These three little men are stealing our hearts away fast! How cute are they? We might have been a little bummed that there were three boys. However, there are three healthy boys. Each one of them turned out to be a different coloring or pattern. 

Now we know you must be excited to meet them. Below is each one separately with a description of their features. Truly wish that we had a little entrance music to make it more festive. Without further ado, please welcome L1, L2, and L3. 

Tiny Hiney Farm L1 is a handsome gold with minimal white and brown eyes. He has some lovely yellowing from the iodine spray. This guy is a big boy and sturdy.  Quite a bit heavier than his two brothers. Dad has moon spots. Maybe some will pop up as he grows.    He will be disbudded shortly.  Our family is retaining this buckling to be one of our farm's future herd sires. 

Tiny Hiney Farm L2 is a nice buckskin. As soon as his head was cleared he was a yelling. Love his cute funky mohawk of a white poll.  There are frosted ears and a muzzle that is completely kissable. Of course only for the time being because he is going to get stinky really fast. While holding and giving out some daily cuddles, I noticed that he has moonspots. YES! That is such a nice surprise. His eyes are a lovely brown. Disbudding is being done in a couple of days. This boy would add some wonderful milking lines to your herd. 

Tiny Hiney Farm L3 is a solid white with a brown spot on his left front leg. Sporting dreamy brown eyes and a sense of curiosity. Please don't mind the iodine stain. Seems I might have got a little over excited to use the spray bottle with it. That was easy and almost not messy. Except one of the boys when it hit their tummy it bounced right back on my face. I was a little spotted. The little guy will be disbudded in just a couple of days. If you are looking for a new herd sire and a white stud at that. This is your boy.

Our family and farm are both very proud of this breeding pair. We are exited to see them grow over the next few weeks. Not to mention getting our baby cuddles in before they go to their new homes. If you would like any information on these boys, please leave a comment or contact us. We would be more than happy to answer any questions. 

Have a blessed day! ~The Doerr's~

The next morning we did BOSE shots. Joanna had said it would be okay to let them wait a day.  Each boy got a dose of BOSE and you would have thought we were killing them. Oh how they cried! Which made momma pace back and forth quite a bit. Siggie checked everyone of them over after they got their shots. Each buckling got it's own sticker for being good sports along with snuggles. 

Now that this part is done, we get to gear up for CDT shots. Oye! Not looking forward to that one either or disbudding. Baby steps and learning along away. We got this! Now if someone can tell us how long iodine stays on white fur? 

When the little tykes came into the world, Mother Nature was playing games with us. The weather was just cold and gloomy. Super windy and rainy. Of  course they can never or almost never kid when it is sun shining and warm. 

We have a few small dog sweaters.  Which of course we couldn't find right when we needed them. It was time to improvise. A few of Donald's socks and a pair of scissors would do the trick. Snipped off the toes, the tube end, and made little leg holes. 

Hurray! We have little sock sweaters. They are not any where close to being perfect but they are effective. The boys were warm  along with the heating lamp. These will only be on for a couple days. Very happy to have created something that worked. 

These little guys are rocking their muscle sport sweaters. Soon enough they will be headbutting  and jumping around. Our family will be found in the pen getting all the snuggles we can. 

*Found sweaters later and they are way to big. Nigerian Dwarfs are small. 

Fairlea Sieglinde and Ivy Creek's T Lil' Cavan are proud to announce the birth of their three beautiful boys. We have been keeping a good eye on Siggie because we knew that it wouldn't be long before she freshened. Her due date was April 24th, however, we all know how the doe code works. She held out until Saturday morning , April 27. Thank you for that dear lady. We have been helping a sweet friend of ours with her new home. It was nice that she didn't pick those times to kid.

Donald went out to do chores that morning. There wasn't any gunky signs. Her utter was rock hard. He came in and said, "She is going to go today." Less than an hour later he went back out to check on her. That is when he noticed there was a head, but no feet. The little one's sack was already broken. We cleaned the mouth and nose, but the little one was having a bit of a problem. Both of the front feet were tucked still in momma. We tried helping and couldn't seem to maneuver the legs out. A quick call to Joanna of Kingsley Veterinary Services was needed.

