KinderKorner's ** Kid Pictures

[KinderKorner]

Well this is long overdue. I've been raising animals for years but I just never seem to keep up with blogging. Maybe putting updates and stuff on here will be easy enough to keep me motivated.

I live in Southern IL right on the MO border. The climate is crazy, and is laughed at for being one of the most fickle places. I can go to sleep with 60 degree weather and rain, wake up to snow, then by noon be back in the 60's and sunny. Anyone in the midwest knows about the mud though. It's the worst.

I currently live with my parents, but I am getting married this fall and am looking for a small farm to call my own. (Without much luck.)

We live on a 12.4 acre farm, and I raise animals as a hobby. This year though I have to start breaking even or profit on the goats if I want to continue the hobby after marriage.

I work as a Secretary or as I call it, as a personal slave. I am in my 5th semester of school for a dual degree in Website and Graphic Design.

I have a herd of Kinder goats, 3 horses, a pet pig, 3 cats, and a ton of various breeds of chickens. Including but not limited to BLRW, SQ Light Brahmas, Bantam Cochins, Silkies, and RIR. I worked hard to build up the herd I have starting when I was young.

My main passion is goats, and our farm name is Kinder Korner. My website is www.kinderkornergoats.com

I love to train animals, and have a gift of teaching tricks. When I was young I always wanted to work at a zoo or something. The pig, goats, horses and cats can all do tricks. I love to read but I don't have much free time for it.


44 Days until kidding starts!!!! I can't wait. Kidding season is my favorite time of the year. Nothing cuter than a bunch of goat kids climbing around.

I will post anything I feel the urge to talk about here, hopefully I don't bore everyone too badly. I'll even try to get some pictures of my farm set up. (It's nothing special.) After I clean up a little of course.

 

[SmallFarmGirl]

Welcome to the BYH section of journaling! I'll be reading!

 

[KinderKorner]

I'm getting off work now, so hopefully I can go home and snap some pictures before dark.

Oh SmallFarmGirl I've been wanting to tell you I LOVE your siggy. That is so true!

 

[77Herford]

Looked at your website, its nice but the Soap and Bird links don't work. I figured you just hadn't got any for sale yet.

I've had an interest in Kinders for a long time now, even before I got into this crazy Goat biz. Is it true that Kinders have a high butterfat ratio for their size.

 

[daisychick]

Welcome to the journal section. I look forward to reading yours. Excited to be able to talk more about Kinders with you. I went for it and reserved 2 doelings instead of just 1. So now I have to keep my fingers crossed that the momma has girls.

 

[KinderKorner]

77Herford I do not have a soap or bird page up yet. Still a work in progress. Soon hopefully.

Kinders have some of the highest butterfat of all goat breeds. They produce a lot for their size, and are easy to feed.

Daisychick I'm so happy for you! I hope you get two great looking girls! Let me know how it goes.

So I tried to take pictures today. Note tried. It was cold, and all muddy from yesterday's rain and all the animals and pens looked so icky and pitiful. I'd be embarassed to show many off. No one looks impressive. But I promised so I got a few okay ones, and I will put up some old ones.

Lets talk about the first three does to kid. These girls are all going at the end of Feb.

First due to kid is Meg.

She is ugly as all get out, a social outcast, and doesn't care for me. But she has pretty babies. haha. Plus it's not her fault she is ugly. I got her as a rescue. She was born on the coldest night of the year and wasn't found until hours later. (Wasn't born here.) By then she already had frostbite. We struggled for months to get her better. The vet told us to put her down because her legs were going to fall off. But in the end she lost half her ears, and her back legs have considerable damage, but she didn't not lose her bone. Her skin and some muscle came off and her legs were bent at an abnormal angle, but she pulled through like a champ and had such a will to live. Her skin has grown back but it isn't normal, it's very thin and oddly colored, her legs are improved after months of splinting but not straight, her ears are ugly, her teats are a little abnormal, and she grew scurs. (Then lost one.) But she seems to live happily here. She gets along pretty well for being handicapped. Her babies are very nice, and she doesn't seem to be in pain so she will live out the rest of her days here.

Next up is Lily. She is a very pretty doe with a shy and sweet personality. She always has adorable babies and has a very nice looking udder. We were looking forward to her babies this year. But sadly while I was on vacation my mom let her out and didn't realize that our pygmy buck was also out, and well.... Now we are going to have some very cute pet babies born. Oh well. They will be cute, and already reserved so I guess it's okay.

(Don't look at the old mower in the picture. We just pulled it out of the woods and they liked to fully check it out.)


