Caprine Dominatrix

Nettie and Annette are both very vocal and affectionate when they are in heat.  The also do a lot of tail flagging and get a bit pink in the behind, so it’s not too hard to tell when they are in season.  Last year I had trouble figuring out Ishtar’s cycle.  Pan wasn’t within sight of the does last year.

This year, Pan is up next to the rest of the herd, but still separated by fencing.   Ishtar has been in heat at least three other times this season, and each time it was pretty obvious.  She would be pacing back and forth along the fence line, shoving her head through the panels and getting covered in stinky-buck smell as Pan was more than happy to paw at her and rub his head all over her.

Ishtar is a big Saanen, larger than her mother Nettie.  I was hoping to have Ishtar bred to a Boer this year (and last year), but I have yet to find anyone with a Boer for stud and there’s no way I was going to buy another buck, especially a standard sized breed.  It’s hard enough wrestling Pan who’s a Nigerian Dwarf buck; I couldn’t imagine messing around with a Boer buck.

My intentions were to start up our own meat goat herd using Ishtar as the dam and a purebred Boer as the sire.  Basically I want the offspring to have her large frame, but with a meaty build.  Any female offspring from that breeding would be kept as breeding stock and bred back to another purebred Boer buck.  The males would go into the freezer.

Since I once again struck out on finding a Boer for stud, I let Pan breed Ishtar.  It’s not that I don’t like the kiddings from that match; Ishtar’s kids are nice mini-milkers (F1 Mini-Saanen).  But I’ve got enough milkers.  I want meat.  Goat meat.

Anyhow.

Ishtar is also the Alpha doe, or Herd Queen of our little herd.  And she rules with an Iron Fist.  When it comes to milking time / feeding time, there’s no doubt who’s top goat. 

When I decided that I’d have Pan breed Ishtar, we did the normal goat-date thing.  I put the doe on a lead, take her to Pan’s enclosure and let the goat-luv’n begin.  That usually entails Pan running around, making those spitty-flappy-lip goat noises, pawing, ear-nibbling and the like, eventually ending with a good connection and DNA swapped.  I’ll hold on to the lead the first few minutes to make sure everyone is “satisfied”, but eventually unclip the doe and let the two have some private time together.

But apparently Ishtar was not satisfied with being the subordinate goat.  As soon as I unclipped her lead, she started chasing Pan around the pen.  SHE was making the snorty noises, pawing and mounting HIM!  And I don’t think he was too fond of it either as he kept running away.  At one point he even tried to hide behind me.  But being the closet masochist that I am, I let her stay in the pen and have her way with him.

I came back out about an hour later and found them like this:

If it weren’t for the fact that Ishtar had just finished a cigarette and Pan was sobbing for me to let him out, it would have been almost cute.

Swap Party

The weekend before Thanksgiving, I hosted a Swap Party.  Clothing and household items swapping party, mind you. 

You weren't thinking something else, were you?  (Sorry MamaTea, but I figured you'd be the first to pipe up about that.)

After my light bulb moment came, I did do some online searching on Swapping Parties (and let me tell you, not all swapping parties are household goods related....wow!). Apparently I'm not the only one with this idea (swapping material goods, not well, other non-material goods); although the websites I visited seemed to be geared towards the more "affluent" types of Parties with high-end clothing, purses and accessories. There were all kinds of etiquitte for the parties and rules. Which I could understand would be needed if you made a big production out of it and invited a bunch of people likely to bring pricey items, but since I only invited close friends, I didn't really worry about two participants fighting over a dog-eared paperback romance novel. Guess some of these high-faluting Swap Parties can get pretty sophisticated.

Two weeks before the event, I called several of my friends and told them to get their "To Donate" boxes out and start filling them.  Everything that could be brought into the house without the use of a forklift was welcome; clothing, nick-knacks, costume jewelry, books, DVD's, kitchen gadgets, etc..
The day before the Swap Party, Mom and I cleaned up the living room, dining room and kitchen and put up an extra side table to display the "goods".  I made a trip to the store and bought some lunchmeat, cheeses and little sandwich rolls along with a bottle or two of wine.  Made some last minute cheese dips for more munching and two kinds of wheat-free cookies for dessert.

When Swap Party Day came and the guests started arriving (only half a dozen of us) we displayed our goods on the open tables, side tables and countertops.

