Sparkles had her Babies!

Today around 8 Sparkles lost her ligs. I went inside and we watched her from the camera for about an hour until we noticed she was nesting and yelling.  We figured we would go outside and watch her or a little bit.  It seemed like she still had time before she kidded..  Well I got outside first, walked into her stall, to find that she was already in full force labor pushing out a kid!

We helped clean the kid off, and put it in front of her.  She gave birth to 3 more kids all in the span of 20 minutes.  All the kids turned out to be girls. 

The white girl came first and she will most likely be retained since she was the first kid ever.  All the kids have some white on them, but she has the most.  The other three girls all look like their dad, Mocha. 

All the girls are doing well.  They're nursing fine, walking around, and starting to play.  Sparkles has been a good mom to them.  She's letting them nurse and cleans them. 

This pretty much marks the beginning of kidding season for us, so ready or not here we go!

Let's see some more kids!

Miss Cloudy and Her Kids Star and Storm

Last Friday we made the long trek back up to MA  to pick up miss Cloudy and her kids.  We had reserved her and her kids before she kidded, but we didn't take her home with Uproar because she was so close to kidding when we came.

She's a good mom for putting up with their shenanigans!

 

Above is God's Love Cloudy.  She scored a 90(VVEE) on her L/A and has already earned a milking star.

Next is her daughter Phoenix Rising Star.  She is a super cute tri color doe!

Cloudy's handsome son!

Poor Cloudy get climbed on again!

And, lastly there's Pheonix Rising Storm.  Storm is super active and outgoing!  He's always climbing on his mom and already likes trying to climb on Karamel Blue. She kind of just puts up with him. 

So far we're really impressed with all of them.  They're fitting in well, starting to trust us, and the kids are already starting to let us pet them.  Lucky for them Sparkles will be kidding in a few days and they will have some other kids to play with!

Back with updates

So, I feel bad, because lately I haven't been on here to blog.  But, I do have some good excuses!  My family came to visit the farm all the way from Panama City, Panama.  My two nephews came along with my cousin and her husband. They had a very nice stay here despite the fact that the visit was kind of last minute!

The boys got to ride The Pony and loved it! My oldest nephew even asked the day after he first went riding if he could go again!  I was shocked to say the least at how much fun the boys had and how much of an impression Mantuak left on them.  They were running around saying that Mantuak was "their" pony! We took them to see Baltimore and they did a lot of shopping.

My nephews and cousin at the Cheescake Factory in Baltimore

The view from the National Aquarium

In other news we also added to the herd and got our LGDs!  So I will be going back through the blog and adding in some introductions for everybody.  We are also currently 3 days away from Sparkle's kidding date!

We also recently put in an order for some bees and will be getting a hive.  So this spring we will be dabbling in beekeeping!

Our LGD intro!

Here for your viewing pleasure is Lizzie and Mer!

 Lizzie and Mer are Sarplaninacs, a breed of dog that comes from Bosnia Hersegovina and Macedonia.  The breed is still fairly uncommon in the US.  There are currently only 300 in the country.  Lizzie and Mer are granddaughters of the first blonde Sar to be imported to the US and their father was a direct import from Macedonia. Both girls are very friendly and were happy to get here after spending hours on a plane to get here. They came to us all the way from Nevada.

So far the girls are fitting in well and hopefully we can mold them to be good guardians. 

And the Craziness Continues..

Things are quickly getting crazier and crazier here at Strike's Retreat. 

• Sparkle's is on day 119 of her pregnancy.  Only 31 days to go!
• Tomorrow we're expected to get 3-4 inches of snow.
• Our Sarplaninac puppies will be arriving Saturday night.
• We have another upcoming trip to MA in the works to pick up our newest addition and her two kids.
• We've been scheduling to have all the goats linear appraised this summer.
• We're starting to research bees to decide whether we will start a hive this spring. 
• And lastly we're finishing gathering all our kidding supplies.

I took some time to take photos of all the does today.  The temps were almost in the 50's so all the does seemed content to be out grazing. 

It wouldn't be a good photo lineup without a picture of Miss Nunya. Right?

Things are never quiet and easy on a farm, but we wouldn't trade it for anything!

Kidding Haircuts

Yesterday I noticed that Dolce had started to develop a small udder.  I decided that afternoon, that the next day I would just clean up and clip the does that are due first.  So this morning I clipped Dolce, Sparkles, and Smarty.

 It's kind of hard to see it in this picture but compared to the picture below, you may be able to see the slight change..

 Dolce's mother pants was a nightmare to clip, but I got it done and over with.

Sparkle's was the best to clip.  She never even batted an eye at me putting the clippers on her, which surprised me.  I doubt that goat has ever been clipped in her whole life, and even my goats that have been clipped before lose their minds the first time I put the clippers on them!  Her udder is slowly starting to fill.  We're 34 days away from her kidding date.

Despite what some of the 3 may have thought of the experience it will help them come kidding time.  It'll ensure everything is hygienic, or I guess as hygienic as giving birth in a barn can be.

More pictures of Smarty and Sparkles

With their kidding dates less than 40 days away I took some more pictures of the two farthest along does.

All the other does in the stalls kept bothering me, so I didn't get very many good pictures, but these are enough.