Trigger warnings: Miscarriage, drug addict contractors, IVF, infertility, doctors ignoring patients While working to run our little farm, we’ve also been dealing with personal fertility issues for the past 3 years. It has been exhausting! In 2022, we decided to give having kids a go.
This was our biggest kidding season ever, and we have now learned our limits! We’ve had trouble keeping up with the birds again this year, so we’re downsizing a bunch in both areas. The Goats 2025 Total Kids Born: 16 Bucks, 20 Does! Here’s a
We knew it’d happen sooner or later, and honestly, we probably wouldn’t care if the person hadn’t gone out of their way to mislead us & then block us. As the person repeatedly said after being caught, there are two sides to every story. Here’s
Sorry to keep posting all the death and despair in this blog, but we’re hoping it helps others in our situation! About two weeks ago, we both came down with bad stomach flu, and at the same time, a few doelings also started acting sick.
The top two killers of goats are pneumonia and internal parasites. There isn’t an easy way to predict pneumonia in a herd, but for parasites, we can do fecals. Most vets will be willing to do them, even if they don’t see goats. Our livestock
FINALLY! After months and months of nothing, we have a few eggs again! We found out the other night that part of the reason for the dearth was a family of opossums that we caught yolk-handed – we first learned that they had broken into
We’ve still been unable to complete our pairings for Lasty and Midnight, our final two planned does of the season. We hadn’t seen any heats out of either of them at all, so we decided to get help from our team of vets. They suggested
On Friday, we received our final update on Meow – the lab results were inconclusive because there were no relevant bacteria or parasites found in the culture, but their findings when looking at his intestines indicated poisoning, enterotoxemia, or coccidiosis. When we went out to
On the exact day we started our latest IVF cycle in the effort to overcome our unexplained infertility, our very best buckling, *B 4Petesake The Cat’s Meow, started acting sick. He was self-isolating and not being his usual sweet, nosey self. The next day, massive
The good news is: some new Buckeye and Partridge Chantecler outcross chicks have arrived to help us reduce the genetic bottleneck that is starting to form here!
The bad news is: the farm we ordered from is also apparently having PC trouble - we only received 4 out of 15, and they wrote on the shipment form that they’re way behind 😬
They substituted with a bunch of Black Langshan chicks that we unfortunately have no use for. Reach out if you’re local and interested in them!
#chicks #chickens #heritagebreeds #rarebreedchickens #buckeyechicken #chanteclerchickens #partridgechantecler #langshanchicken
Jun 11
Jess is down for a while after finally going through with the surgery we were avoiding, so she’s making some updates to our poultry waitlists in between bouts of googling Asherman’s Syndrome.
We’re still making our way through our existing lists, but they’re just not working out super well due to a zillion factors beyond our control.
SO we are going back to basics for a while! All birds and hatching eggs will be First Come, First Serve, and we will keep a post on FB pinned with availability. If you’re interested in something on the post, please reach out!
If you’re on our waitlist but you see the breed you’re waiting for on the pinned post, please also reach out. Odds are high that it’s because we have more openings for local pickup than for shipping. We are having trouble with shipping - all USPS offices in our area close at least a half hour before we get out of work, and it’s rare than we can leave work early.
CURRENT AVAILABILITY:
First on the list are 15 Fibro chicks hatched 4/17 - some of these are pure Svart Hona and some are Easter Eggers. We have no idea which are which, except for the obviously fluffy one in the front, so they’re all our lower Experimental rate. They might lay green or cream eggs. It’s not 100% yet, but we can start guessing gender more or less accurately in this batch.
#chickens #waitlist #makinglifeeasier #fibrochickens #svarthona #easteregger #swedishblackhen #landrace
Jun 10
Surpriiiise! We were done buying goats for the year, but when we saw Jon list Hillaire Farm Tipperary Tulla, we jumped at the chance to snag her!
We`ve had our eyes on Tulla for a while - she’s a gorgeous 50% Guernsey/50% Oberhasli, and her sire is a super nice buck from one of our favorite lines - *B CH Ober-Boerd Vosegus! His dam GCH Ober-Boerd T Wind Valkyrie 2*M was 1st/1st Udder 3yo & Best Udder at the 2022 National Show. We love Vos and his line so much that we also have a grandson, Spitfire! And distant cousins Diana, Kirlia, Maui, and Sonny 😅
Vos added beautiful strength & substance over Tulla’s dam, Stump*hollow J&H Nacarat, and very nice udder improvement, too!
We’re stoked to add Tulla to our little breed-up program and are so grateful to Alice (and Jon & Tierney) for trusting us with her 🧡
And a big thank you to Katherine Sancuk for bringing her here tonight through all this rain!