There was much merry making, munching, some drinking of wine and laughter.  Some of the gals went home with an item or two, but others left empty-handed.  Not because there wasn't a lot of neat stuff to choose from, but I think that the real benefit from this "Swapping" party was to clean out closets and drawers of old or unused items.  Which is fine.  That's how I came upon the idea; I was cleaning out MY stuff and thought that it would be neat to give somebody else a chance at taking home some of my junk treasures before sending it to the donation site.
After the wine was finished off  items had been rummaged through and everyone was happy with their loot (or lack of), everything was boxed up to be sent to the donation site.

Besides being a wonderful afternoon of visiting with friends, it was a nice feeling to have several boxes of stuff to take to Goodwill just in time for the Holidays.
So, exactly what did I get from the party?

A drinking game called Partini (which I gave to Christine, even though she doesn't drink....I don't know why I took it, moment of weakness I guess and will probably end up in the next Swap Party).

And this little guy (because Rhiannon fell in love with it):

But the best thing I got was some much needed closet space!

Nugget's Nuggets

Even though I wanted to spend more time with my sister during her Thanksgiving visit, there were still farm things that needed tending to.  Namely, we had an appointment for Nugget to be gelded (nice name for relieving a male horse of his family jewels).

Normally, one would have had their male horse (or mini-horse in our case) gelded around a year old.  When we first got Nugget, I noticed that he only had one testicle (BTW, the name "Nugget" didn't come up until we found out about this).  When we took him to the vet, we were told wait for another six months to see if the other testicle would drop.  Well, it never did.  So we took him back to the vet this weekend to see if the vet could still manage to castrate him even though the second testicle hadn't dropped.

I've banded our own male goat kids before, and I've seen pictures of other castration processes online (you know, to a non-farm person this really sounds twisted, doesn't it??) but have never seen one in person.  Until this weekend. 

Normally, castration by cutting is not a difficult thing (for the vet at least).  Sedate the horse, clean the area around the scrotum, make an incision, grab the testicle(s) and cord and cut.  The incisions are small enough that they aren't even stitched up and there isn't a lot of blood involved so the wounds are sprayed with an anti-fly and antibacterial spray and left to heal as-is.
The vet first sedated Nugget to get him to relax, hoping that he would also relax his groin area enough to get a grip on the retained testicle.  There seemed to be a sliver of hope.  Nugget then got a general anesthetic to really knock him out.  After he was totally out (and was on the ground), we rolled him over and the vet had a chance to really feel around for the "missing" testicle.  It was in the inguinal canal (the area between the abdomen and scrotum).  He was pretty sure that he could maneuver it into a position where it could be pulled out.   After soaping and rinsing the area off, the vet made a small incision, maybe an inch long and tried to pull the testicle out.  After several minutes of no luck, he made a second small incision in order to get two fingers inside.  Still no luck.  After more massaging, maneuvering and pulling, the testicle ruptured.  Not good.  Not life threatening or anything, but not what we were hoping for. 

Here's some more male horse reproductive organ information that you probably didn't want to know:

If one (or both) testicles do not drop into the scrotal sack and stay in the inguinal canal or in the abdomen, they don't function or grow properly.  They are usually much smaller than normal and don't produce viable sperm.  If the testicles are inside the animal as opposed to "outside" in the scrotal sack, the few degrees of additional heat causes the sperm to die.  But the rest of the testicular tissue thrives inside the warmer area and produces even more testosterone than normal.  It's not just the testicle that causes stallions to act like pissy-jerk-bastards.   So if you don't remove all of the testicular tissue, then you've got a REALLY pissy-jerk-bastard; what's you'd call a "Proud Cut" horse.

Back to the exploding testicle.

Even though Nugget's retained testicle was now dead, the rest of the "stuff" still needed to be removed.  And it just wasn't going to happen with just those two small incisions.  So we were going to have to have abdominal surgery on Nugget to properly castrate him.  Since there was no reason to remove the other testicle (as one is just as bad as two), the vet didn't bother cutting the other one out.

Unfortunately, our vet doesn't have the facilities to do abdominal surgery on large animals. 

So he cleaned Nugget up and gave him a shot of Penicillin and a Tetanus shot.  The vet apologized for not being able to castrate Nugget, but we knew that it wasn't going to be a sure thing when we brought him in and we thanked him for trying.  It would still be about fifteen or twenty minutes before Nugget came around so the vet went back to the office and we sat with Nugget until he came around. 

