Happy New Year and Happy New Donkey!!

 We want to wish all of you a Happy New Year!!  Lets hope 2011 is even better than 2010!
And to start this year off right , we have a miniature donkey born today at around 2:00 pm , so that's the first birth for us this year!
So without further delay, here she is, name is still up in the air at this point!

Mother and daughter are doing well, stay tuned , we'll be sure to keep you updated!

The Piglets Arrived Today!!

 Any of you who work with animals know that they wait to have the youngins' on the worst weather days, this pig is no exception, it's cool and rainy this morning and what do we wake up to, 9 new piglets!  If you saw my last update just three days ago I mentioned that I thought she was real close, looks like I was right!

This was a first for us , as far as pigs go, and she seemed to work faster than the goats do, I mean one push and a pig was born! Goats seem to drag it on forever!  But overall I think it went pretty well, the final count so far is three brown and six pinkies, and they are cute.   Momma and babies look like they are doing well!

I am amazed how fast they are up and walking looking for the milk, and the momma doesn't do anything to help them, they find it all on they're own... just amazing!

Here is the last born, fresh out and still messy, but in about a minute he was up and had crawled to the belly and started nursing!  I'll say it again, Amazing!

Hope you enjoyed the  The pix, I'll try to get a video up too, nothing to graphic lol!!

Update! 
Another one born for a total of 10 piglets!! 

Bull On the Back Porch

So I get home from work and what do I find?? A bull on my back porch! He's just standing there like he's waiting for a hand out from the kitchen or somethin'. Oh well , you live in the country and stuff like this is bound to happen. I'm just glad he wasn't one of the rodeo bulls that one of our distant neighbors raise, that coulda been ugly.

It turns out he was our neighbor's from down the end of the road, His name is Daddy-O he he followed him home like a lost dog, even broke into a trot once he got pointed in the right direction!

Oh the country life!!


Daddy-O

Farmlife Photo Tour

Howdy!,

Well Its been a little busy around here lately and I haven't posted anything in a while, and I was going thru some farm pixs , so I figured I'd post a few for your viewing pleasure, hope you like 'em!

This one is of Clemetine or mini donkey, she's so sweet, she lets the chickens ride around on here back!



Here are two of the many Alpine goat kids that we have had around here, they are always alot of fun.


I took this while playing around with the settings on the camera, this guy is now named Poindexter, He has since turned all black and is in the running to be the herd bull around here.





Again I was messin with the camera and got this nosey donkey, Its Darlin , she was born here on our place, she's also in the next picture as a newborn too.


And a shot of some of the many different colors of chickens around here, they make some good eggs!


So there you go , I hope to get back to some frequent posts here soon, Thanks for coming bye!

Lucille on the milker.

We have started share milking, that is taking some milk from Lucille while keeping the calf on her for his milk. Now before anyone starts to call the SPCA , Lucille wont give away more than she needs for the calf, she just wont do it! This cow has a built in faucet, that she can turn off at will, or at least she acts like she can. So anyway , Lil' Roller isn't hurting for milk that's for sure!

So without further delay, here for your picture viewing pleasure...the photos
Here is the star of the show, or at least he thinks so. He's gettin' brave anymore. That's Lucille hooked up to the milking machine, she's eating so don't bother her she's eating.




He is getting bigger by the day, and nosy too!



He can't wait for his turn!

Well that's all for now, we'll see ya nest time!

New Bull Calf Pictures

Well other than the gender and the color, I can't tell ya much more so I'll let the photos do the talking....worth a thousand words, right?
Like I said she is back in the back of the pasture still , just came up for water, so I snapped a few of him. He is a cutey!

New Calf, New Fence and Some New Rain!

Lot's of new stuff happening around here these last few weeks, sit down, have a cold drink and lemme tell ya about it.

First off I've been goat proofing a pasture so they will have some more area to hang out in, its probably about three acres though I haven't walked it off yet. I say I but the whole family has been in on the work, and its been in the hi 90's. We had some barbed wire up already, but anyone with goats knows...barbed wire doesn't cut it. So we used some 32 inch high field fence to cover the bottom half of the fence , and so far it seems to be working. So this will make three different pastures for the goats to use, pasture rotation is the way to go.

As for the rain, we have had about four days where it has rained a little bit, Not nearly as much as we need, but rain none the less. The temps also stay lower during the cloud cover , so that's a plus!

New Calf News:
We have a Dexter cow that has been on baby watch for a week now, and today was finally the day, I walked out back and saw her way across the pasture, looked like she had a little brown dog chasing her. I had to get the binoculars out to make sure, my eyes aint what they used to be! Sure enough, little brown calf! My lovely wife Cathy braved a little downpour that we had this afternoon to go out and see if she could get a gender check....she advised looked like a bull calf. That makes 2 for 3 bull calves fer that particular Dexter...keeps the freezer full anyway!

Sorry folks as of this posting we don't have pix of the new calf, check back tomorrow!

Pasture Rotation

Its been a few days since I've put up a new post, had to get computer access back, ours went kablooey. So sorry for the long stretch of silence, lol like there are millions of readers out there.
Anyway on to the news!

We did a little pasture rotation this weekend, we moved about six goats to a new pasture with the other goats. These last six were being milked and one had two kids on her so we kept them separated. The pasture that they came from will now just sit for a few months to allow it to rest and rebuild, it needs it. In the mean time, we will mend fence, or whatever need to happen in that field while the animals are away.

Hope everyone had a good 4th of July!!

Lazy Barn Cat And Other Stuff

This is Fritter, one of our barn cats, she is takin it easy today , maybe because its 98 degrees outside. We are waiting for the rain too, we mowed out front and it looked like a dust storm was rolling thru.



This is one of our little bulls, he stands only three feet tall. He is a Dexter X Beefmaster cross, our neighbors fence just couldn't hold big daddy bull in. He's almost the spittin image of his daddy.



This is Lucille, one of our milkers, she's a Jersey X Guernsey cross, she puts out alot of milk and its loaded with cream. Lucille is due any day now, look at the size of that bag!




This is Clemetine, she was one of the first to come join us at the farm, she has a daughter here with us named Darlin, get it? Anyway I was messin with the camera settings and found the sepia setting, cool huh? hehehe


So there you go a few pics of the goings on around here, more to follow.