(trimmed & udder pics courtesy of Hillaire Farm)
#goats #dairygoats #experimentalgoats #oberhasligoats #guernseygoats #performanceherd
Jun 4
One of our favorite sights - a bucket of Buckeyes!
This batch is claimed, but we’ll be setting a new set to incubate this week!
#chickens #heritagebreeds #heritagebreedchickens #rarebreedchickens #buckeyechicken #buckeyechickens #hatchingeggs
Jun 3
In today’s wildlife encounter, we just got home to see this guy eating our chicken feed - thankfully not our chickens! He approves of our @coopworx Feed Silo 😂
This is the first raccoon we’ve seen out in the open on our property in our 5-ish years of living here! A few have passed through the pasture cam here and there, but they never stay long.
#raccoon #wildlifeadventures #rural #farmlife #homesteading #coopworx
Jun 3
‘Tis the season for new milkers and learning how to milk!
We’re not at allllll experts and have made plenty of mistakes over the past few years of raising dairy goats, but we want to help people avoid a common one: buying cheap milking machines from Amazon.
We totally understand their draw - they’re super affordable and portable, while the ones everyone recommends are usually bulky and around $1500.
But those cheap ones are absolutely not worth it! They only last a year or so before breaking and needing to be replaced, they can’t be taken apart and cleaned or serviced, and most of them WILL ruin your goats’ udders.
Do you remember a few years ago when it was all the rage among kids to suction their lips into glasses to make them big?
A milking machine without correct pulsation or vacuum is like that. Using it once or twice probably won’t cause permanent damage, but doing it twice a day, every day, for however long the goat is in milk, year after year, definitely will.
You might not even notice it at first, but slowly, it might become harder and harder to milk out the goat as scarring builds up inside her orifices. Or she might even end up with mastitis.
It’s just not worth it!
The absolute cheapest machine we’d recommend is the MilkerSupply - it’s $690 right now for a package that includes everything you’d need to get started. We’re not at all affiliated and don’t have one ourselves, but they’re super nice people!
If you’re handy, you could probably save even more and build your own with comparable parts for around $500.
We have and love the Capralite Showman! We also highly recommend ones from Parts Dept and Hamby, if you want something beefier that can handle more than two goats at once.
#goats #dairygoats #goathealth #milkinggoats #goatmilk #milkmachine
May 30
Wildlife adventures never end here!
Monday night, we found four juvenile opossums wandering our doe pen. We left them alone in case their mama was around. Last night, we found them bothering some of our chickens, so we caught them and put them in a carrier in our basement & started asking around for leads on local rehabbers.
This morning, we took them to Bay Beach Wildlife Sanctuary - they confirmed that these littles are still a few weeks too young to be out on their own.
Buuuut plot twist, when the gal pulled them out of the carrier, there were only three! One must have squeezed his way out of the carrier and hidden somewhere in our basement.
Someone recommended luring him out with tuna, and it worked! We nabbed him and settled in for the night, only to hear the dogs freaking out … at a 5th joey!
Now we’ve got two more to bring to the sanctuary tomorrow. Hopefully that’s all of them! We still haven’t seen any signs of their mama.
#wildlife #opossum #virginiaopossum #marsupial #wildliferescue #farmlife #rural
May 29
The girls are all not-so-patiently waiting while we set up their fancy new collapsible hay feeder from one of our favorite equipment suppliers for all things goat, @sydell.inc
#goats #dairygoats #goatlife #hungrygoats #hayfeeder #sydell #goatequipment #bigbales #haybales #farmlife #farmchores #homesteading
May 25
We’ve been promising pics of Petunia & Smoothie’s two available girls for a while now - this is the best Jess could do by herself - we`ll try again soon, if it ever stops raining 🤣
They’re 5th Gen Mini Nubians & taking bottles like champs. Born 4/26/25 & received Trishield First Defense at birth. Will come with MDGA papers. Whole herd annually tests negative for CAE, CL, and Johne’s.
Their sire Mosaic`s Smooth Criminal *B comes from multiple generations of TopTen milk and their dam Green Gables Amazing Black Petunia’s sire is one of our faves from Green Gables (Comet). Petunia is on milk test and doing well so far!
For the flash fans out there: both girls are nearly solid black, both have blue eyes, both are polled, and one has a white partial belt & a few moonspots 🖤
May 21
Very few kids are definite keepers for us right off the bat. Lasty’s girl is one 😍
We still have to do DNA, but we’d put money on the sire being Spitfire - she has his long legs, long face, and light coat!
May 20
Okay! Now that the sleep deprivation of kidding season is over, we can focus on the birds a bit!
