I did it....

I feel like a criminal right now.

I dehorned my calf today.

A dear friend lent me her dehorning supplies, but I didn't want the supplies unless she was included in the deal!! ;) I know how to dehorn animals with the 'dehorning iron' and that's not so bad; it stinks of burnt hair and the animals scream, but once it's done, it's done. This time, I was using dehorning paste, which I have never done, so I wheedled and pleaded with my friend to come and help me do this.

For those who are not familiar with using paste to dehorn an animal, the paste is extremely caustic and slowly burns away the horn, but you have to put it on before the horns emerge, so the paste burns through skin and then the horn. Ouch.

So with fear and trembling, my friend and I tied dear Poppy up and went to work.

Alas, since this was my first time, I was too slow! Poppy began to feel the burn before I had finished the second horn bud, so our dehorning erupted into a rodeo! I don't even remember most of what happened, all I remember is my friend trying to keep her still while I put the paste on bare handed (gloves got paste on 'em) and then my turn holding Poppy still while she (friend, that is) began frantically wrapping duct tape around Poppy's head, so that none of the paste would rub off.

We put Poppy into a small stall, where she wouldn't hurt herself, and watched as she thrashed and flailed in pain, trying to get the burn to stop. Thankfully, after maybe ten minutes she calmed down and dozed off....

Whew! Did I mention that I prefer the iron over the paste!? ;) Of course, it wasn't until after we were done that I had the lightbulb idea of "We should have put her in the milking stanchion!" Why didn't I think of that before? So, lesson learned: if you have a goat stanchion, use it!!

This is my poor girlie with her duct tape "helmet" on. Very stylish, don't you think? ;)

I haven't checked to see if the paste worked yet. I sure hope so, or else we'll have to do everything all over again...

~Caitlyn

At it again...

Just know that I am a farm girl.

And I'm at it again.

Mom and dad gave me permission to try again and get our little farm up and running, so I have been very busy working on just that!

Change number one started when I was at the annual Flock and Fiber Festival with my friends.... And saw an adorable rabbit.... To make a long story short, I saw a gorgeous Champagne D' Argent doe, who had excellent conformation, I haggled the price down to what I could afford and brought the poor thing home in a cardboard box. Don't ever take me shopping where there might be animals for sale. I would've brought a sheep home too, but there wasn't any room in the back of the van.... Next time maybe. ;)

Second half of that story is that when I first saw the rabbit, the area was crowded with people, The owner and I could barely hear each other because it was so loud and I was constantly being jostled while looking the rabbit over. I didn't do a thorough check, basically just looked at its conformation and whatnot. It wasn't until I got home that I did a very thorough check and found out that I just became the new owner of a lovely buck, and not a doe! I still have the goofy fellow, as the previous owners live over 5 hours away. Apparently they got mixed up about which rabbit was their doe and which was their buck. Oh well, he really is a nice buck; I wouldn't mind taking him to a show or two someday....

Change #2. We got chickies again!!

20 Deleware pullets to be exact. :D I chose these birds so that we could breed them with a Rhode Island Red rooster, and the resulting chicks will be sex-linked, meaning the males with be white and females will be red.

And change #3? Okay, this has been the biggest thing of all. After many months of praying, searching, learning, making phone calls, etc... Today, I became the new owner of a 14 day old Jersey heifer!!!

Isn't she sweet!?

I haven't decided on a name yet, but I'm thinking maybe 'Poppy'. ;)

She is such a sweetheart too. :) At first I was worried about how the goats would take to having a newcomer in their pasture, but thankfully they are fine with her around. :D

[sigh] I love bein' a farm girl....

~Caitlyn

Jes' bein' me

I couldn't resist the temptation of sharing this picture with y'all. ;)

The below picture is of me holding a baby Gopher Snake. Isn't it pretty? Okay, so I'm probably the only one who thinks so....

For some reason, I've always had a fascination with reptiles and amphibians. :)

~Caitlyn

Lovely rain....

I like rain...

