Kids...

So our kids [baby goats] are getting big! They spend a lot of time outside on the nice days and we have even moved our little Ruth to the barn. They are all on bottles now as I am milking all three does. Now bottle feeding seven kids is a chore. We are trying to come up with a system so that we are not allowing bad behavior or one kid stealing too much food. So in our attempt to keep things better organized we added two new stalls to our barn. This is going to help with our kidding next year and with keeping kids away from moms. It is always amazing to me how goats can escape anything. We built four foot high stall walls and 3 1/2 foot gates with a board running across the top. I have one doe Twinkle who can still manage to squeeze out! And believe it or not our little Ruth, the bottle feed, smallest kid we have can jump out too! She jumps higher then any of the bucklings! So I have gone to placing a gate across the new pens on top of the gates on the stalls!

My father in law is purchasing some acreage down the road as his retirement home and will be closing on it soon. He is buying five acres and allowing us to use three acres as we please. So this is the best answer for the horses and cows. This will also free up my two acres for more goats. I know this land will take some work, putting up fences and a barn/lean to. Not to mention driving to care for the animals. It is only five miles away so it will be an easy quick drive. But I can not help but already planning what I am gonna do with the extra room here! It is amazing what we can all do with just a little bit of land. If you rotate animal's, and use good management, you can keep healthy happy animals on small acreage. So in my head I am growing my goat business, raising more poultry and allowing more room for gardens.

I hope you all are happy and healthy as we enter this wonderful time of year.

Well here are some new pictures. ENJOY!

Here is our Ruth, when she was inside.

She is such a couch goat!

Here are all seven kids!

And Again!