling. Excellent milk lines. Out Drowsy Waters Ella and Drowsy Waters Rudi.
$100

*Drowsy Waters Alexandria*
February 10th 2010 - Quadruplet - Brown with some black markings
Grade Nubian/Oberhasli doeling. Excellent milk lines. Out Drowsy Waters Ella and Drowsy Waters Rudi.
$100

*Drowsy Waters Atlanta*
February 5th 2010 - Single - Brown with black markings
Nubian grade. Lovely, lovely milk doeling. Long, deep...all dairy. Out of Cove Orchard's Penelope (an excellent purebred milker) and our grade buck out of top production lines. Really promises to be an excellent combination. Would love to keep her but don't have the room.
$150 with grade registration or $125 unregistered.

*Drowsy Waters Georgia*
February 14th 2010 - Twin -Black with white markings and ears
Nubian grade. Out of amazing milking lines! Should do very well. Mom is a lovely doe from RR Resources. Her sire is out of a all milk doe that gives over 3 gallons of milk a day! Has both amazing show lines and production lines in there. Her weak point is her ears are a bit goofy.
$150 as registered grade $125 unregistered.

*Drowsy Waters Ella*
February 15th 2003 - Brown with black markings
Nubian/Oberhasli grade. Excellent producer. Has given us 17 kids in 6 kidding seasons. Excellent mom. Produces past 3 gallons a day at peak. Currently milking. Freshened in February.
$200

*RR Resources Virginia Grace*
April 1st 2008 - Quadruplet - Black and white
American Nubian. This is her first year and she gave us a lovely set of twins and is milking very, very nicely. Out of B* T&L March's Ranch Wickedwinner and 3*M RR Resources Valveeta. Some of the best lines you can find.
$325

~Boer Meat Goats Available~

The Bucks

*Parker's Gormet Bocephues*
July 15th 2009 - Traditonal/Correct
Beautiful buck. Very stocky and showy. Out of TST1 Windyu Acres Bo Diddley and Parker's Gourmet Just Kinky. Excellent sire for your meat operation.
$225 no papers $275 with ABGA paperwork.

*Drowsy Waters Hillbilly Bone~
February 14th 2010 - Twin - Tan
Lovely honey colored buckling out of great lines. Dad is commercial and mom is a fullblood out of Elite Ennobled and Ennobled show and meat stock. Very stocky. Excellent for breeding or for meat.
$125

The Does

*Goat Palace T Sophie Cornflower*
March 20th 2008 - Single - Traditional markings
Excellent fullblood doe. Gave us twins this year (her first kidding season) and has raised them very well. Very stocky and meaty. Out of Elite Ennobled KTM Tuck and Goat Palace T. Diva. Wonderful lines. Registered with USBGA.
$200

*Drowsy Waters Scarlett*
February 14th 2010 - Twin - Brown cap with some non traditional markings
Very nice doeling. Very long. Should do well in any breeding program. Commercial dad. Mom is Goat Palace T Sophie Corflower (see above).
$125 or $150 registered at 50% with USBGA.

*Drowsy Waters Miss Lonely*
February 8th 2010 - Single - Brown and white...very cute markings.
Lovely doeling that should do well. Out of commercial Boer parents.
$125

Sketches of Spring

I would have a host of pictures, but I have been so busy (and to lazy) to format them for the blog. They shall come....

There was an attempted snow yesterday, but we've had some wonderfully warm days. The orchard is blossoming and daffodils are everywhere. Unfortunately it's been chilling back up just in time for my last ewes to lamb.

Instead of pictures here are some written snap shots of the farm.

~This time of the year the Katahdins spend nearly 24/7 out in the pasture. (If there is rain, clouds, or darkness the goats and dairy sheep stay indoors.) The lambs spend most of the day running from the barn to the pasture and back. So cute!

~Nine baby goats in one pen is as entertaining as TV.

~One of our neighbors (the ones who raised the huge caboodle of Boers) sold all their stock on Sunday. All except one....They very graciously gave back the doe we sold them when they first got started! I came home from church to find a mini Ella in one of my quarantine pens. She's a real blessing and will save me two years on raising a different Ella baby to start milking.

I'm currently working her (formally known here as Nobby and now Capri) milk back up after she weaned her kids. It's going much better then I expected. She is just as relaxed and sweet and all around dairish as her mom. Hopefully she won't follow in her mom's foot steps of being a big ol' boss. I'll just have to wait for her blood tests results to see how she does with them all.

