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 

What is CAE? That is an abbreviation in the goat world that rides the breeze like a whisper. CAE is known as Caprine Arthritic Encephalitis.  Some have even heard of it called the Silent Killer. Isn't that a terrible name? To us it brings images of sleeping and having something dark and hideous creeping up on you. All the while you are there completely unaware what is around you. CAE can be found in Africa, Australia, Europe, New Zealand, and North America. 

The past two weekends while we were out, we talked to quite a few different people about goats, showing, and the diseases that they can carry. Diseases that are contagious. In this department people need to be more educated. There needs to be more caution taken when breeding, raising, and selling our livestock. Education is the key. I'll admit we lacked it when we started out. Here is our story. No judgement please. It could have been far worse. We want other's to avoid this heartache. 

Tiny Hiney Farm with Lapis, Rouge, and Vixen at the first Fantasy Faire. Photograph ©Cindy Edwards

A beautiful doe from the St. Lawrence County Fair. 

We started our journey with goats about 8 years ago with a Saanen and a Saanen/Nubian cross. Then we added a little Nigerian Dwarf buckling who was more than likely crossed with something with fiber. A trip to the auction barn brought home three more goats. We had our ups and downs with them. But that is the way of a farm life. We didn't know then what we know now about some of the husbandry that went into goat care. They are supposed to be hardy right? We will get to that later.

Our first set of babies born on our little hobby farm. Crosses but we loved them.

Then a year and a half ago we decided to take and raise Nigerian Dwarf goats as our choice breed. At first we didn't care about registration, which we later changed our mind on. Go figure! That is the way it always goes. We asked the question to the breeders for the goats we were picking up to add into our herd. Do you have a clean herd? The unregistered homes said "yes we do." Oh, how naive and trusting can we be? Please, don't answer that. 

When we had a mix of our first goats we got, our unregistered goats, and a couple registered goats, we called the vet to do a testing of the herd. Surprise when one of our goats came back with CAE at a very high percentage. To say we were upset is putting it lightly. This girl was only a little over a year old and bred. A trusting lab, Cornell University did the test, through the vet. Her sister, we were sure was positive, too. They were not able to get a full specimen from her. She was also bred.  

Now it was time to do some research.  We separated the infected girls from everyone else. Watched them like hawks for signs of kidding. Pulled the babies as soon as they hit the ground twins does from one and a singleton doe from the other. Amber, who had twins we milked out. The babies were all bottle raised with colostrum replacer and milking supplement. We didn't have any others in milk or knew anyone to get goat milk from. Lucky, couldn't be milked, she ended up with going into a hard utter and she went symptomatic. We lost her and her little doe a short while later after birth. Devastating isn't it?

Amber playing on the play gym. 

Anyone who has lost a goat or has had a goat suffer from CAE knows it is a horrible disease. We refer to it as the HIV for goats here at our form. Heartbroken at something that with proper care could be avoided. Now what did we do with our infected doe that was left and our two twin doelings?  Peanut passed away during the winter. She was healthy and then the next morning gone. No signs of anything wrong at all. Truly not sure of the cause. Amber, we couldn't justify passing her on to a home that "might" promise not to breed her. A hard decision but we decided to cull her and not take the chance of having spread this disease any further. 

Our little miracle Buttercup. Hard to get a photograph because she is on you like static clink.

In light of all the experience that we went through, our whole herd was tested June 2018. Every single goat came back negative for CAE/CL/Johnes. A clean herd for us. We are going to strive hard to keep it that way. When our kids are born next year we will work on an education package for new goat owners. If anyone has any questions we are here for them. Somethings though we're still learning. It's a process. Now, for those who don't know what CAE is please do your research, or stay tuned for the next part to this blog which will post next Wednesday. Blessed be to you all. 

Earth Day just passed us by on April 22, 2018. We were busy that day doing a lot of different chores around the house indoors and out. Because of that our little project got turned into a art project. The little ones love to do anything that involves crafting. 

The first step we did was pose and ham it up for the camera. This part was really important because we had to get our cute pictures for the faces of our planters. There were cheesy smiles like there always is. LOL Eventually they will outgrow that, right? 

