The Freckled Farm Soap Company

Author: Crystal

What’s up Wednesday – March 4th

It’s the start of kidding season!!! Sonia is due any day now! Her due date is actually Friday but she has been showing signs of labor for days now. Her ligaments are almost completely gone and she has had some discharge. By Tuesday afternoon it became obvious that she had “dropped,” she’s been leaning against me and her sister quite a bit as well… all are signs that kidding is near. On Sunday I thought for sure she was going to go into labor. She was pacing around, she had all the signs of labor, and you could see in her face that something was going on. We spend a lot of time with our goats, so the littlest change is noticed and this was a blaring change to her personality! This wasn’t her time however. She settled down before bedtime and just moaned through the night. Given her current state I would say it is highly unlikely that she will make it to her due date. I have a very hard time believing that she she will go beyond Thursday. Considering I write these “What’s up Wednesday” blog posts throughout the day on Tuesday it’s possible that by the time this posts Wednesday morning that she has already kidded… Although I am still guessing Thursday. Check out our Facebook, Instagram, and/or Twitter to see more timely updates.

During Sonia’s ultrasound we were told that she likely has one kid. As you can see in the picture she isn’t very large. The picture was taken Saturday, but there hasn’t been a significant change to her size since then. Sonia is the goat in the front with the green collar.

The first kidding of the season is always the one that makes me the most anxious. There is all this build up for baby goats and the excitement of watching new life come into the world. There is also the fear that you have forgotten something or something might go wrong. While this fear doesn’t come close to trumping the excitement it’s still in the back of my mind. Maybe it will go away when I have years upon years of experience under my belt… however I have had friends who have been working with goats for decades and still feel the anxiousness of the start of kidding season. It’s the unknown! What are the babies going to look like? How many does and bucks will we get? What will their personalities be like? How well will our girls do? Will we miss it? What if we miss it and something goes wrong? I am feeling especially anxious this year because last year we ended the season with Tina’s awful kidding! If we had not come in while Tina was experiencing her problems it could have had a terrible outcome. I know though that as soon as Sonia kids that I will be in the grove and the anxiousness will go away (for the most part)… at least until Tina’s kidding in June.

Once Sonia kids her sister Ruth will not be far behind! Stay tuned for lots of precious baby goat pictures!

March 4, 2015
Hillary’s 2014 Kidding

*** Before you scroll down I must warn you that some of the pictures below are a little graphic. They depict an actual goat birth ***

We are days away from starting our 2015 kidding season, so I thought it would be the perfect time to look back at last year’s kidding season! This year we have 4 pregnant goats, 3 of whom are due in March and another that is due in June. Last year we had two kiddings, Tina and Hillary. Hillary’s kidding, the one pictured below, was completely by the book. It went smoothly without any hiccups. Which is why we were lucky enough to document it. Tina’s kidding, however, came without any warning and required me to “go in” to help. Her kidding was not documented… for obvious reasons.

Weeks before Hillary’s kidding she was showing us signs that she was ready. Her udder was forming and her ligaments were slowly disappearing. The ligaments are about the width of a pencil and run on either side of the goat’s spine near the base of the tail. Softening ligaments is a sign that labor is near. When the ligaments completely disappear you are likely within 24 hours of labor. Hillary kept us on our toes as her ligaments were softening for almost 2 weeks before she kidded!

Saturday night I could not find Hillary’s ligaments at all. This was 3 days before her due date. We had the monitor on all night listening for signs that Hillary was in labor. The next morning when we went out to do farm chores Hillary had a thick string of mucus hanging out of her… A sign that the kidding would be starting very soon! We went inside to eat breakfast and impatiently listened to the monitor. Thirty minutes later I heard low moaning noises, so I went to check on her. I found her with the tips of hooves (a perfect birthing position) coming out. I called to Kevin over the monitor asking him to bring towels, and the rest of the kidding kit. We had created a calm, quiet environment for her to kid and everything went smoothly. For the next hour we (our children included) watched her quietly as she gave birth to two perfect kids… One buck and one doe.

According to Hillary’s ultrasound this year she is carrying at least two, potentially three kids! She is due March 28th, but will likely go at least a few days early. Sonia is the first due. Her date is March 6th. Ruth is due March 13th. Tina isn’t due until June 26th.

