Something is Stinky At Vivian Acres

It ain't me!

  There was a new stink at Vivian Acres, and this time it was not ALL Jethro.  I mean Jethro is beginning to get nice and stinky for the girls next month but this was something new.  Poor Jethro and his hormones but that is another blog.

  I put the goats to bed as I normally do around sunset and everyone settled in for the nite including me.  I awoke at about 4am and heard some commotion coming from the boys barn.   With Jetro beginning the rutt sometimes he likes to get a little physical at nite and pushes the other boys around a little and you can hear their horns hitting the side of the barn.  This has become normal.  No one gets hurt and it is just a goat thing so I don’t pay much attention.  But this was unusually loud and kept going.  I heard one of the boys scream and I knew something was up.  I jumped up, got dressed and ran out to see what was going on.  As I approached the barn I began to get some idea.  The smell of an unwelcome visitor.  The boys were all yelling now so i hurriedly opened the door to the barn.  The goats could not have run out of there faster if the place was on fire.  The smell of skunk was powerful.  The trespasser then leisurely made his exit seemingly unaffected by the incident.  He walked out and even brushed my leg on his leisurely exit .  He was big!  The size of a small dog.  I held still as I did not want to also become a victim.  I looked down and saw that the skunk was mostly white with only a small strip of black down his back.  I then realized this was the same skunk that got my dogs about a month ago so he is a repeat offender.  He had somehow gotten under the small space under the barn door.  I am so glad the goats had been sheared and their fiber safely stored.

There were several concerns after this.  #1 What if the skunk was rabid.  He didn’t act rabid.  It was still dark and the goats were very excited and there was no way of telling if any of them had been bitten.  Hard to catch them and do an exam with a flashlight.  When the sun came up and the goats had relaxed some i did see some small marks on them but their location (on their backs) and appearance led mem to believe they were from each other’s horns.  My goats have had all their immunizations including their rabies.  A quick call to the Vet set my mind at ease.     #2 Jethro was the only one sprayed.  He has been working for a while getting his own funk going, and I was afraid the skunk smell would interfere with that.    This also would mean that we could not use deodorizer.  Well we are not planning on breeding until 1 Nov. and the skunk smell is going away on it’s own.  #3  The barn stunk like a skunk and the goats would not go in.  Well fall cleaning had not been done yet so  there was my motivation.  I spent the day friday moving all the hay from the barn.  I was lucky that when the skunk had sprayed, he only got it on the hay and no further decolorizing was needed.  #4  I fixed the bottom of the door to keep the skunk from revisiting.  I also plan to submit the skunk to the Fish and Game people for rabies testing if he returns .

Some lessons learned are you need to check the barns to check for ANY areas where unwanted animals can get in.  We were lucky.  Also “MAKE SURE ALL YOUR ANIMALS ARE UP TO DATE ON THEIR SHOTS!”  you just never know.

The offenders cousin

Well it looks that soon Jethro will regain his place as the stinkiest one at Vivian Acres.  That is a story for another blog.

Must Be Fall at Vivian Acres

Jethro Lookin Good

Fall has come to Vivian Acres again.  Beautiful fall.  Cooler temperatures, leaves changing colors, and the farm has begun some of it’s fall rituals.  There is a lot to do before old man winter sets in.  One of those is the shearing of the goats.  This is the first year that I have decided to take this extra step by doing this for my animals myself.  Anogra goats have to be sheared every 6 months.  Their hair grows an inch a month and left for longer than that, their fleeces would be a mess.  This is also necessary before another ritual can take place and that is the anual date night with the buck.  There would be so much hair it could make things more difficult for Jethro to perform his duties.  The exception to the rule is the kids that were born this past spring.  I intend to let their fleeces grow and I have a woman that will use their soft curls to line her custom made mittens.

I attended a class last spring on shearing.  Unfortunately for me all they had was sheep to shear.  The class involved a lecture in the morning followed by a demonstration and then they brought in the flock.  The idea was for us to chear as many as possible to get some experience.  This reinforced my love for goats.  The sheep were a lot bigger than my goats and certainly a lot less friendly.  There are many differences between sheep and goat anatomy also.  Sheep have more bulk than goats and their skin is a lot tighter.  The shears run smoothly down their skin.  Goats skin is a lot looser.  When shearing, you have to be careful not to get the loose folds caught in the clippers then cutting the skin.  Unfortunately there were not goats at the class, but there were a couple of master shearers that had experience with goats and we talked about it.  

Anyway, the decision was made to shear the goats the first week in October.  This is soon enough for breeding and also their fleeces will grow sufficient enough so they will have a fleece to protect them from the Vermont winter.

I knew that Jethro would be the toughest since he is my only intact buck and he would be first.

I began with placing Jethro on his butt.  If you take a goat (or a sheep) and place them on their butt with their head between your legs, they will go to sleep, kinda.    Then the shearing began.  Starting first on the chest then belly being careful to avoid the pizzle (opening for male parts).  Then the legs, sides and butt.   Before long,  Jethro’s thick fleece was all in the bag and Jethro had a new look.  A nice clean look, and I had my first goat sheared.   I have to admit I was pretty pleased with myself.

The goats are sheared now and fall is steaming along.  I have gained another skill to become more self sufficient on the farm.  There are so many things to do before winter comes to prepare the animals to help them have an easier winter. 

Clearing one of Jethro's front legs

Jethro just chillin

Time to catch up with Vivian Acres

It has been a long time since I have blogged.  There has also been so much that has happened since then at Vivian Acres it will probably take all winter to catch up.

In brief, since last May we were blessed with a successful kidding season.  We had a set of twins Elvis and Priscilla born to Gwen, Pink gave birth to Janis Joplin who is very sweet and had to be hand raised by Georgi and I (Story to follow)  Sharon our dairy goat gave birth to twins Axel and Slash.  Although they are half dairy, they have beautiful soft fleeces.  Momma gave birth to our little Ga Ga and lastly we adopted one more goat from Kirby’s Happy Hoofers a wonderful blue eyed girl named Averil.  I will go through and introduce them individually in later blogs.

Vivian Acres has also grown in another way this past summer.  I will be introducing later the Pussycat Dolls.  These are a group of 34 chickens  living on the hill which have begun earning their keep providing us with eggs.  In the spring we had housed 19 meat chickens who had no name as a group but they were only here for 6 weeks and then moved into the freezer.  There were some real lessons learned there that I will share.

We had a summer of farmers markets, sometimes 3 each week.  Man that was a lot of work.  They are beginning to wind down now and we had a good time and met a lot of great people and sold some yarn and our goat milk soap.  They were a lot of work but in most cases worth it.

Of course our regular residents of Vivian Acres have made it through another summer, mostly without incident.  With fall comes shearing (which I have been doing myself this year) and later it will be date night with Jethro (our resident buck) who has already begun making himself pretty for the girls.

I hope to be blogging regularly again as there is so much to tell.

Naked goats on the hill