Joanna is wonderful. She specializes in small ruminants and was able to come out to give a hand. The little one managed to work itself out before she got here. Soon after it was followed by a second kid. Joanna did a bump exam and said that there was at least one more. Eeek! Very excited as we knew from the ultrasound that there were twins.  The last little one swooped right out with a flourish. It is so funny how slimy and floppy that they are. 

Momma cleaned them all off and was very affectionate and efficient in the job. Our own little two legged kiddos were in awe of the experience of life that they witnessed. They had a lot of questions to ask Joanna. After the birth of the babies it is all that they talked about. We visited the barn often throughout the day.

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It is really impossible not to sit down in the pen and suck up all this adorableness. Look at these boys! They are so cute and the two are tiny compared to their big brother by minutes but  it counts. 

Tiny Hiney Farm L1 is currently retained. Call us sentimental or crazy, but he was the first born to the farm and he gave us our first scare.  But it isn't just about that. We would like to see him develop and if the milking lines behind them are passed to his daughters. Check out both Fairlea Sieglinde's and Ivy Creek's T Lil' Cavan pedigree pages. They speak for themselves. 

The other two little bucklings will be available for deposit in two weeks. All will be registered with AGS/ADGA. After they are weaned at eight weeks old they will be available to go to their new homes. If you have any questions, we are more than happy to help. 

Now to add just a last little bit of cuteness to our kidding story. Sophie and Tiny Hiney Farm L1  with Eskimo Kisses. It is wonderful that we have a chance to provide a home that offers a multitude of experiences and love for all things great and small. 

Everyone seems to love the reality t.v. shows, "The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette". Here on the farm we have the same thing going on. Instead of roses there is smelly, stinky beards and blubbery kisses. The dates are mostly planned if we can determine the "lust for love" is there. If the ladies need a little more pursuing then it is a weekend or couple week retreat together. All of this for a few seconds of fun. Then she is like, "Nope! The chemistry is gone and the moment is past." Talk about getting all hot and bothered for nothing. I mean, why did she even bother to shave her legs or comb her tail? 

However short the courtship act is the anticipation of  the waiting to see if there is a repeating of the courtship dance in 20 days or we are on the road to waiting 145 to 150 days for bouncy babies to arrive. So much cuteness. Not even sure what to do with it?! 

These lovely ladies have made the cut in Ivy Creek's T Lil' Cavan's edition of  the show at Tiny Hiney Farm for 2019. There are bound to be some beauties to be had from them.  Majyk "Maggie" is a first time freshener. Those  blue eyes are striking and hope Cavan passes on some moonspots to the kids.  Sieglinde "Siggie" is on her third kidding. Curious to see if her coloring will override his dark coloring. Luna and Annika are both prepping for their second time around as mommas. Both beautiful ladies are chamoisee and maybe they will create a cham/buckskin hybrid. Only time will tell. Plus waddles from Luna. 

In the end, we would just like easy pregnancies and healthy babies. Those are our wishes for this kidding season. Now if the doe fairy would come and visit us to that would be great.  If you would like to be on the reserved list for any of these pairings, please feel free to comment or contact us. Let us know what you are looking for exactly. We are more than happy to help. Stay tuned to see what is confirmed and what we have coming up. <3  Blessings to you.

Rogue and Vixen partying it up!

©Goat photograph copyright of Kimberly Doerr at T. H. Photography.
©Gold and Silver hat copyright of Vampstock.
©Clock and blue glitter overlay copyright of Captured by Carry.

Love is in the air! Fairlea Sieglinde has been crying her fool head off and you can find her singing her siren song to the boys at the corner of the barn. They were more than happy to be lured over as far as they could to listen to her. Flapping their tongues and serenading her back. 

Donald and I got bundled up and headed out to let our selected two to meet. There definitely was no wining and dining. Ivy Creek's T Lil' Cavan doesn't play around. He got right to work. Now there might have been a moment or two when he teased the other guys with a ha ha I got a girlfriend kind of look. 

A couple of times we had connection and the evidence was there. Then Little Miss Siggie remembered she is a lady and told him that it won't happen again until he brings her flowers. He will give it a shot again this evening. 

