rachels.haven 2026 kidding,lactation&farm journal

[rachels.haven]

After Summer goes, the next duedate is February 16th...which, this year I'm learning means nothing. Day 138-156 means they can go whenever they want.

 

[rachels.haven]

Bwahahahah. Today one of Dot's bucklings squatted to pee...and it came out the dump truck instead of the middle. Looks like he's a doeling. I double checked everyone.

 

[rachels.haven]

Sometime in the early hours of the morning Summer, Lamancha, delivered a massive single buckling in the kidding stall and it looks strongly like he was doa. He was probably about 15+ lbs. My guess is it was a hard delivery and past a certain point the faster the kids are delivered the better shape everyone is in. Summer becomes a nasty witch when pregnant and does not let me check her ligaments to the point of running away and making it a rodeo, so this probably could not have been prevented (tensing up also changes the way ligaments feel, she has taught me over the years of freshening her)

As long as everything is okay on the udder side she has probably a half gallon of colostrum in her udder, so that will go into the freezer and any milk she produces will go to help with the milk deficit the current living kids are creating and hopefully decrease our replacer use.

This is one of those situations where I need to focus on the fact that at least it was a buckling and move on. I may work on getting barn cams for a few of the stalls if we can get internet working in there.

 

[Mini Horses]

Believe that's why I lost that big, beautiful doeling this week ... Prob slow delivery. It's hard but, we move on.

 

[Ridgetop]

Kidding/lambing is hard work. Some people don't believe in assisting them. I may jump in too soon to help but I find it ups the number of live births. I prefer live births to regret, but you don't always know in advance what is going on. Goats, particularly Nubians, are known for having "litters". In our new locations here in Yantis, I can't just walk across the paved driveway to peer in on my jugs. Here it is a hike out to the barn to check. Luckily, this year the ewes are not as heavy so they are havng smaller lambs. Only had to pull one that was seriously stuck - a large ewe lamb with the top of her head acting like a stopper. Born dead but the ram lamb is lovely and I will keep him.

You have a huge crop of mouths to feed on replacer.

 

[SageHill]

I may work on getting barn cams for a few of the stalls if we can get internet working in there.

DO IT. You won't regret it. I have Blink cameras in our barn -- one in every stall. When it's lambing time I can check the cams and see what's up. The barn is 600ft or so away from the house so it saves me running over to check things. Do I still head over? Heck yeah - but I can also go to sleep at night w/o running over, and have breakfast in the morning with a piece of mind all is ok.

 

[Baymule]

I’m sorry about the dead baby. But at least you will have milk for the other babies. I know that’s not how you wanted it to be, but that’s what you got and you’re making the most of it.

 

[rachels.haven]

Heat treated,

and packaged,

...and in the freezer. Pritchard nipples screw onto these and they defrost fairly quickly in warm water.

Becca, the ND that is due on Feb 16 with Baby the la-nub is starting to udder up and it looks decent. Becca still has a few days left to go before kidding would result in live kids due to her 145 day gestation for the breed. Baby, on the other hand could go at any time or not at all until late because we're past day 138 out of 150 for her. And of course she has no udder which means nothing this year. So basically I'll only be chasing a crazy la-nubian around to check ligaments for the next few days instead of a ND and a La-nubian. On Monday I'll start chasing both.

Disbudding party planned for any potential keepers or breeding stock sales on Saturday.

 

[rachels.haven]

This udder is getting me down.
This doe had nothing until the night she freshened. Then she had massive hard teats-edema, I think. Now one is going down, both are cracking, bleeding, and bruised. With the stiff texture edema causes there's no room for milk so she's leaking and everything looks so painful. Teats are cold. I've got and am using "udder comfort" and "dynamint". Both are pretty similar. Today the big one is slightly softer in some places and milk flow is less obstructed than the previous milking and the little one got to shrinking. There really isn't much room for much milk.

Spoiler

On the one hand I'm like, yes, it's socked on and foreudder is smooth. On the other hand, here we have another train wreck. What will she be left with? How much damage will the rogue swelling cause? Will she leak? Would she leak even without it? Her dam leaked as a ff. As an older doe she only leaks when over full and when she lays on her udder. Also, I'm really glad I didn't try to let her dam raise her quads.


Freshening in general is not my favorite. I much prefer to be three months into things in the production plateau. So much risk and so many disappointing surprises.

12 bucklings left for the meat buyer today. They want any others I have. I have 10 kids in the barn and 2 in the house still (my 1lbs 10 oz doeling that is now a 2 lbs 12 oz if memory serves and then the doe that I thought was a buck). That's a relief. I was going to save a buck for someone, but I used Dator on does that need improvement (excluding Summer who DOA'ed) and Pepper did not appear to throw any sons for me with legs that track properly and instead hock in and they kind of mince when they walk and I don't want that carbon copied onto anyone else's herd.
Time for a cold weekend.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

OH my goodness - bless her! That looks extremely painful.