Cold Cold Go Away!

(I took this picture on my way out to do chores one morning)

I am so tired of the cold. I want green things growing, and baby animals and all of the soft sounds of spring. We have eagerly went through the seed catalogs as they arrived, making plans for new garden plots and marking things we want to grow; some of it tried and true and some of it something new.


As if in mockery of our spring time plans and our yearning for warm sunshine and soft south breezes, mother nature decided to coat us in a layer of ice and then layer us in snow. The temps will be in the single digits tonight and morning feed will be very, very cold. I suppose one could say that if we didn't have the critters then we could lay about in our warm beds. And yet the only thing that will keep morning chores from being miserable is the fact that will be in the company of our critters. I would rather be out in the cold taking care of them than laying about in a warm bed. Those that would rather have the warm bed just don't know what they are missing. I would wager a good amount that I am much happier out breaking ice out of buckets than my neighbor is out scraping his windshield.


Warm or cold, a morning just isn't a morning without goat kisses and happy hens.

Oat Bucket Farm Website

Goats put up with the snow

They aren't thrilled about it. They aren't happy that its in their pen. They are slightly offended that we have not cleared all vestiges of it from their pen. But the sun is out and the temp is almost 40 degrees. So they put up with the snow for a chance to stand in the sun.

Oat Bucket Farm Website

12 Step Goat Program

I am a member of a goat forum and in a thread someone commented that goats were addcitive and that we needed a 12 step program. I realized after I read that, that we already have one. So I wrote out the steps so everyone can know them.


step 1. see goats on TV/in a magazine/on the internet

step 2. think they are neat and read a little about them

step 3. start thinking you might want some someday

step 4. see a goat in person and fall completely in love

step 5. decide that you definitely want goats after you have everything ready

step 6. (this is an important one) join forum full of goat addiction enablers or GAE's

step 7. talk to GAE's and start feeling that you really can't wait as long as you thought you could

step 8. read every link they give you

step 9. read posts on the forum made by the GAE's about pregnant goat bellies and look at pictures of baby goats and talk of wonderful milk and soap.

step 10. put deposits on a couple of disease free doelings (you learned about diseases from all of those GAE's) to be born in a couple of months because you can't stand waiting a moment longer

step 11. drag significant other out into the cold to help you build shelters and fencing as you scramble to be ready for the new arrivals.

step 12. bring home baby goats, fall completely and totally in love and start making breeding plans. Within a couple of weeks you purchase a buckling and friend for him. And the cute little doeling you saw for sale on the forum a couple of weeks later. Then put up another shelter and pen for the buckling, realize that maybe you do have room for that other cute little doeling you saw on that website and that maybe that handsome buckling you saw on the forum would be a good idea too because you will need someone to breed next year's babies too because you have to keep some of them to see how they turn out...


Oat Bucket Farm Website

Happy New Year!

Wishing everyone a happy and safe New Year!

New Year
　
And so now you stand
On the threshold of a New Year.
Stop to look back,
Over the year that you’ve just lived,
Take in the miseries, the failures and the hurts,
Breathe them in, remember them, and then let them go.
Take in the joys, the success, and the love,
Breathe them in and hold them close,
Let them be all that you take with you,
So that you may greet the new year with a fresh heart,
And eyes un-tinted by the colors of the year before.
Happy New Year
　
~ A.D.Trosper
Bucket Farm Website

Oh...his balls fell off...

Okay, be honest, how many places other than a farm type setting are you going to hear such a statement said without panic behind the words?

When our little wether arrived he was still technically a buck. The people had just put the band on him that morning. Now its not that we are newbies to banding and were over-reacting. We have banded bucklings before.

But Buddy was underweight and was suffering from worms and cocci and at six months was a little big for banding. We didn't feel he was handling the stress of banding well. He seemed so down and in a lot of pain, so we snipped the band off and figured that if he wasn't a wether it wouldn't be that big of a deal although we weren't sure if he would ever be fertile or anything like that.

At first there were no changes in his manly parts. In fact for the first month after he was here, we were sure we had another buck. But it always looked a little pinched at the top of his testicles where the band had been. Over the next month, a black line formed across the pinched area and his testicles began to shrivel up to nothing. And we became sure that we in fact were going to have a wether, which was preferred anyway.

Today all of the goats got their feet trimmed. It will be the last time I trim feet on the girls before they kid. They will all be a hundred days bred soon and I don't want them to have to try balancing on three legs while being heavy bred.

Now I know this morning at feed time, Buddy still had his shriveled testicles swinging around. This afternoon I pulled him from the pen he shares with BigWig and led him over to the patio and trimmed his feet up-they are looking really good now by the way.

As my mother was leading him back to his pen I noticed that his testicles were gone and said, "Oh...his balls are gone."

My mother looks back and says, "What?" So I repeat myself.

She replies, "Oh, really? Are they on the patio? I'd hate for the dogs to get them."

It was then that it struck me that people who live a lifestyle that includes livestock can have some really crazy conversations.

They were not, by the way, on the patio. Not sure where they got off to since we didn't see them in the pen anywhere either.




Oat Bucket Farm Website

12 Days of Xmas- Dairy Goats

Starting from the top (or is it the bottom?) The 12 days of Xmas-Dairy Goats by Me.

On the 12th day of xmas my true love gave to me,


12 LaManchas kidding

11 Saanens milking

10 Nubians singing

9 lambar buckets

8 kidding kits

7 milk totes

6 tattoo kits

5 disbudding irons

4 milk buckets

3 soap molds

2 butter paddles

and a new stand in my milk room!


                 ~ Audra at Oat Bucket Farm




Oat Bucket Farm Website

Its been so cold!

It has been so cold here the past week or so. Some days the wind has been calm but a lot of the days have been very windy. Nothing like harsh, bitter cold wind, howling out of the north to make chore time rather miserable.


We've been hauling buckets of warm water from the house in the morning and in the evenings. The bobbles on the rabbit water bottles are frozen in the mornings. Often the bobbles are frozen and the water is solid ice too. The bunnies are always waiting at the front of their cages for the bottles of warm water in the morning.


The goats appreciate the buckets of warm water too and the chickens enjoy having their pan filled with warm water too.


But despite the cold, the animals are all doing fine. Tally, our most pregnant doe is starting to show her pregnancy a bit. The other two don't look any different yet but Tally is definitely starting to look wider. Little Buddy, the underweight wether that we got to keep BigWig company has filled out,his winter coat came in nicely, and his worm problem is gone. He is looking quite nice now and is a pretty sweet little guy. And the chickens are almost completely done with molt. Which is good because looking at their raggedy selves made me cold even with layers on. And the younger hens are finally coming of age. We got our first pullet egg today. Actually, it was our first egg period since sometime back in the beginning of November. Or was it October. Hmmmm. Its been so long I guess I can't remember. So it was a really nice surprise to go in the hen house this evening and find that beautiful, creamy brown treasure laying in the nest. I can't wait until all of the pullets are laying and all of the older gals are laying again. I miss my eggs in the morning.



Oat Bucket Farm Website