Let's cross our fingers that in 145 days around April 24, 2019, that there are little Cavan and Siggie kids on the ground. So excited as this will be our first kids in our farm name. 

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©Kimberly Doerr at T. H. Photography 2018

All our smelly boys, Falcon, Silver, & Cavan. 

It is in the early morning hours. The sun has barely began to poke it's smiley face up making an appearance to start the day. The closer you get to the barn you notice an extremely heavy musky smell coming from the bachelor bucks' house. Oh, this is just letting you know that love is in the air. The boys are ready to appeal to the ladies for their romantic interests. 

If you haven't been around buck goats (intact males) then you would more than likely find this smell repulsive. Some of us go nose blind to it since we are around it all the time. Even with that said it is heavier in the fall season then any other time of the year. Call it nature's Valentines holiday. This is when some of your sweet gentleman can turn into real @sshats. Extra pushing, butting, and some might even have the gull to pee on you, not just themselves. These guys stink most of the time but during rut is is three times worse.

Cavan strutting his stuff followed by Falcon.

Why are these guys so stinky? A little bit on how the boys special scent is created. They have scent glands located next to their horns. Add that to the fact that they pee on their heads and beards making themselves stronger than a teenage boy layering on the Axe body spray. Not really pleasant at all. Getting rid of this smell from your skin and clothes can be hard. Homemade soaps made with goat milk and anise essential oil can help out with that due to anise being great on helping removing odors. Shred this soap and add it to your laundry load to help take the stench from your clothes. If you would prefer to add the shaved soap to your current laundry solution you can do that too. To help reduce some of the smell of your buck you can trim their beards, wash their faces and undersides to help keep down the scent.

If you have little buckling kids, don't think that you are safe from them stinking like a mature buck. Some bucklings hit sexual maturity at the age of two months. That little and that young. At this age they can even go as far to breed the does and doelings. Separating them is a good idea at this point if not sooner. 

The girls enjoying some nice green brush. 

It is a good idea to keep your bucks away from the does not just for accidental breeding purposes but because they can change the taste of the goats milk. Who would have thought that another creatures scent could change milks taste that isn't created by them? Having a buck in or close residence of your milking does can give the milk a goaty flavor. 

Even though our boys stink to high heaven currently, we adore them. They are sweet, blubbering, tongue wagging fools. They still love attention and greet us at the fence. Soon we will be setting them up for some dates and they can do their jobs that they have been preparing for. We hope for a successful kidding season this upcoming Spring 2019. It will be the first one under our farms name. 

The one last thing that did make us chuckle is our oldest son, Devion said that the boys smell "fruity". Has anyone else found that to be the case? Leave us a comment as we would like to know your opinion on it. Have a blessed day. 

Fairlea Sieglinde celebrating Labor Day 2018. 

If you talk to people about goats, most think weed eaters, brush cutters, and milk. A person deciding to get goats needs to take a little bit of time to figure out what breed that they want to start their herd out with. There are quite a few out there that have their strengths and amazing potential to offer for a goat farmer. The first thing you need to ask yourself is what purpose would you like to use your goats for? Most people get dairy or meat goats. There are some that like to use goats for fibers, pulling cart, or just having pet goats. This blog segment is a ice breaker to the breeds we will cover over the next couple of months. Maybe sooner if time allows. Oh, who am I kidding? Time is in short supply these days.

We are going to list a few breeds by what their purpose is normally used for in a herd. Some goat breeds have multiple uses. ​Having multiple use breeds cuts down on having to have different goats on your farm and keeping even closer eye on no cross breeding. If that was what you were working towards. 

Red Maple's PW Black Majyk

©Kimberly S. Doerr at T. H. Photography

Beautiful does at the Franklin County Fair 2018.

As we wrote in our first two blogs, CAE is a devastating disease. It is one that once in your herd needs to be removed before each animal is infected. There are a few ways to help out with keeping your herd clean of Caprine Arthritis Encephalitis. It includes testing, pulling kids from CAE positive does at birth, keeping a closed herd, and culling infected animals from your herd. 

Each one of those precautions are pretty self explanatory, but we will go over them anyways. It is always nice for have information at our finger tips. Not to mention never being afraid to ask questions.  

Little Liberty, born on July 4, 2017. Gone a month later. Momma was Lucky.

