Happy 1st Day of SUMMER!!

Happy First Day of SUMMER everyone! I hope you all enjoy the longest day of the year! It's a warm one here in Oklahoma, but it's nice.

We have a beautiful Purebred Toggenburg doe for sale. She is a very healthy doe and is milking about a gallon a day and is only 2 years old. She is a very big girl as well. The only reason she is for sale is she really does not fit in with our breeding program as she is our only Toggenburg. If we still have her come breeding season, I'll happily breed her for some Togg/Nubian kids (those would be so cute!!). She is also naturally polled, just another plus on this beautiful doe.

Anyway, her registered name is Loch-Arbor Ivory's Izetta. You can see her pedigree here. She comes from fabulous Toggenburg lines such as Neshaminy Acres - one of their does took ADGA National Champion in 2006.

So yep, this girl is nice. $350 obo.

If you're interested in her email or call me 918-598-4007.

Peace!

Suriyah

Waxed Cheddar

Here's the pretty wheel of cheddar all waxed! Now it is sitting in the fridge in a container to age for 4 weeks. Today I plan to start some more cheddar.

 And since a blog post doesn't seem complete without a picture of a cute baby goat, here are a few pics of Party and her mama.

Suriyah

Cheddar Cheese!

Okay, so it's not done... but it's in the making! For a long time we've wanted to make hard cheese such as cheddar, colby, etc. Last year we finally bought the extra supplies needed for hard cheeses - a press, wax, and a few various items. This year I finally had the courage to jump in and try it. After years of making ricotta, feta, mozzarella, cream cheese and butter, it can't be THAT much harder, right?

I found a recipe for Farmhouse Cheddar. It was so very simple. Cheese recipes don't vary that much - they require a culture and rennet. There is more hurry up and wait with cheese making than there actually is stuff to do.

I made the Farmhouse Cheddar Wednesday afternoon. The final step with the cheese press was the cheese had to be pressed for 12 hours. So Thursday morning I took it out of the press - a pretty 2 lb wheel of cheese. It is now drying on bamboo mats, which takes 2-4 days. Once it has a rind on it, it will be time to wax it and then wait for it to age. Thankfully, Farmhouse Cheddar only takes about 4 weeks :).

 And this is definitely NOT cheddar. This is Mild Feta. . . the cheese made most often around here, along with cream cheese. If this cheddar turns out, I think it may take the place of the feta.

Suriyah

Silly Kids

Barn cat snoozin' away in the shelf

Meet TJ, our NOA Nubian buckling. Isn't he just so colorful?! I like him quite a lot. 

Boys vs. Girls.

This is Joy... she's TJ's sister. She has moonspots as well, but they are darker, chocolate spots hiding in her blue roan coat. I plan on giving her a shave job, and I think it will make her spots very noticeable!

Goofy Lulu, she's always up to something.

And last but not least, this is Party, once again. This little goat is such a goofball. You can get a little taste of her goofballness by looking at the pictures below.

Suriyah

Photos!

It's been a busy week. How about a recap in photos (mostly)?

Neither udders got a perfect shaving job, but at least most of the hair is gone. This first one is Paprika, one of our American Alpine does. Isn't it a beauty? She is from the Te-Iltcohe herd. She produces a lot of milk for a looong time. One of my favorite Alpines here on the ranch.

This is Niniel's udder. She is from the same herd. She is a much smaller goat than Paprika, and her udder isn't as nice, but she is a good milker as well.

The babies are all getting so big. This black little girl is the first kid that was born this year in January, one of quads. She is a short, fat little thing. I need to get a picture of her face as it is just darling. Her name, at least for the moment, is "Wild Thing", although she is very calm. Not sure how that happened...

The white girl with the chocolate head on the left is a Nubian/Alpine cross doeling. Nope, she doesn't have an ounce of Boer in her, although she looks like she could. She is my little brother's goat... he claims her has his goat anyway. Her name is "Lulu."

The Alpine on the right here is the doeling out of our great milker Bar-Jon Honey Bun that we are keeping this year. So glad she finally gave us a girl! Her name is "Honey Pot". 

Joy, a grade Nubian girl we are keeping this year. She is such a sweet calm baby.

Look at those ears! This is Patience, one of the Nupine sisters we got from the Dill herd. She is the calmer of the two. 

She certainly isn't a goat. She most definitely is not quiet. But she is absolutely spoiled. Tiny Bit, the crippled lamb, is growing like a weed. 

And last but not least, meet "Party." She loves her Mama, as you can see in the photo below... or at least she likes to sleep on her. She's a soft, squishy bed after all - much cozier than the hard ground. Party's twin brother didn't make it past the first week of life unfortunately. I think there was something wrong with him since birth. Party is a hilarious, cute little goat and is growing so incredibly fast. 