March 2, 2015
365 Project – February

I can’t believe another month has already gone by! Here is a round up of the 365 pictures, A Picture a Day From The Freckled Farm, for the month of February. Enjoy!

Follow us on Instagram (@TheFreckledFarm) to see the pictures each day. Baby goats are days away and things will be blooming on the farm before too long!

To see January’s round up go here

March 1, 2015
Fun Farm Facts Friday – February 27th

So far this year all of the fun farm facts have been goat related, so I thought it was time to do a fact about one of our other farm animals. Today’s fact is about chickens!

Chickens are born with all of the eggs they will lay in their lifetime. The rate in which they lay eggs depend on the time of year. Chickens need a minimum of 14 hours of sunlight to lay an egg, so during the shorter, colder days chickens lay less eggs. Some farmers will light their hen houses in order to encourage chickens to lay more during the winter months, however this does not cause them to lay more eggs in their lifetime, it will only cause them to go through their egg supply quicker. While there is nothing wrong with this practice, it is not something we choose to do. We like our girls to have a break over the winter months.

February 27, 2015
What’s up Wednesday – February 25th

We are in the final stretch before the start of kidding season! Sonia only has a week and a half left. She has received all of her vaccinations (CDT and BoSe) and we continue to increase her feed to prepare her for milk production. She is a first freshener and they tend to bag up (their udders grow) over the course of the last week or two but hers hasn’t started to grow yet, however that is not an indication of how close she is as she could potentially bag up right before she kids. One indication of how close she is to kidding are her ligaments. They are about the size and thickness of a pencil and are on either side of the doe’s tail, as they get closer to their due date the ligaments soften until they eventually disappear, at which point labor is imminent. Sonia’s ligaments are quite soft! She is most definitely going to keep us on our toes! Ruth is a little over two weeks away and will be getting her BoSe shot this Friday. Her ligaments are also softening. Hillary has a little bit longer to go with a little over 4 weeks left. She is already huge though! I have a feeling she will go at least a little before her due date. Then of course there is Tina… who isn’t due until June. Between the 3 girls who are due in March we will likely get 5-6 kids. My current guess is we will get 3 does and 2-3 bucks. I hope I am right!! We will soon find out!

On Tuesday morning we put in the monitor in the barn. This monitor allows us to hear everything that is going on in there and helps us catch when the girls go into labor. It keeps us from having to constantly go out and check on them. It’s great during the day, and is helpful at night however it keeps me up most of the night since I am a really light sleeper.

Yesterday our packaging for the laundry detergent came in! Isn’t it cute! This jar is the largest size. There will also be a refill size and a sample size. It won’t be long until we are able to debut it!

February 25, 2015
Gardening: Stage 1 – Planning

Our garden is going to be quite an undertaking this year. In the past we have filled 12 raised beds with plants, but it has never been enough to last us much past fall. We would have things like green beans that we could get a year supply of, but when it came to everything else we would burn through it quite quickly. Few things made it to the freezer like planned. I would get enough tomatoes for all of my tomato sandwiches and salads throughout the summer and sauces for spaghetti and pizza for about two months. Everything else pretty much feeds us through spring and summer. That isn’t enough for me! I want to have enough canned and frozen to get us through the year. The biggest change this year, that will hopefully make this goal a reality, is the fact that we have a new quarter of an acre that will be additional garden space. Last year we added three acres of land to our farm from the property next to us. Most of that currently is or will be in the future, used for the goats, but I left a quarter acre opened for our new garden.

Taking on a new garden of this size requires a lot of planning. The ground is hard red clay that is very common to this area of Goochland. I have been worried about growing anything in it. For the last six months or more I have been dumping the soiled straw and llama manure from the daily muckings, covering the entire quarter of an acre. We plan to plow (just this once) because the ground is so not at all workable.

This is the time of year for garden planning. Ordering seeds, deciding on the number of plants that will be planted, mapping out where they will go, and figuring out planting times. I spent time with my lovely friend Toni from Bella Grove Farms in Goochland VA back in early February. She spent the better part of the day giving me advice and packing me up seeds that she had saved from previous years. Between those seeds, seeds I had leftover from the last two years, and the ones I purchased from Johnny’s Selected Seeds I’m ready! In the coming weeks things should start to come together. Now I am working on actually mapping out the garden space and planning of number of plants. I am beyond ready for Spring! It’s almost here!

