For today’s Fun Farm Fact we are going to talk goat population statistics. There are 500 million goats in the world! A very large percentage of the world’s goat population is in developing countries. 170 million of them reside in China. 3 million, only a small fraction of the world’s population of goats, live in the United States, with Texas leading production. The largest importer of goats is the US, while the largest exporter is Australia. I’m thinking we need more goat farms in the US!
Tag: Goats
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Meet the 2015 Spring Kids
We had an amazing kidding season this past March. Three of our girls kidded a total of eight kids! Two sets of triplets and one set of twins. Four bucks and four does. Four of these kids have already been sold, although they will remain on our farm until they are weaned, one doe was retained by us, and we still have three bucks available for sale. Meet these precious kids below. If you are interested in purchasing one of our available bucks feel free to email me.
Gouda – Buck – Pure Bred Nubian – Sold to Money Pit Farms
Feta – Doe – Pure Bred Nubian – Sold to Chickenberry Farm
Buck 2 – Buck – Pure Bred Nubian – For Sale – $150
Amelia (Millie) – Doe – Pure Bred Nubian – Retained
Buck 3 – Buck – Pure Bred Nubian – For Sale – $250
Cheddar – Doe – American Nubian – Sold to Chickenberry Farm
Buck 4 – Buck – American Nubian – For Sale $150
Brie – Doe – American Nubian – Sold to Money Pit Farms
And now…. Pictures of goat kids being goat kids….
Kevin is in the middle of that goat pile:
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Fun Farm Fact Friday… April 24th
Today our fact is about goat milk!
Goat milk is naturally homogenized. The cow milk that you buy at the grocery store is homogenized by the producers to keep the milk from separating. Because goat milk has smaller fat particles it is less prone to separating. This makes it much easier on your stomach, breaking down in 20 minutes as compared to the hour it takes for the fat particles of cows milk to break down.
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What’s Up Wednesday – April 21st
We are gearing up to start our farmers market season. We’ve been making lots of soap, cleaning up and reconfiguring our display… and getting excited for a really busy market season! We have been at South of the James through the winter and will continue to be there every Saturday, but this weekend is also the start of the West End Market on Saturdays! Next week starts the Wednesday Aw Shucks market. Then the following week is the big kick off and all five of our 2015 markets will be open! We are so excited to see all of our regulars at the West End Market and bring our goat milk soap to a whole bunch of new people at all of the new markets that we will be vending at this year.
Tina, our doe who is due to kid in June, is starting to show. Normally she is quite slender but now she has a little stomach that pokes out. We didn’t ultrasound her for confirmation because if she didn’t get pregnant on the first try we weren’t going to breed her again this year. A June kidding is already going to be difficult (with the flies and everything) and I wasn’t willing to put her, or her kids, through a July kidding, so we figured that it would become obvious that she was pregnant and that would be confirmation enough for us. In the last week or so Tina has started to fill out, and considering she has never gone back into heat, we are positive at this point that she is pregnant.
The garden continues to grow at a rapid rate. We are barely keeping up and the garden doesn’t exactly look pretty at the moment, the pathways are over grown, and the weeds are catching up with us already, but beds are getting prepped and the plants are making it into the ground and are growing… so that is all that matters. I have been going out through out the day for 15 minutes increments to pull weeds, then we spend 3+ hours in the garden each afternoon. The cabbages are getting huge and the broccoli is chugging along. The potatoes are all over the place and the peas are getting quite tall. One of my big focuses recently has been working on building perennial beds throughout the garden to give the beneficial bugs a permanent home while giving us beds that will provide food year after year without us having to replant. Currently I have a bed (4×25 feet – 100 sq. ft.) half way filled with strawberry transfers from our other garden and from our friend Toni’s garden. We plan to put in a bed of artichokes in the next few weeks, and we will have many perennial flowers, like chamomile and echinacea, scattered everywhere. In the fall I hope to put in a bed of asparagus… my favorite vegetable.
Well, that’s all for this week! I hope to see all of you out at South of the James and West End Farmers Market this weekend!
