Quick Post

Busy, busy, busy!

Alot going on at the farm lately. The farm vet was out yesterday for annual blood draws and updating vaccinations/de-wormings on a few of the goats. 14 goats to restrain for blood draws and assorted other pokes and prods is exhausting! Thankfully Pepper is actually an amazing herding dog and was able to round up the wilder goats who don't like needles.

This year I'm doing CAE, CL, Brucellosis and TB. After consulting with my vet I decided against Johne's testing since she is not confident that the test is accurate enough to warrent doing. Hope to have the results in next week just in time for the first kidding of the season!

I'd like to make a quick aside here to encourage ALL goat owners in my neck of the woods to vaccinate their goats for rabies when old enough. The farm vet let me know that there have been several confirmed rabies cases in cows and one goat this year so please vaccinate your goats for this deadly and ZOONOTIC virus! (I just completed my pre-exposure series too so I'm on a rabies education rampage at the moment.)

In other animal news, the baby bunnies are growing like weeds and I should have new photos up soon. I'm about ready to place my chick order for the year, I just love baby chicks so it will be alot of fun to have some cute baby chickens peeping around in a few weeks.

So that's the update for now, I promise my next post will include a bunch of photos!

Restarted my pit bull/bully breed blog

http://multibulls.blogspot.com/

Since the dogs are such a big part of my farm life and I'm pursuing several activities/sports with them I thought it was time to restart the dog blog, this way my farm blog isn't flooded with dog only related posts!

Those kittens I mentioned

Well the kitties I've been raising have been growing like weeds. All 4 of them are just about 5-6 weeks old now and are all eating solid food both fancy feast turkey kitten wet cans and iams dry kitten food. They are healthy, playful, curious, well socialized babies just about ready for new homes.

They all like to be held, cuddled and purr like crazy!

In order to be as responsible all possible with placing these kitties I'm going to have them spayed and neutered prior to placement. They will be up to date on age appropriate vaccines and dewormed. They'll be ready to go in probably a month as they need to weigh a certain amount before they can be spayed and neutered.

Let me know if you're interested in one or more of them. Indoor/outdoor homes are fine, just wants them to be loved and well cared for.

Stripey, male

Confident, playful, loves to cuddle and explore

No-name, female

Gentle, sweet, loves to pounce, plays well with the dogs, very cuddly

No-name, male

Easy going, playful, loves to purr and be held, likes to explore with Stripey

Gremlin, female

Long haired most likely, very cuddly loves to be held, purrs very loudly, she likes to pounce on things

I did get updated photos of a bunch of the Rhinelander juniors today, hopefully I'll get some of the pics on the blog tomorrow.

Ribbon and Dandy

Ribbon and Dandy are my two new fainting goat doelings. They are beautiful, shy gals who are slowly adjusting to life on the farm. I haven't moved them into my doe group yet becuase there's alot of goat construction starting this week and I'd like to try and tame them down a bit so they're easier to handle.

Here's a couple of photos:

Ritz likes to play with them, they all like to climb on the construction piles..

Browsing in the woods, Dandy is up front

This is Ribbon

Dandy stretching for the best browse

Oh and Reuben and Ritz are enjoying the tall grass

My happy boy!

Website updates and more to come later this week or next week once my schedule is a little less full. :)

Settling in

Scout, Dandy, and Ribbon the new fainting goat kids are settling in pretty well.

The baby Rhinelanders are also doing well.

I don't have much time to update in depth on farm progress but here are a few photos until I have some more time to blog. (Next week is my last week working day practice and ER work so after that I will have ALOT more spare time when I'm back to just ER work which I am very much looking forward to!)

The 3 nestboxes lined up in the kitchen

Blues' box, all 11 of her kits are still alive and well

Pumpkin's box, she's down to 9 kits

Confetti's box, she's down to 10 kits

Confetti's bunch, 1 sport, 2 charlies and 7 marked

Pumpkins litter of 9 marked

A comparison of a black and blue Rhinelander kit, black on the left, blue on the right

Black vs. Blue Rhinelander sports, 2 blacks on the left, 2 blues on the right

Scout my new fainting goat buckling! He's very cute and personable. The horns will be removed soon.

Scout, Oreo and Patches. Scout is only about 5 months old and he's as big as my year old Nigerian Dwarf wethers!

Ps. Don't Oreo and Patches look so much better hornless?!

Quick Update

Today was a very long day and it isn't over yet!

I'm killing time before my overnight shift in a few hours by posting this quick update to the blog.

The 3 new fainting goat kids from Fainting Hills in WV are home safe and sound. I picked them up after Lady's obedience school this afternoon. They need some time to decompress, but I promise to have photos up some time next week of Scout, Dandy and Ribbon.