I suppose that's a good thing, seeing as I live in a very rainy state. ;)

I was outside a few minutes ago, gathering some plantain and enjoying the wet. While out there, I couldn't help but think back to when we were still boarding horses...

My favorite time to ride was when it was raining. I would grab a lead rope and then simply hop onto the Quarter horse named 'Peaches' that we were boarding. Peaches enjoyed the rain as well, so off we went! A drenched girl upon a drenched horse, moving in sync beneath the falling raindrops...

Sometimes, I didn't even bother to use a lead rope around her neck; She chose where to go and at what pace. She new the ground better than I did; on dryer areas she would move into a graceful trot and then go back to a walk in the wetter parts. I merely sat atop her, enjoying the ride... Now we trot, then back to a walk; stop to shake off some of the water; try a lope? Ooops! Too wet, back to the walk we go. She eventually stops, my ride is over. No hassle of un-tacking her, no walking her to cool her down, I just slide off and walk away.... Until the next rain, Peaches.

Being outside this evening, made me miss having horses around. There is just something irresistible about riding in the rain...

~Caitlyn

Well THAT was unexpected!

While upstairs this afternoon, I was suddenly called down by mom and Megan who were urgently telling me (and all who were upstairs as well) to hurry. Upon getting to the kitchen I looked out the window that views the porch and saw....

A huge, fluffy black dog that didn't belong to us! "Where on earth did he come from!?" But none of us could identify him. He looked quite comical; lolling on our porch as if he had always belonged there. :)

He turned out to be a very friendly fellow and our dog Copper was ecstatic to have a playmate. But alas! He had a collar; so we had to phone the owners and tell them that we was here. As it turns out, he lives just up the road from us. :)

Quite fittingly, his name was Bear. ;D I'm thinking he is perhaps a chow chow/ lab cross? He's got a very blue tongue, which hints to his chow chow ancestry.

I admit, when I got called down I was expecting to see a squirrel or something; I never expected a dog!! ;D

~Caitlyn

Gone!

So there is something that I haven't mentioned on here.... Even thought it happened about a month ago.

My alpacas are gone! :-/

"What! Where did they go!?"

Let's go back to the very beginning...

I started out with two alpacas. Mia and Marina. That was really all I wanted, just a couple fiber animals. But Mia starting acting aggressive, so the former owners brought two more alpacas, Salinda and Altimira.

As you know, Sayla and Mira (plus baby Tumnus) went back, as we needed room for our dairy goats. And it happened all over again. Mia started being aggressive again.

I told myself to just "wait it out", hoping Mia would get over being without a herd, but no go. I gave her a month but she eventually became so aggressive that I couldn't even get into the barn to milk the goats! I remember one night, I needed to milk the goats, but Mia wouldn't let me in, so she and I stood glaring at each other (it's pretty impressive, seeing an alpaca glare) from across the fence.

Barn chores were a nightmare. Some people said just let her know who's boss and she'll calm down. Uh-huh. You try telling that to an animal that can spit 30 feet with deadly accuracy and then we'll talk.

Thankfully, the former owners were happy to take her and Marina back. So I am now once more without alpacas.... :-/

I like goats. Goats don't spit...

~Caitlyn

Yum? Well, maybe not....

If you were to look in my livestock medicine drawer, you probably wouldn't find any 'Safeguard' dewormer in there; or any 'Ivermectin' for that matter. A few years back (last time I had dairy goats), I stopped using store-bought dewormers. Tired of the havoc they were playing on my animals, annoyed with withdrawal times, and frustrated that they really didn't work, I began using an herbal dewormer.

The difference is amazing! A test was done once on 29 goats (can't remember who did the test, right now) divided into two groups including milkers, wethers, dry does and bucks. The types of parasites that were being observed were thread worms, tapeworms and lung worms.