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Fun Farm Fact Friday… April 17th
It’s time to get back to the goats! Today’s Fun Farm Fact is goat related!
By nature goats are not grazers. They are foragers. If given a choice they would prefer to be eating their way through bushes, brambles, and trees, instead of eating grass. When goats are strictly grazing on grasses they are also more likely to pick up parasites. Our girls are currently working their way through a half acre of blackberry brambles… and having a wonderful time doing it!
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March “Other” Pictures
Everyday we post a picture on Instagram (@TheFreckledFarm) for our 365 project, but many times (especially this month with the babies being born) we post pictures in addition to our “picture of the day.” These images don’t make it to the month’s round-up, so to avoid them getting lost in the shuffle for those who do not have Instagram, we collect the “other” pictures together once a month. Here are the other pictures from the month of March:
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What’s up Wednesday – April 1st
It’s April!! Spring is really starting to settle in and temperatures are rising slowly. The trees around the farm are starting to bloom, the garden is coming together, and we have lots of babies running around. It’s a wonderful time to live on a farm!
Last Friday Hillary finally had her babies. She was actively in labor for well over 24 hours. All day Thursday she was panting heavily, and had several very strong contractions. We sat with her from 9pm-11pm because we were sure it was going to happen any second. She was up and down, and having contractions here and there. Finally after two hours without much progression we decided it would be a good idea to get some sleep… because as we all know a watched goat never kids. We had a restless night with all of the moaning and movement coming over the monitor, but nothing changed, and when morning farm chores came along she had not progressed at all.
Kevin went to check on Hillary around 8am and she had started to push. It wasn’t long before a little doe was born and a second kid was on the way. The second kid’s kidding wasn’t as easy. He was coming out head first, legs back, and he was huge… nearly as big as our 2 week olds. She pushed for quite a while and I had to aid a little, but he finally came out. Lastly, with very little effort, Hillary had another doe. Everyone is doing well! We are officially done with kidding until June, when Tina is due. 3 Kiddings, 8 Total Babies, 4 Bucks and 4 Does
Production has ramped up around here. We’ve been working hard to prepare for our busy season starting in less than two weeks. We are of course at South of the James every Saturday still. Next weekend we have Spring Bada-Bing, which is our biggest craft show of the spring. The following weekend we have RVA Earth day… and then after that market seasons start to kick off! It won’t be long and we will be in 5 markets a week! This means lots of soap and laundry detergent needs to be made. I really love this time of year!
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Budding Spring
I decided this year that I wanted to document the first day of spring on the farm. While there isn’t a lot of “spring like” things happening yet, there are little hints that spring is on it’s way. There is new life on the farm with the baby goats, the trees are starting to bud, and the daffodils, the first flower to pop up each year, are poking through the ground throughout the farm. The start of spring brings so much excitement! I can’t wait to see what this spring has in store for the farm and gardens!
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Fun Farm Fact Friday… March 27th
This week we have one last goat kid fact to share with you: Standard goat kids, on average, weigh 6 pounds at birth. While they are tall they are also very lean. This weight can vary due to the size of the litter. In larger litters the kids will likely be smaller, and in single births it is likely that the kid will be larger.
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What’s up Wednesday – March 25th
Another week has gone by and Hillary is still pregnant (or at least she is as I am writing this post on Tuesday)! As of Monday the babies lungs were developed. We made it! She could go any day now and has really started the processes of building up to labor. Her ligaments have loosened up again, and she is quite swollen. I think she is actually waiting until I go out of town on Thursday so Kevin has to handle her kidding alone… you know to stir things up again, because thats what goats do. She is so huge and uncomfortable that I am hoping she kids sooner rather than later for her sake. Either way there will be new babies by next week’s What’s up Wednesday.
The babies from the first two kiddings are getting so big. They grow up so quickly. It’s hard to have a bad day when you get to spend time with these little cuties:
(By the way… This image is from a post documenting the first day of Spring on the farm. Check back Saturday, when that blog post goes live, to see more)