After that, the littles planted their various herbs in the top of their little planter heads. Add some water. Give momma another goofy smile. Woot! Now to wait to grow up. Wish us luck! We just might need it. Not sure how green their thumbs are. 

tOur hearts were set to go and see some amazing dinosaurs at a super cool event in Syracuse. However, we were taking 9 children and two vehicles, and a 30 mile stretch was getting hammered with over a foot of snow. That wasn't our idea of a great time. There were some broken hearts, just for a few seconds and then the were better. 

We decided to head out a little closer to home and still be inside. Best yet it was able to be turned into a field trip that was educational, and on a Saturday to boot. Who said learning can't be fun?  Loading them all up and head to the Sci Tech Museum in Watertown, NY. It was so nice when we got there. We had the whole place to ourselves for quite a bit of our visit. The staff was friendly and helpful. Plus, plus very patient with our crew. They are a force all on their own. 


The littles and the bigs alike enjoyed the different stations that were set up all through the two stories. There was fun with magnets, shadows, music, lasers, pendulums, fossils, old and retro electronics, and much more. They enjoyed playing together. It was great seeing Elliott and Devion play a game of chess together with huge chess pieces. 

Even though the day didn't go how we pictured it, it did turn into something that was memorable with laughter and love. That is all we could ask for in the end. 

​

Connor is checking out all the cool fossils, specimens, and slides.

These butterflies and moths are beautiful.

Sophie is listening to the sounds through the pipe. She found them hilarious. 

We are surprised that Jazlyn is being this daring. She enjoyed the figuring out what is inside the holes.

Chloe looks a little bit more unsure then her little sister, Jazlyn.

Sophie and daddy are using their hands to heat up the plate and leave their prints. This was really neat to see and do.

​

This just made me giggle. Don't ask why, because I don't know. Must be the big GRIN!

Normally, i am never, ever in the photos. I took this selfie with the number one love of my life followed by our children and all those I hold dear. Yes, I was being a goober.

We did find a few dinosaurs. See kids I delivered dinos after all.

This was an intense game of chess. I love these really big pieces. It has an Alice in Wonderland feel to it. The boys did a great job with it. The younger ones learned something from Devion and Elliott.

This trip was nice. If you haven't gone than you really should.  The Sci Tech Center is a great day trip. It is family friendly and affordable.  Great if you want to add to a trip to the zoo, shopping, and lunch or dinner out. I really love how attentive their staff was. Our littles are adorable but they are a whirlwind of energy, and they were so patient with them.  If you make it there, let us know what your favorite part is or was. Happy adventures.

With the fact the little ones are so busy and we need to do things that hold their attention for learning. It was a very nice surprise to find this experiment from Playdough to Plato.  She came up with this amazing experiment and covered so much of the information that we needed to go over. 

Supplies:

• Cool whip
• Graham crackers
• Food coloring (orange, yellow & red)
• Plate
• Spoon

Mix some food coloring in the cool whip after you place it on the plate. Place two halves of the graham crackers on the plate, on top of the cool whip. The cool whip is  the Mantle. The graham crackers are the Plate Tectonics. 

The Three Boundaries:

• Transform Boundaries
• Divergent Boundaries
• Convergent Boundaries 

Don't forget about the Subduction Zone.

To demonstrate the different boundaries, the children moved their graham cracker plates in different directions. Each movement had a different result. We stopped after each time and discussed what we had for results and why. Of course, they had to clean off their fingers between each movement. 

Transform Boundaries: are places where the plates slide sideways past each other. They will catch and grind together.

• Make your graham cracker plates pass each other in this way.

Divergent Boundaries: where two plates move away from each other. Magna rises and forms a new crust layer.

• Pull your graham cracker plates away from each other. 

Convergent Boundaries: where two plates are moving towards each other. If they are they are the same density they will push against each other and make mountain chain.  If the two plates are unequal density, one will sink below the other creating a Subduction Zone. 

Connor and Jazlyn are converging on each other. At this moment they are getting along. 

All our little scientists.

I caught Chloe in mid-conversation with James. Sophie is just being a little ham. She was ready to eat her experiment. 

We did this experiment to go with the first week of home schooling and our volcano unit. Finding units like this are a true treasure. It made it easier for the little ones to learn. I wish the photos were a little nicer but you can see the experiment well enough.