After treating one group with an herbal dewormer, and the second group with a chemical dewormer the following results were found:

1. Thread worms and tapeworms were found in 0% of the herbal test group, but 29% to 33% in the chemical group.

2. Lung worms were found in 33% of the herbal group, and 50% in the chemical group.

I have been really happy using my herbal dewormer; and so have my goats!! There is no withdrawal time, I can continue drinking the milk, and the herbs are overall very beneficial to my animals. But enough talk! Here's the recipe that many people besides myself have used and received good results from....

1 cup mustard seed powder

2 cups Thyme leaf

2 cups Wormwood leaf*

1 cup black walnut hull (powder, or just finely crushed)*

2 cups sage leaf

1 cup garlic*

2 cups Rosemary leaf

1/2 cup cloves

1 cup psyllium seed powder

2 cups Diatomaceous Earth (D.E.)*

The most crucial ingredients are marked by an asterisk (*).

My favorite place to buy herbs from would have to be from here.

Now! Directions! :)

Step #1: gather ingredients. Okay, that's obvious, but still...

I made a new batch of dewormer today, and ended up doing a simplified version of the above recipe. All I did was the black walnut hull, mustard seed, garlic and wormwood. But it still works very effectively!

Step #2: Dump all ingredients into a bowl and enjoy the nice layered look that results. ;)



Step #3: Mix it all up.

Step #4: put it into a container and then take it to the barn, or wherever you store your livestock medicine.


Step #5: Sprinkle this mixture onto their feed morning and evening for 7 days straight. A mature sheep, goat or alpaca gets 1 tablespoon per feeding; a mature pony, or llama, gets 1/4 cup per feeding, and a mature horse, or cow, recieves 3/4 cup per feeding. I usually do about 1/3 of the adult dosage for young animals, but I would suggest using your best judgment. you can also use this dewormer for dogs, rabbits... Really any animal. With dogs I can't really give a set amount, as they vary so much, but with rabbits just a pinch twice a day will do!

One more note:

Black walnut hulls can contain a fungus which is deadly to horses, so horse owners should probably omit this one ingredient if making and using. It should be noted that black walnut does not always contain this fungus. It just depends, and there is no good way to tell if it does or doesn't. Everything else in the recipe is perfectly safe for horses. and the dangers of the fungus apply ONLY to horses. The rest of the recipe is perfectly safe for other animals.

Are you asleep yet? I could do another post about all the latin names of herbs if you're not bored enough yet! ;D

~Caitlyn

Anyone still here?

Hmmmm, methinks I have neglecting a certain blog of the late.... Ooops! :-/

I want to give a huge thank you to everyone who prayed for sunshine!! So far we've gotten four sunny days in a row (yesterday and today are pretty overcast though), and the weathermen say that we are "supposed" to have more sun coming. The Lord heard your prayers, and a few busy farmers have gotten small parts of their hay in. The silage farmers were the lucky ones, and most of them got their crops in.

So now you expect a huge list of everything I've been doing that has kept me away from blogging right? Surely I've been so busy lately that I haven't been able to even look at the computer, right?

Ahem, well.... Let's just say that I'm human through and through.

Actually, I've mostly been busy with my goats. Feeding, milking, mucking, scrubbing the milk stall, trimming hooves, desperately trying to find a local farmer who has hay, taking the girls (my goats, that is) out foraging, fixing fencing. Etc...

Oh yeah, I sheared my alpacas!! :) Last time we had alpacas, it took three people to hold each thrashing animal down, while the shearer speedily attempted to get all that wonderful fleece off. I was expecting the same thing with these alpacas, so I had one of my sisters plus a friend come and help me. With fear and trembling, I cross tied my first victim, and brought out my handshears.... I was dumbfounded. She just stood there! I clipped away, rather slowly at first; and my dear little 'paca stood patiently all by herself! After a while a let my sister and the friend go, and finished the shearing up alone.

I learned some very important lessons that day.

1. You can't shear suri alpacas with handshears; only electrical. So the fleece from two of my alpacas is pretty much worthless. :(

2. Handshears start to hurt your hand after three hours. By the end of the day, my hand was so swollen that I couldn't bend my fingers and almost had to make Emily do the evening milking.