February 24, 2015
Getting to Know… Elsie

If you follow us at all you know that our female goats are named after powerful women, so you may be looking at the name Elsie and trying to remember a strong woman in history who has this name… Well, you won’t find one… or you might but it wouldn’t be who this goat is named after. Elsie is technically my mother’s goat and she got her name from a powerful woman in our family… My great grandmother. A woman who played a very large role in raising my mother. Who was there for my mom through extremely hard times… The true matriarch of my family. While I never had the pleasure of meeting this wonderful woman, it seemed only fitting that we have a goat named in her honor.

Elsie has a very dramatic birth story. She was the kid involved in our traumatic kidding in 2014. Her dam is Tina and her sire is Davin of Chribrydon Farm in Lousia, VA. When we went out to check on the goats at 5am Tina was already in labor even though she had given us no warning that she was in labor at the last check. When we got to the barn Tina had already given birth to Eleanor, in a labor that seeming went smoothly, but when we checked Tina she was in the process for birthing another kid (Elsie), but the kid was in a terrible position. The optimal position for the kid to birth in is called the dive position, where both front hooves come out first followed by the nose of the goat. Elsie was coming out head first with her shoulders square (not angled as the dive position allows) and one hoof hooked under her neck. When we discovered her, her eyes were bulged and her tongue was turning blue. I thought we had already lost her and my concern turned to saving Tina. I had to “go in” to try to reposition her. When that didn’t work (she was stuck tight) I pulled her out. I passed Elsie off to Kevin and then took care of Tina. We cleaned her off, got colostrum in her and she seemed to be fine. Over the next few days she was slightly loopy, but has since totally recovered and you would never know now that she had such a traumatic birth.

Elsie is our problem child. She came into the world in a dramatic away, and she is the most hard headed of the herd. She doesn’t follow instruction and hates to be lead… not that she would go where you needed her to go without you leading her! She is a sweet girl, but just wants to do things her way.

February 23, 2015
February Snow Storm

It’s no secret that I am not a fan of the cold and snow, but even I can see the beauty around the farm after a snow storm. Everything looks so fresh and clean. A stark difference from the muddy mess we have been dealing with the last few months. This past Wednesday, the day after we received 8 inches of snow overnight, I trekked around the farm documenting some of the beautiful scenes the storms left behind.

With the storm came frigid temperatures. Friday morning it was -6 degrees! It has been a struggle to keep the house warm and get things done around the farm. At this point I am beyond ready for spring to come!

February 22, 2015
Fun Farm Facts Friday – February 20th

Today’s Fun Farm Fact is my favorite so far! Have you ever gotten a good look at a goat’s eye?

Their pupil is rectangular! This is the case with many pray animals. I have had so many people comment about how “freaky” it looks, but there is actually a reason for this. Round pupils, like the ones that humans have, allow for a panorama view of 160-210 degrees. Rectangular pupils however allow for a panorama view of 320-340 degrees! Meaning that goats can see almost all the way behind themselves without having to turn their heads. This helps protect them from predators. It is also believed that the rectangular pupils allow them to have better, more heightened night vision.

February 20, 2015
What’s Up Wednesday – February 18th
On Monday evening we got around 8 inches of snow. It was the biggest snow storm that we have gotten this winter. The farm looks beautiful. While I do enjoy one big snow, now that it has happened I am ready to move on and have spring move in. We are looking at extremely low temperatures the rest of the week, including a low of -8 Thursday night. I’ve said it a million times… I’m not built for cold.

Monday we received word that we have been accepted to the Thursday evening Powhatan Farmers Market. I am loving watching our spring and summer schedule come together. We are in for an amazing year! In the next few weeks our schedule should be finalized and I will post everything on a blog. I’m waiting an “official” confirmation from two markets.

The countdown to kidding season continues:
- Sonia – 2 weeks and 2 days until due date
- Ruth – 3 weeks and 2 days until due date
- Hillary – 5 weeks and 3 days until due date
- Tina – Due in June
February 18, 2015