Nugget can be a real jerk.  He's going on three years old and is definitely pumped up with testosterone (hence the need for gelding him).  But I almost wanted to sob seeing him lying on the grass like that.  Poor little bugger.
 
He woke up, groggy and confused, and eventually managed to pull himself up and just stood there for a few minutes.  Then he went to try chomping on some grass and even that was pitiful looking....his bottom lip/chin just flopping around and his head swaying back and forth.  We got him back into the trailer and back home to a very relieved Ms. Melman.  She is a nervous wreck when we separate them and was happy he was home.  I'd even say she mothered him a bit.

So now we've got to make an appointment for the large animal vet.  Which is located two and a half hours away.  Ugh.

Mooberry Giveaway!

I haven't been blogging lately. What time I have had on the computer I've been using to check up on you guys. But the Thanksgiving madness is winding down and I'm finally able to sit down and do some writing.

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. Ours was made extra special since my Dad, Sister and her husband made the long drive to come to celebrate Thanksgiving with us. We all had a wonderful time visiting. And eating pies. And turkey. And sweet potatoes. And that white jello/sour cream/jiggly dessert that Mom made (kind'a reminds me of my thighs).

Speaking of my excessive jiggly body parts, Julie over at Mooberry Farm is having her first giveaway! What does my superfluous celluite have to do with a giveaway? It's an exercise DVD!

Julie is giving us a chance to win one of her favorite work-out DVDs (and thank goodness it isn't one of those bootcamp kind'a videos) just in time for the Holidays! Why wait until after the New Year to start exercising a little bit more?

As soon as I get over this bug (and the cleaning up from visiting relatives), I'm going to get my behind back on the treadmill (and back to blogging). And wouldn't it be extra special if I could have a little bit of encouragement and direction from a DVD? Hope I win.   But if you hope that YOU win, you gott'a go over there and enter!

Click HERE to enter Mooberry's giveaway!

Tough Love

The goats have been on a hay strike.  They now prefer the kind'a crappy hay over what we recently purchased.  As in the eight large square bales (at a cost of $65 per bale, mind you) of a good, green brome hay.

There were days when they would just look at it.  Each one of them lined up at the fence, staring at the heap of newly forked hay, then back at me, then back at the hay, obviously wishing it were something else.  But guess what?  There IS nothing else.  They even went so far as to pick through the old wasted hay I put in the blue barrels for bedding.  Technically I could probably get another crummy bale of questionable hay, but when it's more than half stems and twigs, I just can't justify spending the money.  That crummy bale suddenly costs not $45, but $90 when you figure I have to double the quantity of it I feed to them.

So there have been days when I don't put out any fresh hay.  And they bawl and cry and moan every time I go past the hay pile.  Eventually it dissapears.  Then, and only then, will I fork some more hay into their hay bin. 

They all run over to the new hay, stick their fat heads in and immediately pull back out.  Nettie looks up at me as if to say, "So, when you going to feed us?"  Annette just sighs.  Ishtar would flip me the bird if she had fingers to do so.  After several moments of human and goats staring at each other, they begrudgingly take a mouthful of hay and munch away.  When they have finished chewing their first bite, they plunge their heads deep into the bin, trying to find something else.  As if there were something better at the bottom.  This, of course, causes much of the hay to fall out of the bin.  And heaven forbid they would have to eat hay that has touched the ground.  Oh, the horror!

Before leaving, I give them the old "If you don't eat your dinner, you're going to be eating the same thing for breakfast" speech. 

And Ishtar mumbles a goat cuss word my way.

"Did you say something young lady???"

No, Mom ***bitch is trying to starve us***

"What?!"

Nothing.  Munch, munch, munch.

Another Apron!

Although my Mom didn't officially join in the Apron-Sew-Off as she's not a blogger, she did make one and finally emailed me a picture of it:

Wonder if she want's to swap aprons????

The Story of Ms. Melman, Part 2

We bought a 3 year old, female mule in May of 2008.  Per our agreement with the previous owners, they trailered her to our place as we didn't yet own a livestock trailer.  Since the pasture where she'd be kept is not by the house (it's about 3/4 mile up the road), we stuck around for the day to make sure she settled in ok. 