3. It is really hard to shear the neck with handshears, while the animal is standing up.

4. Shearing isn't hard at all, once you get the hang of it! :)

My white alpaca, Marina, did the best and I got 6 lbs. of usable fleece off of her, so that made up for the disappointment of the loss of two fleeces.

The other day, while transplanting some tomato plants, I saw something moving out of the corner of my eye. I turned and saw.... My fiesty goat 'Capri', gaily dancing outside of her pasture!! "Capri! What on earth are you doing over here!" She stopped as if she had run into a brick wall and gave a look that clearly said "uh-oh, I'm caught." ;)

She tried the oh-so-innocent look, but I didn't buy it. After marching her and Ivy into the barn and locking them in, my mom, big brother and I began working on fixing the low part of the fence that they were jumping. After about four or five posts, my memory on fence fixing was jogged, so I went ahead and fixed five more by myself.

After finishing, I had a "brilliant" idea (not very often that happens!). I decided to wrap bright orange, electric fencing tape around the top of the fence posts , so as to make it look more daunting, and to give the goats a visual as to how high the fencing was. It worked! My goats are subdued for the moment. :) The only downside though, is that my pasture looks like a WWII concentration camp now.... ;D

The one thing I haven't mentioned during all this, was that I somehow completely forgot to put some leather gloves on. :-/ Yeah, you'd think I would have been smart enough to go get some. By the end of working, my hands were pretty scratched up, and I got bit by a spider that was hiding in the wad of electric fencing. Ouch. Oh well, 'Tis the price I have to pay for being a country girl, and I am willing to pay it. :)

Well, I'm off to go trim some more hooves, make some phone calls about hay, and then take my goats out foraging. :D

~The Herdess, Caitlyn ~

Trusting

I may not understand Lord, but I trust you.

About a month ago, as I was praying, the Lord asked me something that I was not prepared for.

"Child, do you trust me?"

"Of course I do, Lord!" Was my answer.

"I want you to give two of your alpacas back."

"Operator? Hello? I think we had a miscommunication, for a moment it sounded like He wanted me to give two of my alpacas back!!"

Give two of my alpacas back!! Which two?

"The two pregnant ones." Came the soft answer.

On that very same day, my parents came to me and casually said something like: "Caity, have you ever thought of giving your two pregnant alpacas back? I'm sure the former owner would take them."

Later in the day, I got an e-mail from the former owner saying that if I ever wanted to give the alpacas back, she would come and get them.

Triple Whammy! Ouch that hurt.

Well, that was a month ago. It's taken me this long to yield.... To surrender.... To trust.

I tried everything.... "Lord, I just got them!"

"But they were a gift!"

"But Salinda hasn't had her baby yet!"

"But I want to keep them!"

"I haven't sheared them yet!"

"I don't understand Lord."

"Why do I have to give them back?"

Etc...

His patient answer was always: "Child, do you trust me?"

My untrusting reply was always: Yes, but...

Finally, like a wayward lamb coming back to the fold, I yielded.

That's all I had to do.

Just trust.

For the first time in a month, I felt peaceful. It was that feeling you get when you know you did the right thing. I e-mailed the former owner, who came today and picked up Salinda, Altimira and my little baby 'paca.

Actually, 'baby 'paca', has a name now. My dad came up with the winning name of:

"Tumnus". :)

We finally gave up trying to think up a name that would look good on his papers, instead we went with a name that fit his personality.

He was a goofy, curious little fellow, and the name Tumnus just seemed to fit.

I may not understand why I had to give them back, but I trust the Lord.

~Caitlyn

At Last!! Alpaca Baby!!

For the last 4 years, Salinda has always been two weeks early. This year she was three weeks LATE! Mom was certain that the alpaca wasn't really pregnant, but lo and behold, the stork visited today!