In bunny news I have lost a few kits from the 3 litters, I elected not to cull anything at birth and let nature and first time mothering take its course. Alot of the kits are suicidal - already jumping out of the box after nursing, or for who knows what reason.. its frustrating since I'm too busy to do my usual "lock up the nestbox" and bring it out to the does to nurse twice a day. I'll post more updates when the kits reach their one week birthdays and see how many from each litter is left. The markings on the marked kits are generally good which is nice to know, all of these breedings will definetely be repeated later this summer once this batch of kits is weaned and the moms have a bit of a break.

Oh and here's two kitten photos.. they're growing like weeds, more pics of them to come!

Can you see Pepper's kitten?

Kitten wrestle mania

Photos of the large litters

Blue's litter of 11

Confetti's litter of 12
Pumpkin's litter of 12

Not sure if I'm going to cull these litters down slightly.. thats ALOT of babies for first time moms to raise..

24 new babies so far.. EDITED - 35 new babies!

It's almost 5 am and I haven't gotten much sleep on the night before my day off so far!

I'm bottle feeding 4 kittens that I picked up a the e-clinic I work at, they're about 3 weeks old and SUPER demanding.. thankfully they can start solid foods very soon. Anyone want a kitten? LOL

As for baby bunny news, on the coldest, windiest, rainiest night Confetti and Pumpkin have both kindled new litters. Both are first time moms, Pumpkin is a year and a half old and they both kindled 12 beautiful babies each!

Pumpkin's litter is 100% marked since it was a charlie x sport cross, even though her sister Nutmeg gave me a bunch of beautiful show prospects in her first litter, Pumpkin appears to have given me a bunch of unshowables.. can't tell for sure since they're way too little to tell at this point but it looks like several have DQ's so far unless alot of orange fills in.

Confetti's litter has 8 marked, 2 charlies and 2 sports. The marked overall look okay, same with Pumpkin's litter though, they need more time for me to be certain.

Blues is still due today, I'll be checking her in a few hours to see if any babies are born before I have some errands I have to run later this morning. I'm hoping for some blue Rhinelander kits even though the chances aren't too high. I'd be happy with a smaller litter too so I can do some fostering.. I don't normally cull baby bunnies at birth but these 2 litters are huge for first time moms and with no bunny to foster to I may have to cut the litter sizes down so they are more manageable.. I'll cross that bridge later on if I have to, for now both nestboxes are in the house on this cold and rainy morning.



EDIT: Blues kindled a little later this morning around 8 am or so before I left for my errands. She gave me 11, she didn't want to go with the traditional 12 I suppose.

The most exciting part of her litter? She gave me my FIRST BLUE Rhinelander kit! Looks nicely marked so far! There are 4 sports - 2 are blue sports, 4 charlies - can't tell if any are blue since they're all very lightly marked, 3 marked - 1 is BLUE!!

Photos to come later today if I have time!

So much to do.. the rain interferes

"Honey Bunny," the rabbit from my previous post departed on his way to a NJ rabbit rescue group yesterday. One of my former clients who has a pet rabbit from me was able to use her rabbit rescue networking skills to find a place for the rabbit.

I'm glad that he will be going to a rescue and hopefully find a new home soon. With that said, I stand by my last post about being a repsonsible breeder. From here on out anyone who approaches me with a need to find a home for their rabbit that was not bred by me will be referred to this rescue group for assistance; hopefully eliminating any chance of having a similar situation arise in the future.

Today is my day off and I got a bunch of things finished but a rainstorm that just washed in is preventing me from getting everything completed, especially the yard work. The pet Belgian Hare doe stall was cleaned out as was the chicken coop and the goat buck barn. I wanted to get some more cleaning in the old bunny barn finished but I need to get a new shop vac first since my old one completely died on me while I tried to use it this morning.

This week is a break in construction around the farm, but next the new goat doe barn and the interior of the dog kennel will be started. After those projects are finished I'll be done with construction for a while which will be a nice.

I have 3 Rhinelander rabbit litters due mid-week, all 3 are first time moms, so here's hoping they do well. They're all HUGE and very preggers, I gave out nestboxes today and so far they are all interested. I have Wednesday off this week and will snap some photos if the weather is nice of the Rhinelander juniors I'm keeping along with the ones for sale.

Well I'm off to try and get a few things in the house completed until my overnight at work since the weather isn't going to agree with me doing anything outside!

Pepper and Ritz just love the new dog bed I got from my sister for my birthday! Ritz is getting so big, he's almost bigger than Pepper at 4 & 1/2 months old!