I found myself googling the title of this blog frequently since we’ve bought goats in 2013. By googling that phrase, you will learn about several methods to attempt to evaluate if your goat is expecting, all with varying degrees of expense and accuracy.
If you aren’t a dairy goat person, you may wonder why it is such a big deal whether or not a goat is expecting. Just wait the 5 month gestation and see! The reason it is a concern to us is that some breeds of goats are seasonal breeders, which means they only go “into heat” in the fall of the year. So, couple that fact with the 5 month gestation, and if you adopt the wait-and-see approach, by the time you’ve waited and seen, it is now spring and not a great time to breed your goat. Another reason it is of concern to goat breeders is that goats need to be dried up at least 2 months before kidding. We prefer to dry them up prior to breeding. If the goat is dry, that means no milk and no profit. Raising goats is NOT a lucrative past time; therefore, you want to know that you are not feeding and housing an open goat. The first year we had goats, we went by wait-and-see until about month before they were due. Suddenly the suspense got to us, and we really wanted to know if we should cancel some upcoming plans that we had to be at home for kidding. So, we called our vet to perform an ultrasound. Yes, a goat ultrasound with equipment designed for a horse, but it still gave us enough information to know that our goats were, in my vet’s words, open. Open for breeding, that is. We were very disappointed. We had a lot invested in these goats – fencing, time, feed, time, vaccinations, time, etc. We soon learned that the buck we had used only produced kids at one of the four farms he visited that fall. So, we were left with hope that our goats could indeed be bred in the coming fall. But we were still milkless. That is what prompted us to buy a goat in milk, our dear Vanilla. Fast forward to the fall of 2014 when we had 3 goats to breed. We went with another buck. A proven buck this time. Because we felt confident it the buck, we decided to just wait and see. This time, it worked! Each of does had kids in the spring of 2015. We were hoping to use the same approach in 2015, but the buck passed away unexpectedly two days before coming to our farm. That prompted us to purchase a buckling to use for breeding. Using a buckling (any buck under one year of age) for breeding has several advantages and disadvantages, but that’s topic for another post. We observed our new buckling, Prince, carefully. He certainly seemed to know what to do, but how could we know for sure if our goats were pregnant? Here are the options we had. 1. Wait & See – While this approach is the cheapest up front, it is very costly if the goat is not bred. Since we were using an unproven young buckling, we knew the chance of him not being fertile and capable was there. 2. Blood test – There is a blood test called BioPRYN that measures the presence of a pregnancy-specific protein. It is only accurate 30 days after breeding. The cost of this test through a local lab is only $3.65 a goat. However, the cost of getting our vet to draw blood is $24 a goat, bringing the cost to $27.65 per goat. 3. Bounce test – You can find youtube videos on this. Basically, you stand behind the goat and wrap your arms around their abdomen and gently bounce up to feel for kids. This is also suggested to do when a goat in labor has had one or two kids, and you are wondering if there are more. The problem with this test is that is very subjective, and if you only have a handful of goats, it is difficult to get the different feels of who is pregnant and who isn’t. 4. Ultrasound – As I mentioned previously in this post, a vet can perform a goat ultrasound. It will cost you roughly $50-75 per goat. Our vet suggested waiting until they are about 2 months pregnant. After much deliberating, we decided to have our vet come out and draw blood to complete the BioPRYN test for pregnancy. One of the reasons we chose the blood test is that we also wanted to test our goats for CAE (Caprine Arthritis Encephalitis-in my vet's words, "the goat AIDS"), which is done through a blood test as well. All that leads me to announce, that, YES, our goats are pregnant! Russell Homestead is officially expecting goat kids in the end of February 2016! Our goat kids make great home milkers or pets. This year, we used a polled buck, which means a percentage of our kids will likely be polled (naturally won’t have horns). Those with horns will be disbudded. We are asking $150 for does and $125 for bucks. None of goat kids this year are registered, but they are almost 100% Nubian blood. Contact us to be put on our waiting list. We are also exploring the possibility of offering a limited amount of goat shares. Please contact us for details.
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If you know me or you’ve spent time perusing my blog, you know I’m all about axing things from my grocery list. I have several reasons for slimming down my grocery list – I like to save money, provide a healthier alternatives for my family, and become more self-sufficient. This recipe is one of my tried & trues that I use nearly every week that fulfills all these reasons.