Have a great day!

Suriyah

We are HERE!

Just a note to let y'all know we are here, safe and everything is intact - no tornado or storm damage. We are a few hours from where the tornados hit hard. Our hearts are with the people of Moore and the many other towns that were ravaged by the deadly tornados the past few days.

I am very thankful to have an intact house and barns, and that my family and close friends are all safe. I have never seen a tornado in person...yet. Living in Oklahoma puts my chances of seeing one up, ha!

No pictures from me today - maybe tomorrow.

I hope you all have a fabulous day!

Suriyah

Kidding Season is OVER!

111 days and 78 kids later, and kidding season is over with for the Winter/Spring of 2013. It's been a great year! A bit busy at times, calm at other times, but all those bouncing healthy kids are sure to put a smile on anyones face. It is especially nice to see all that hard work paying off.

The numbers for this year's kidding season are as follows:

35 does kidded

78 kids

40 bucklings

38 doelings

5 singles

19 sets of twins

9 sets of triplets

2 sets of quads

And out of all that, we lost 6 kids total. Not too bad actually considering everyone else was so healthy and spunky.

Sunday night the last two does kidded. We came home and found Paprika (Alpine, below) with a single buckling out. I knew she had more kids in there, but decided to try and get milking done real fast. By then she still hadn't had anymore kids, so I decided to go in and see what was taking her so long. There was a little doeling trying to come out breach - bad girl! Pulled her out and two more bucklings quickly followed, making her kid total to 3 bucks and a doeling. I was quite impressed, despite the fact that 3 were boys (but oh well). 

This little boy was really pretty, but I sold him too quickly and forgot to get "official" pictures of him and quad pics together! Oh well... life will go on without them.

Camo kid!

This big Boer doe was in labor at the same time as Paprika. I had a gut feeling that something was just not right as her labor was not progressing like it should have. Before I pulled Paprika's kids, I felt up in the Boer doe just to see what was going on and felt something that certainly was NOT right. I told her she can wait and finished getting Paprika's kids out.

By then, it was nearly midnight and I was feeling a bit light headed. I talked my Mom into pulling the Boer kid's out, I'd just hold the doe :). So as my wonderful mother usually does, she listened to me, pulled her sleeves up and went to see what was going on. What she found was rather disgusting - a big handful of skin and bones - basically a kid who had stopped growing months ago and was mummified.  Once we got that out of the way, a big healthy doeling came out. A few minutes later, a very large buckling came out, who was kind of stuck because it was only his head. I fished up in there, found a front leg and pulled him out. What happened next was not what I was expecting. I mean, we've kidded hundreds of goats, I've pulled many many kids out, and most of the time things go pretty smoothly, even if the kid has to be pulled.

Well, the doe started bleeding, and bleeding a lot. She was hemorhaging. Not sure why. Thankfully she is a very large doe so could handle loosing a little blood. But it was pouring out. Everyone goes into "panic mode" and tries to find the Shepherd's Purse to stop the bleeding. I tried counter-pressure incase she tore, but it didn't seem to work. Every time I'd move my hand more blood would gush out. We finally found some of the Shepherd's purse tincture and gave it to her. She didn't seem bothered at all that she had just lost a few cups of blood, and was happily licking her newborns. She got up after a few minutes and the bleeding seemed to stop.

It's now been a few days and she hasn't skipped a beat. Thankful for a happy outcome on that freaky accident!

Well, nothing like kidding season going out with a bang! We still have a few bucklings left for sale if anyone is interested. They are nice boys, but it's the end of the year and they need to find a new home. Email me if you're interested - the price will be good.

a little Alpine/LaMancha cross girl... isn't she pretty? She is for sale also.

Joy, one of the Nubian doelings we are keeping this year.

Another Nubian girl we are keeping - she doesn't have a name yet. Any suggestions?

I hope you all have a lovely day!

Suriyah

Patience and Faith, girls from the Dill herd

Last Friday Ellen Dorsey put a post up about a few Nubian/Alpine cross doe kids she had for sale. They caught my eye, and soon I was in the car headed to Dill's-A-Little Goat Ranch. It was nice to finally meet Ellen in person and see her nice place and all her gorgeous goats.

These two girls are sisters. I have a thing about dairy experimental crosses - they're almost always my favorites, hands down. They milk outstanding typically. And there's just something about those funny little ears.

We named them Patience (white one) and Faith (tan one). Their dam is Dill's Aurek's Pink, a beautiful Alpine doe that can be seen on this page at the very bottom. Their sire is Dorsey-Lane BE Ramblin Man. 

Without further ado, here are the sweet little things!

Suriyah