Would you believe that I completely missed the birth! I checked on her at 1:30, she was fine, she didn't even look like she was thinking about having her baby. At 2:30 Emily came running inside shouting, "Caity! Sayla just had her baby!!"

We got there and found a wee brown bundle, still wrapped in the placenta, and a proud Salinda beaming from ear to ear.

IT'S A BOY!!

After about 20 minutes he wobbled to his feet... I love the little white patch he has on his front leg!

Alpaca babies average 15 to 20 lbs. This guy is a whopping 28 lbs!

Alas, I still don't have a name for him!! Had he been a girl, his name would have been Rhiannon; but I can't think up any good boy names! :-/

His mother's name is 'Salinda' (in case you didn't already know [wink]) And his dad's name is 'Nahjran's Pride', so it's been challenging thinking up a name nice enough to go with his ancestry. ;) Any suggestions out there? Right now the only thought we have is the name 'Coinin'....Oh yeah, Legolas was thrown out there too. ;)

~Caitlyn

Gone nuts... Not sure when I'll be back

Two years ago I told myself that I was done. I never wanted to go back. I tried to remember the bad memories, I tried to talk myself out of it, but time heals the wounds and I am nutty enough to try again.

Try what again?

Goats.

Yep. Goats.

Dairy goats.

Goats that will give me milk twice a day to sell to friends.

This whole crazy scheme (I admit it, I am the queen of crazy schemes and plots) started when we found out that baby Connor was not doing well at all on cow's milk, and it was getting very tiresome and expensive to keep on buying goat milk (at $6 per half gallon!). So we prayed about getting dairy goats again and began the search.

The Lord was good and provided two milking does that were in our price range. One was a 3/4 Nubian, 1/4 Oberhasli, 4 yo. doe named 'Capri', and the second was a purebred, registered Nubian named 'Ivy'. Both are giving 1/2 to 3/4 a gallon each, putting us at roughly a gallon a day, which is better than last time we had goats.

Dare I say that I am enjoying being a goatherd again? ;)

Below is a pic of Capri. I am tempted to hang a sign on our barn that says :"Beware of Goat." If you're not careful, this girlie will lick you to death! She's like a dog and is veeery nosey. You can almost hear her say, as you try and do chores,: "Watcha doin'? Is it fun? Can I do it? Would I think it's fun? Are you gonna' do it tomorrow? Can I do it tomorrow? Do the alpacas like it? Etc...

My Ivy girl. She's not much to look at, but she is an excellent milker. Giving 1/2 a gallon a day on her second freshening!! (Translate: Her second time to give birth) She too is very sweet tempered.

My alpacas have decided that goats are ghastly creatures that should glared at from afar. It's pretty funny watching them run away if a goat comes near them. ;)

Gone nuts.... But at least I'm enjoying myself... :)

Now to try and get an Emu, right? ;D

~Caitlyn

It takes talent....

It takes talent to perform a feat like this...

It also takes talent to make such a goofy face...

It takes more than talent to keep on trying to get those pesky voles....

It takes talent to earn yourself a cup of peppermint tea. (he won't drink it if there is sugar though! Only honey, and it has to be on a small plate.)

It takes talent to look like you're starving to death...

Or like you haven't a friend in the world....

And it definitely takes talent to be able to do ALL of that and still be a fantastic dog.

~Caity

Love my 'Pacas

If you think that you don't like alpacas, then you need to come meet my Mia. :)

~Caitlyn

My goofy girl

My Mira girl is so funny....

Under all her shy, quietness, she really has quite the quirky personality. :)

With all our fine weather that we've been having, She has taken to having her afternoon naps outside in the sun. Observe:

She looks dead doesn't she?! Unfortunately, with pictures you can't see her head lolling from one side to the other as she snores softly. ;D

Alas, I wasn't stealthy enough, and the other alpacas caught me spying upon them. Mira woke with a start as the the others stampeded past her to get their share of pettings.

Coming over to see what the hulabaloo is about...

And then giving me a bleary eyes look of reproach for waking her.

Sorry Mira.

~Caitlyn