~We had our first Boers go the way Boer's were intended to go. :-P We'll see it if was all worth it.

~Whenever I come down to early or to late for normal chores the critters are out in the pasture. The sheep are easy to get in, and if they weren't it wouldn't matter to much. I don't have to milk them.
The goats? Not so much.
I'm separating Ella and Ginny at night so their easy. The other day I'd finished the inbarn goats and I was ready for the pasture girls. They were not ready. I chugged out to the pasture and called for them. Penny made some half hearted steps back to the barn, but got distracted. I went back into the barn thinking they would surely come back in after the saw me. Nope.
I ran the milk I'd already milked up to the house to start chilling and put Ella and Ginny back with the gang.
Ella, of course, tromped out the pasture with her triplets, told everybody what was what and turned right back around and led them all in. How can they all fear her so much but be incapable of make the simple decision to return to the barn without her?

~Miss Lonely is now the happiest, fattest growing baby on the farm but still considers it her duty to wail hoarsely whenever she sees a human.

~We had our first surprise lambs in 11 years.
Our power was out from about 3-10pm yesterday. When it looked like I wasn't going to have power for chores I hurried down to try and get the five goats milked before the milk room was completely dark. I'd gotten through goat four when I went out to feed the ewe lambs and dairy mom's. Darkness can do funny things, but there really was two itty-bitty lambs in there!
Dotty had delivered two ewe lambs no problem. They were fat, happy, and frisking!

I would have loved to let her grow that full year. She is a gorgeous ewe and hopefully will still grow some more. Lambing early always cuts their growth short.
She was one of my main candidates for a yearling at the state fair. She did well last year and if she's anything like her mom she should be a lovely big yearling by September. We'll see. She's out of Amelia's triplets last year and is my biggest and oldest ewe lamb.

This puts her with babies at 13 months. It could be worse. She doesn't have a lot of milk yet, but it should come in. Two ewe lambs (no matter how tiny) are always a blessing. ;-) Dotty still looks as prosperous as ever. It certainly doesn't seem to have affected her too much weight wise. She's still filled out. Just tiny babies. We'll see how she does next year.

But then there is the big question. How did this happen? Well, the only ram that has been near her is Westlock and back in October at three months. Katahdins do mature early...but that is very early. Do I need to start weaning my ram lambs even earlier?

I think I need to trust my instincts a bit more with the critters. A few days ago I was just remarking to one of the family, "Wow, Dotty has a mature udder for a yearling. Maybe it's just cause she's fat everywhere." Ding, ding, ding. I feel very stupid.


I think that's enough for one day.... Back to the action.
Thanks for reading,
Miss Pickwickian

Drowsy Waters Farm

Ella the Great and a Host of Pictures!

Well...Ella tried to make up for all my singles.

Ella is my main stay. She's almost the perfect goat.

I love the fact that-

-She's big and healthy

-Her babies are big and healthy

-She gives me lots of kids

-She gives me 3 gallons plus a day!

-She'll stay in milk as heavy as I want as long as I want

-She's sweet and easy to handle

What I do not like about Ella-

-Ella is sweet to people, but bossy to the other goats and will try to make the Boers stay outside in the rain. What a meanie!

-Sometimes her babies are just a bit to big

-And for the last two years she's tried delivering two 10lb+ kids at once! What's with that?

So, last year she had triplets and we lost one in delivery (the plain, big ol' boys made it and the spotty doe didn't, of course). She had two heads and only one leg and I couldn't sort it out. Sorry girl!

I was nervous about her delivery this year because of last year and because I'd had to have a vet out because she'd retained the afterbirth... I forgive her from all that extra trauma in her labor.

So...Anyways....

Last night she was in mild labor at about 7pm. I kept coming down and checking on her and it looked like things were progressing nicely. When pushing came to shoving, she delivered a whole new kid (unrelated to the water sack already out). A wobbly, but huge boy.

The other water sack should have given me enough red lights to investigate, but I didn't. I really don't like to go in there when I don't have too. I'm just so afraid of messing things up and introducing infection.

Well, she pushed out a head...no legs. She was continue to push, and with last year (two kids at once) I knew there was enough room for her to get the body out without those legs lined up. Well, my mistake. Pretty soon there was another head without legs!