So, what item does this recipe knock from my grocery list? The main cream soups used in cooking – cream of mushroom, cream of chicken, and cream of celery. Here’s the recipe, and then I’ll provide some tips for using it. Easy Cream Soup Substitute 2 Tablespoons of Butter 2 Tablespoons of Flour 1 cup of milk Melt the butter in a kettle. Whisk in the flour before the butter browns. Slowly add the milk. Stir frequently until it thickens (about 5 minutes). The product is a white sauce that is equivalent to a can of 10 ¾ ounce of cream soup. If you are substituting for cream of mushroom, I simply use this recipe. If you are substituting for cream of chicken, I do ½ cup of milk and ½ cup of chicken broth OR simply add 1-2 teaspoons of chicken base. If you are substituting for cream of celery soup, sprinkle ½-1 teaspoon of celery salt. This substitute works well for casseroles. It would not work very well to simply eat as a soup. If the casserole only has a few ingredients without a lot of spices, you may need to spice it up when using this substitute recipe. I use spices such as salt, pepper, garlic salt, garlic powder, or seasoned salt. In many recipes, I just use this recipe, and it turns out delicious. This recipe is fabulous for anyone who has excess goat milk (as we often do). It is also great for anyone looking to limit their sodium intake. Cream soups in the store are PACKED with salt; with this recipe you can control the amount. I usually don’t add any salt, unless (as I noted above) the casserole lacks spices to begin with. Happy cooking, and thanks for stopping by! The old saying goes that, "You can't have just one goat," because goats are herd animals. They will become lonely (and most likely vocal) if they don't have a buddy. The buddy, I've been told, doesn't necessarily have to be a goat. It could be a sheep, cow, horse, or any other animal the goat could form a "herd" with. But, in our case, we couldn't just have three goats. That is, we couldn't just have three goats because we were lacking in the male gender. To back up a little in the story, we started our goat herd in 2013 with two sisters, Penny & Nickel. We added Vanilla in 2014. (All three of these goats are does.) In both the fall of 2013 and 2014, we "rented" a buck from friends to breed our does. By "rent," I mean that we paid a small fee to have the buck come live in our pen for about a month and woo our ladies with his antics. This year, 2015, we planned to do the same thing. However, the buck we were going to rent, unfortunately passed away the week before he was to come to Russell Homestead. So, we were left scrambling for a buck. Though I never blogged about it in my "Things I Said I Will Never Do (And Now Do!)" series, I could have done a post on how we said we will never own a buck. If you've never been around a goat buck, you may wonder why we are so prejudiced against them. Well, they don't smell very nice (mainly due to their habit of urinating on themselves to attract the ladies), and they can be aggressive. In addition, we don't need one, except for once a year. And then we REALLY need one. Back to my story, we were eager to get a buck because we have dried up our does, and we are eager for them to "freshen" again. (Freshen is a goat and cow term which means to begin giving milk again after giving birth.) We also didn't want just any breed of buck; we wanted a Nubian buck to provide us with kids that will be good home milkers. We didn't know of anyone we could "rent" from, so we began looking to buy. The fall isn't the best time to purchase goats because dairy goats typically kid in the spring. We didn't want a kid anyway, we wanted a young buck who was ready to get the job done. After much online searching, we found our buck, and brought home a doe as well. (We goat people just have a hard time resisting more goats!) We wanted to grow our herd a bit to have more milk for next year to experiment with butter or soap. Who knows? But, if you're milking 3, what is milking 4? So, without further ramblings from me, here are the newcomers to Russell Homestead... Prince Charming Nubian Buckling Prince is a young buck, born in March of 2015. He is polled, which means he naturally doesn't have horns. He is very gentle, and a bit shy, but he is warming up to us and the delicious sweet feed we offer him. (And he really doesn't smell too bad yet because he is so young.) Moondancer Nubian doe Moondancer (or Mooney for short), named for the crescent moon on her side, is a meek & mild two and a half year old doe. She was bottlefed, and she loves people! She is the only goat we have that will stand at the gate and beg to be petted. The boys enjoy leading her around the yard. She gave birth to twins in the spring of 2015. She was exposed to a Nubian buck before coming here, which means we are hoping for kids in January!
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AuthorVanessa from Russell Homestead. Follower of the Lord Jesus, wife of my knight in shining armor, mother of 5 wonderful children, and joint-keeper of the Russell homestead. Thanks for stopping by! Archives
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Vanessa Russell
Independent Field Representative ID#20249934. |