Ms. Melman's first day with us.

There was much running around, checking out the fence line (and the hot wire....zap!) but eventually she calmed down.  Of course, a nasty thunderstorm came through that evening so we went up there several times during the evening to make sure she was doing ok.  The next few days I just pulled up a chair and waited for her to come to me.  Eventually curiosity gets the best of her and I started brushing her and finding the sweet scratchy spots. 

Ms. Melman was basically "Green"; meaning no formal training.  And I was a far cry from a horse or mule trainer.  I've done my share of reading and internet searching for mule training help, but honestly, I'm a hands on kind'a gal and found it difficult to understand the methods without having someone there to show me.  But we were persistent.  And quickly found out that she was food-motivated (sounds like me).  So with the help of a fanny-pouch full of grain for treats, I was able to get her to pick up her feet and use the hoof pick on her.  I also got her to accept the halter and lead and we started getting her to back up and whoa by voice.

I would bring in new "stuff" for her to see, sniff and then rub on her to show her it wouldn't hurt.  We got a blanket on her back, then a bareback pad with a loose cinch.  She didn't buck or run when she was sacked out, but if it was something she didn't like, she would just walk away.  We didn't have her tied for a lot of this.

I started longeing her in the arena, but it was too large of an area to do that effectively, even with a long longe line.  We really needed a round pen if we were going to continue our training attempts.  Another thing we found out is that if we pushed her too hard or demanded too much from her too quickly, she would get mad at us and hold a grudge.  For days.  So it was back to earning her trust again until we could continue any training.  But when everyone had said sorry and she forgave us, she showed us that she did indeed retain the previous lesson.

Fast forward two months.  It's now July of 2008 and Ms. Melman is doing well with our feeble and slow attempts of training.  And then we find out that I'm pregnant.  Not that we weren't expecting it (the pregnancy part), but what I didn't anticipate is that I'd have to really lay off working with the mule for the sake of our unborn child.  Even though we weren't showing her new things, I would try to at least put the halter on her every day and reward her for that and for picking up her hooves.  Paul would continue leading her around the arena and grooms her just to keep her from being too bored.

Not that it's a valid excuse, but being pregnant, then having to care for Rhiannon really put a damper on any sort of additional improvements in our training sessions with Ms. Melman.  Basically we were on auto-pilot for a good two years.  She wasn't neglected, but she definitely wasn't being paid as much attention as she was before Rhiannon came along.  It also didn't help that she was away from the house, so even though we stop up there twice a day to make sure everyone is ok, additional visits aren't easy to squeeze into the schedule.  Rhiannon loved seeing Ms. Melman and would be more than happy to visit her more often, but I wasn't able to keep Rhiannon safe while working with her.
  
I felt badly for Ms. Melman.  I wish we had an area ready for her by the house with the rest of the Krazo Acres critters.  So when Paul found a mini-horse wandering around her pasture one morning, we jumped on the opportunity to re-home the little guy with Ms. Melman so she'd at least have a pasture buddy.

A "Nugget" for Ms. Melman

Ms. Melman and Nugget quickly became best buddies (he was also an only "child" at his previous home).  When we had to take him to the vet, she worked herself up into a slobbering sweat until he came back home.  So even though my guilt was reduced a little bit with the addition of another equine buddy, she still wasn't being given the attention she needs.  But then sometimes I wonder to myself, does she even care that we're not around?   Is she happy just having hay and water provided?  I'd like to think that she'd be happier with us nearby and that she'd eventually enjoy taking trail rides or being driven.  But since I don't have the ability to read her mind, I guess I'll just continue mulling that thought over until something else pops into my.....

Oh, look!  Something shiny!

One of our fellow firefighter friends is a "horse gal".  She's trained several of her own horses and has a bunch of awards for halter showing and barrel racing and recently trained her mini-horse to pull a cart.  So when she offered to help us work with Ms. Melman I took her up on it.  She's never worked with a mule before, so it's a bit of a learning experience for even her.  But she's also the kind of person that craves a challenge. 

So last week, Liz (the horse gal) and I went shopping for a bridle, bit and reigns.  And so the "Training of Ms. Melman" began......

PS - Since we couldn't think of a better name at the time we got her, I just put a "Ms." in front of my first online mule love, Melman, and she's been known as Ms. Melman since.  How original, hugh?