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My boer goat Mabel had Triplets late Friday night. Everybody seems to be doing well, but I am concerned that she will not be able to make enough milk for all three babies. All are nursing well, and we are weighing them often to make sure that they are gaining weight. Mabel has free choice of...

I have a doe that appears to be very pregnant. We do not know when she was bred, because she constantly jumped over the fence this summer and could have been exposed to our buck any time. We will soon be traveling about 8 hours by car to visit family. Normally we have a friend farm sit our...

Do you use software to manage your herd? I'm looking for something where I can easily keep up with purchases/sales, calendar events (births, vaccinations, etc.), contact info for people (vets, breeders, etc.), and any other important info for my animals. I want to be able to run a search and...

I'm going crazy waiting for kids, and I've begun to have irrational thoughts. Lol! :rolleyes:

We got our first buck, Magnus, last fall and introduced him to our 3 does (Lucy, Ethel, & Mabel) on October 6. By my math, that means the earliest any of them could kid was last Friday, March 4. We don't know the exact dates that they were bred, but all 3 show signs of pregnancy. One is...

Does anybody feed used Christmas trees to their herd? I am considering placing an online ad offering to dispose of local trees, but I'm concerned about chemicals that might have been sprayed on the trees. In the past we've given them our personal tree that we cut down from a local tree farm...

Does anybody use an aftermarket camera for their trailer hitch? We'd like to get one for our E350 van, since it seems we're always hitching and moving our trailers, and it's often necessary to do it solo. What brand/model would you recommend? We want something that's relatively easy to...

I'm considering putting collars on my three boer goats, but I'm concerned that they'll get caught on things and get hurt. I'd like to be able to move them around by collars. Plus they're little Houdinis, so collars would make it easier to catch them when they're loose. I'd like to hear...

My llama passes gas loudly and often. Is there anything I should be concerned about, or is this normal? I've never known my other llama or the alpacas to do it.

We bought Ethel, a boer goat, with another mom & kid in March. She was born in spring 2013 and lived with a buck until we got her. The previous owner assumed she was pregnant, but did not have a date, and he was confident that she'd kid by the end of April if she was going to. Nothing...

I noticed yesterday that my suri alpaca boy is covered with flies. The other llamas and alpacas didn't seem nearly as affected. I got bit by them several times, so I can only imagine what they're doing to him. What can I do to help him?

My 3 month old black lab pup thinks it's fun to chase my chickens in the yard. For now it's all play, but I want to get a handle on it before he gets bigger and hurts them. He's getting very good with the 'leave it' command, and he'll usually stop chasing when we tell him to. All it takes is...

A friend of mine runs a local food bank, and they often have bread that is just past the expiration date, so they can't give it away. It's not moldy yet, so he offered it to me as a treat for my chickens. I'm curious if it's ok for my llamas and alpacas to eat it too. I offered it to them...

It's been a rough week on our farm. Our guard llama Lalita (see avatar) went down with meningeal worm, and we had to put her down last night. We're horribly saddened by her loss. She truely was our favorite. I noticed today that our 3 alpacas seem lost without her. They were visibly...

I have a llama and two alpacas. We mix sweet feed (2 parts) with cleaned oats (1 part) as a treat for them. They also have free access to hay and pasture. I'm new to camelids, and I don't want to give them too much 'treat' feed. How much, and how often do you feed sweet feed/grain?

I have several bales of hay that got wet and began growing some mold. They're dry now, so I am wondering whether it would be ok to spread them out in our stalls for bedding for our llama and two alpacas. Will the animals simply eat the moldy hay off the floor? I won't put it out if they might...

I recently got a llama and two alpacas. We set up their water trough to catch rainwater off the roof so we don't have to refill it as often. As a result we created the perfect mosquito breeding ground. Is it safe to put some goldfish in the trough to control the mosquitoes? We have used...

Hi all! I've been raising chickens for several years, and I just got my first herd animals - a llama and two alpacas. The llama, Lalita, is a guard, and the alpacas, Gilligan and Emmy, are for fiber. I love them already, and I look forward to many years with them. We also plan to get a few...