* Poultry Updates *
This weekend, we said goodbye to the last of our Wheaten Ameraucanas. We loved them, but haven’t had time to build new pens, so we let them go to an awesome breeder/friend in Milwaukee. Feel free to shamelessly advertise in a comment! All of our other seller friends, too 💜
Our Self-Blue (aka Lavender)/Black Split Ameraucana pens aren’t laying super well - we think there might be an egg eater. We might sell them off, too, but we`ll see!
Our Buckeyes are amazing and the greatest birds ever!
Our Buff Chanteclers keep going broody. We’re probably going to list the group again, if anyone is interested!
Our Partridge Chanteclers are laying better this year and we`re slooowly making our way through our waitlist. We’re hopefully bringing in new blood later this year as an outcross, too.
Our main group of Svart Honas escaped their first pen, which caused a delay. Then after our last hatch, we learned that our half-Ameraucana/half-Svart in there is not laying blue eggs & we have mixed chicks. Now the Svarts in both pens are broody, so we put together a new group to pull eggs from as soon as they`re clean.
Our last pair of Welsummers ARE fertile, but not very. Out of 4 dozen eggs now, one chick has hatched. At least it’s a pullet! We would sell them, but our rooster has been through a lot and has fought for life through it all. New buyers might off him, so we’re keeping them until he passes.
Our Guineas are laying and we might have keets soon - they`re our only hatchery birds!
Our Welsh Harlequin ducks are leaving this week. We adore how happy and sweet they are, plus the enormous amount of eggs, but they`re unpopular in this area`s market and became a financial burden.
Lastly, our Pilgrim goslings are hatching! We`re getting a pretty decent ratio and will reach out to waitlist peeps soon.
#backyardpoultry #poultrybreeds #hatchingeggs #pasturedpoultry #heritagebreeds #rarebreedchickens
May 19
A massive wattled doeling for Windscape JB Last Call aaaand … we dunno who the daddy is yet!
We did not plan for Lasty to kid last - that was all her and her difficult cycle! After failing to settle the first few tries, she finally had a hormone-fueled party with three bucks. The sire could be Coyote Ledge Im a Heartbreaker, Sublime OBV Son of a Sinner, or Half Barn Farm TRI Spitfire. We’ll of course order a DNA test to confirm!
And thus concludes our 2025 kidding season! We think. There might still be another in there - we’re apparently very bad at telling 😅
2025 Total Tally: 16 Bucks, 20 Does 🙌
#goats #dairygoats #babygoats #kiddingseason #oberhasligoats #farmlife #imsotired
May 18
The time we dread most is upon us once more - it’s the Sheddening 😱😱😱
#dogs #fuzzydogs #somuchfur #shepherdmix #huskymix #colliemix #supermutt
May 17
Milk testing is such an awesome tool - it gives us a great insight into our herd`s health!
We completed our second test of the season, and the girls are looking MUCH better than last year - we`re so grateful to have found three sources of really, really nice hay!
Diana has been close to a protein/butterfat inversion, which could indicate acidosis (which is bad), so we`ve been loading her up with a low protein/high fiber horse feed to try to fix that, and it seems to be helping!
We`ve suspected that Vivi might be fighting subclinical mastitis and have been treating her with some herbal stuff - we can see that her SCC (somatic cell count) is dropping, which is a good sign!
#17 is Kirlia - we`ll get them to fix that at the next test.
This is our second year working with Indiana State Dairy Association, and they`ve been great to work with through all our dumb newbie questions!
#goats #dairygoats #herdhealth #DHI #performanceherd #milktesting
May 15
Well, that is definitely one way to use a cot 😅
#goats #dairygoats #farmlife #oberhasligoats #guernseygoats
May 14
A few of the yearlings are finally starting to look a little bit less derpy 🙌
… definitely not all of them yet, though 😅
May 13
It’s officially spring! We caught our first non-pet basement snake of the season, checking out our newly hatched chicks 😅
#snake #gartersnake #rurallife #farmlife
May 11
Every year, Ken falls hard for one single baby goat - this year, the honor goes to Tanwen, Avalon & Smoothie’s teeny doeling 😍
#goats #babygoats #goatkids #goatlife #dairygoats #bottlebabygoats #mininubian #mininubians
May 11
It’s like a daily Easter egg (and chicken) hunt over here 😅
#chickens #heritagebreeds #rarebreedchickens #broodyhen #chanteclerchicken #partridgechantecler #backyardflock
May 11
We FINALLY got somewhat decent pics of Honey’s udder! That blonde roan coat of hers does not work well with our LED milk parlor lighting, and her udder always looks a zillion times lower and sadder than it really is.
May 10
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