Now I went in. Baby, baby everywhere! I couldn't find anything but long necks and legs where still to far down and there wasn't enough room for my hand. I could tell the bottom baby was getting crushed, so things were getting pretty frantic at this point. (I love Boers! They don't get bred for crazy long, slender necks. Legs are just a little closer.)

Well, she pushed and tried, but just couldn't get anywhere. I really didn't want to tear anything. We lost the bottom baby. Even without worrying about hurting the baby, I couldn't move anything.Things just got worse. The top baby was starting to fade. Oh Ella, I'm sorry! But I went as fare as I could and pushed and pulled that poor baby, until I finally was just barely able to find a front leg.

What relief! (Especially for Ella!)

The rest was pretty easy. All three does came out fairly well, but none with any legs positioned correctly. Poor Ella, just trying to bump my average back up to twins this year. :-) She's always picking up the slack. She's raised abut almost all my bottle babies on her milk alone.

We lost one doe, but she now has two exhausted (probably bruised) does and one very happy-go-lucky buck! They are so big!!! They dwarf all the other kids born in the last 10 days.

Ella is still alive and she didn't tare!!!!!! She's on Pen-G right now and hopefully she won't scar or get an infection.

The babies are less active then her normal kids, but they've been through a lot. We gave them their shots and got warm milk in their tummies. I crawled back into bed at about 2am so I could get back to check on them all at 5:30am and then get on to feeding the bottle babies and milking. What fun. I'm going to need a nap today.

We have one more try for us both next year, Ella, and if it doesn't work out your going to have to go in retirement. Poor girl.

Lesson learned-

You see an unrelated water sack - go in while you still can and push that baby down there! You get two heads and your stuck; no going back in there! When you think you have triplets or quadruplets in there and you don't see feet in the right spot, investigate.

It's always better to fix things before you're in danger of seriously damaging the doe or your working on a stress time frame well your losing a baby.

Be clean and treat for infection. It's better then this sort of situation.

Thank you God! A healthy Ella with a bonus of three babies is a huge blessing!

Here's Ella's track record-

2005 - Twins (does)

2006 - Twins (does)

2007 - Triplets (2 bucks, 1 doe)

2008 - Triplets (3 does)

2009 - Triplets (2 bucks, 1 doe)

2010 - Quadruplets (3 does, 1 buck)

That's a total of 17 babies for a seven year old doe that didn't start until she was two! And a 14:3 doe: buck ratio! You rock Ella!

Current Baby Count

4 ewes - 7 lambs (6 ewe lambs and 1 ram)

4 does - 8 kids (6 does and 2 buck)

Besides the loss of that doe kid and the ware and tare on Ella, it has been an amazing year.

We are so blessed!

Thank you for reading,

Miss Pickwickian

Sorry about the blurry pictures. The lighting isn't so great in our barns, but I wanted to show some of the critters.

So you can see how big they are!

Alexandra, Bristol, and Sweet Potato Pie
(Ella/Monkey)

Alexandra, Bristol, and Sweet Potato Pie

Bristol...the doe that had to come out over the other poor girl.

Aravis twins, Sicily and Paris.
9 days old (Aravis/Johann)

Paris and Sicily

Vienna

Scarlett (Sophie/Monkey)
3 days old
This was the only pic I could get except blurry ones of her bouncing off the walls. She is quit the lively little girl. What a sweetie!

Brunswick...I couldn't get a picture of him without him eating!
3 days old (Sophie/Monkey)

Brunswick
Love his markings!

Celia
Is she pregnant or not?

Texas (Parsley/Johann)
3 days old

Parsley and her ewe lamb, Texas

Two of my favorite ewe lambs from 2009
Spotty DWB 10P Hagar (One of Parsley's twins from last year). I love how long she is.
And KRK Mercy, a white July twin.

Have you ever seen anything so cute in your life?
Miss Lonely (Gwenie/Monkey)
3 days old

Bottle babies are impossible to take pictures of!
Little Dorrit, Miss Lonely, and Florence

Atlanta (Penny/Monkey)
5 days old
This is blurry, but it shows how lovely and totally dairy Penny's baby is!

Atlanta

Vienna, Sicily, and Paris
"Run!"

Vienna, Paris, and Sicily
"Wait. What's that?"