Then is Angeliese. My little love. She doesn't look like much in this terrible picture but she is big, and beautiful, and a doll. She has got a smooth rump, which is something Kinders struggle with. This girl was the Jr. Grand Champion at the MO state fair, and won best doe in show. I think it's a biggest Kinder show in the US. She even put up a good fight in a meat show I competed her in with all Boers. I'm soooo looking forward to her babies. She better have a girl in there. Two would be better. haha.

 

[KinderKorner]

This is part of the girls barn stall. This side is 10' x 20', the other side is 10' x 10'. The manger works for the most part. Goatie the herd queen and her two kids usually hog the entire thing. The other goats eat somewhere else unless goatie is out. (She runs free most of the time.) It also wastes quite a bit, but it just goes to bedding which is okay, or we pull out the stuff they don't want and feed it to the horses.

Random Rhode Island Red & Blue Laced Red Wyandotte cross rooster who needs to go to a new home.

Can't forget Goatie. First goat, herd queen, spoiled "dog" who sleeps on the porch and hates all animals including goats except her children. She also happens to be the fattest.... and isn't pregnent.

This is the real reason I can't get any pictures. It's hard to get body shots when all I ever have in the camera lens is a goat face.

Leon the pet wether and son of Goatie that will maybe be used for a cart goat if I ever get the time to finish his training.

 

[KinderKorner]

Yesterday was fun...

It dropped from 55 degrees to 17 degrees with high wind putting the wind chill at -2.

-2 feels sooo cold when it was 55 the day before.

We got a snow over night, and the wind was so high it blew it all around. In the morning the poor girls were covered in snow inside the barn freezing. The top of their stall has lots of open cracks because it is an old rotten barn that is slowly getting fixed. The snow blew right in. So we then spent a good while trying to nail up a large tarp over all the holes. The wall is solid until about 6 feet up. So I had a ladder and was trying to cover the last 6ft while holding onto a spread out tarp. It was like a parachute with the winds and was a big battle to get it up there. We finally nailed it down and put some bricks along the bottom to keep it from blowing off.

This morning they are a lot warmer and the tarp hasn't moved. Note to self, we need to fix the outside barn wall next.


Then the boys have an old leaning outhouse we have converted to a shed for them, but we have been working on a bigger and better house for a couple weeks now. It was suppose to be done days ago but dad has went way overboard and made it way sturdier than it means to be. He primed and painted several coats onto 1 inch think plywood. Put that on the outside of a 2" x 6" board frame. Stuffed all 6" with insulation, then put another painted inch plywood on the inside making the walls about 8 inches think. That is way over kill for me. His job has taken weeks. I could have slapped something up in a couple days. It might not have looked as good, but geez. Now we got a surprise snow and drop in temperature and the house is sitting there without a roof on yet.

I have to say I like the snow better than the mud though. Even if I have to break water.

Chickens are all bedded down and seem fine, even if they hate walking through it they don't seem cold. Horses don't seem to care one way or the other.

 

[KinderKorner]

So I'm getting married in Oct.

We have paid for everything with cash so we have no credit.

DF also doesn't have a job right now although he has been looking with little success.

My requirement to getting a house is I have to have at least 1 acre. But because we live in prime farm area land is soooo expensive and no one sells. It just gets passed down into familes.

We have been searching for a house with no luck.

Well mom has tossed around the idea of letting me purchase the 3.3 acre field from her on the side of our house because we don't use it anyway. Dad says no. But it's possible. They did buy the farm so I could have a horse when I was a kid. I have paid for all the animals, feed, fencing, building materials. I thought I was going to get the farm when I grew up, but dad has gotten attached.

We had laughed about it before, and DF said no way. He doesn't want to live that close to my parents. But as the wedding is getting closer and no luck with finding land or a house mabe it isn't such a bad idea. We could get it really cheap, and build a small metal building house. We'd have to look into prices to be sure. But we have friends that do all kinds of trades, and we could do some ourselves. We can get a metal shed built for under $10000. It seems like we could turn it into a house for less than 50 thousand extra. If so, that would be great for us and for sure in our price range. Plus some of my animals could continue to graze the fields they are in now, and if we wanted to go on vacation or anything my parents could easily take care of them.

Does anyone have experience at the cost of turning a metal shed frame into a house? It's quite popular in this area. They go up all the time.

Here is a picture of our entire farm at the time. I think I missed some more woods to the right, but thats not important. The large field towards the left is where my does currently live.

The purple line is where mom would consider spliting it for me.

This is a closer view of the area I could have. With some ideas drawn on it for a layout plan.

What does everyone think?

 

[daisychick]

I think it would be wonderful. When I was younger I would of said NO WAY to living next to my parents, but as I get older I think it would be nice to live closer to them. It would be handy to have someone next door that could do the animal chores when you are gone. I know a lot of people who put up the metal buildings and make them into homes. I don't know anything about building but I have seen some really nice outcomes from it. I hope your plans come together and you get the home you want.