The very first thing that can help keep CAE out of your herd is if you only buy from breeders who have a clean herd and papers to say that they are clean by testing for Caprine Arthritis Encephalitis. A lot of people say that they have a clean herd and in truth be told they have never tested and don't know themselves. Hence, how we ended up in our situation in part 1 of this series. 

A good breeder will have no problems with showing you this paperwork. They will either test bi-yearly (half herd fall, other half spring), yearly, or every two years. Every two years would be more for someone who has a closed herd. Personally, we are buying from breeders who only test and are willing to show us the papers saying who was tested, the results and when. This lesson is one we don't want to repeat. 

Another part of the judging at the Franklin County Fair 2018.

Quarantine any new goats that you buy and bring into your herd. This way you can watch them and see how they react to the stress of the move. If there is any issues that might arise in the two weeks after arriving. In the case that you did happen to purchase a goat that wasn't from a tested herd, keep them in quarantine and either have the vet come out or draw the blood yourself to test. I will post some labs down at the bottom if you choice to do your own testing. The vet used Cornell University when she did ours last year, and we used WADDL this year.  After you receive a negative result the goat can then be introduced to the herd. Make sure that the animal is over six months of age or the results might not be accurate. 

​Ivy Creek's T Lil' Cavan Aug. 2018

If your animal is sick and needs shots, do not share needles. That is another way to pass CAE from animal to animal. Though it can be passed through all types of bodily fluids. If your doe is CAE positive and she is bred, the babies must be pulled at freshening. It is important to get them as soon as they hit the ground. Take them inside and wash them with Dawn dish detergent. Afterwards, you need to feed them colostrum from an uninfected goat or colostrum replacer. ​The same goes for the milk. You could take mom's milk and pasteurize it if she is milk-able and her utter hasn't gone hard. However, you take the chance of not killing all the living organisms of Caprine Arthritis Encephalitis and passing it to the kid that way.  We used the replacer option for both colostrum and milk replacer as we didn't have a doe to feed the kids from. Then the infected doe needs to be kept from the other does while she cleans up. I know some people run their animals together but at this time with blood and milk that isn't a chance we would take. 

Jazlyn hugging her favorite girl, Siggie. This is every night.

Again as stated that taking your animals off the farm or bringing new animals in increases the risk of CAE each time. Some goat owners have decided to have closed herds and do their breeding by having enough lines to keep relations not so close. This can be done. Just takes a little time to get there. However, closed herds do not participate in shows or LA Scorings.

Taking your animal to shows, etc. is putting them in possible contact with CAE goats. Shows do not make testing a requirement. This is a shame due to the fact that it keeps the disease circulating around. There are some precautions that different shows take, like putting solid wall spacers between animals and a walk through area on the other end of your pen. Having areas all set up away from each other and goats are only in contact briefly in the show ring. Separate milking areas at the shows. The goats are vet checked before going and checked at the door for any visual signs of sickness or abscesses. 

We still want to show as there are five little ones in our home that are excited about showing their goats. It will happen for them. Just leery of leaving our four legged family members for a week at an exhibit. It will be alright, we know. First time jitters. 

If you do have a goat infected with CAE and you don't want to take a chance with it there are some options. You could give it to someone who doesn't have a breeding program or uninfected goats. This we believe is still a chance that they will either change their mind and breed or they will give the CAE goat to someone else and that person will breed it. All the while being completely unaware of the deadly death sentence that is carried within that animal. We know that there are some CAE goats that have made it to live long and healthy lives. Is that a chance we should take for the percentage that don't? We know that our hearts can't take watching one of our goats waste away, and the tears in our children's eyes.

In our case we decided to cull them from our herd. It isn't an easy decision to take a life that is still active. None the less it was a decision we felt was best for our farm and herd. Now that we have learned so much about this disease and learning more each time we read up on it. It is our hope that this little series can help others see that this disease should be taken seriously. The effect on the quality of the animal should be enough to make breeders strive for better. 

​If there is anything that we left, please feel free to leave us a comment or send us an email. Thank you. Have a blessed day.

Labs:

• BioTracking
• Sage Labs
• University of Minnesota 
• Washington State University 
• Cornell University College of Veterinary Science