ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ......YAWN..........OH HI!

Katie, one of my older, TexMaster™ does kidded the other day. Took her 30 minutes from labor starting to having the kids cleaned up and lined up in a row. Gotta love these wonderful dams! ~Pat

I went out in pasture 1 to try to take some photos of all the new TexMaster babies and noticed a young yearling doe up on the hill in labor. She never made a sound just pushed that baby right out. I love these low maintenance goats!~Pat

What a precious little face to wake up to in the morning.

 I am not a morning person. Don't care much for conversation when I first get up. Just clear the path so I can get to the coffee maker to get it turned on. The night before this photo was taken we found this little doeling laid out on her side. Her very experienced dam was standing about 20 feet away from this darling with another doeling beside her. It was cold and rainy. Not a good combination, especially when moms attention goes to another kid. I suspect this little doeling was born first, got cleaned up but for some reason momma walked to a different spot and had the second. She became so focus on the second that the first chilled since she didn't get to nurse. We grabbed this doeling up and rushed her inside to warm her up so we could feed her some colostrum. We were successful and I tucked her into bed in her little crate and put a towel over it. I find they sleep better, which means I sleep better, when they are in a covered crate or box. Sometime that morning after Clark left for work and before I got up she had pulled her cover back and was looking at me when I walked through the living room on the way to the kitchen. She looked so precious I back pedaled and grabbed my camera to snap this shot. ~Pat

My sweet, precious Bella is so proud of her babies this year. Just look at that proud face. She looks as though she is smiling!~Pat

Brassring Secret Storm

Brassring Secret Storm or just plain "Storm" to those that knew her was a doe we bought back in 2005 out of the Mary Wells herd. Our good friend, Lisa Edinger found her for us. Her daddy is the infamous Well's Burke and her dam was one of the many "magic white" does from the Well's herd. Storm arrived in Arkansas at 6 months of age. She arrived bred, not something planned but at her overnight stop on the way here she managed to visit a really nice Myotonic buck. An unplanned event. Poor little Storm. She was so extremely Myotonic and those Arkansas does were so nasty to her that we decided she needed to just hang out in the yard, away from all the bullies. Since she was bred we promised her that if she had a little girl we would never separate them from one another. Be careful of such promises! Storm did indeed have a little doe kid along with a little buck kid. She loved those babies and doted on them all the time.

We named her doeling, Sadie Mae. Sadie loved her momma. That is baby Sadie Mae laying on her the back of Storm. Sadie always wanted to be as close as possible to her mom.

Storm and Sadie continued to stay together both eating and sleeping together as adults. They even raised their babies together. Then in 2010 Storm had twin doelings, Scarlett and Shae were the names we gave them. And still the little family unit stayed together. Sadie's kids were always kissed good-bye by her and she never looked back at them when we weaned them. She was only really bonded to her momma. 

(left to right..Scarlett, Shae and Sadie Mae).Storm never had a blue kid. Her doe kids were always a shade of red and buck kids were always black. Sadly for all of us we lost Storm during the winter of 2011. Sadie and her sisters now all stay together. She is not as close to them as she was her momma but the family ties are still there. This past year Sadie had a set of twin doelings and we kept them both. These are the first kids that Sadie hasn't kissed and waved good-bye to. So now, we have 5 red, polled does that all sleep, eat and hang out together with one another..........all living out in our yard. ~Pat

We've been having some nice sunny days lately. Makes me wish Spring would hurry up and get here. I noticed that BF's girls were laying on top of a tub napping. They looked so uncomfortable to me.~Pat

One of.........not necessarily the most, aggravating goat here at Bending Tree Ranch is one we call "BF", short for (tongue in check) "Best Friend." BF used to follow Ms Charlie around all day while we were doing chores. She helped her feed and put out hay. She could squeeze in and out of pens, jumped up in the buggy or the wagon at most stops, etc. Fortunately for ME, it was Ms Charlie that she preferred to shadow. Thus, the name "Best Friend" because she just seemed to love Ms Charlie.

BF is also very LOUD. I have thought seriously about selling her but last year she got herself bred. She was not quite a year old and I was not going to breed her but BF had other plans for herself. She had the most gorgeous kid born that year. Sadly, we lost her baby this past summer in all the extreme heat we were having. Just made us all sick. So, this past Fall I put her back with the same buck and asked her to PLEASE give us another doe kid like her last one. And, bless her heart she did just that plus, one more. 

 For a yearling doe, BF does run a tight ship. She keeps her girls close by at all times. She won't let them curl up in a doghouse with the other kids. If they do go in the doghouse she stands and screams until they come back out. I have to give her credit for her mothering skills. And, thank goodness her babies are very quiet. ~Pat

First bottle kids of 2013

When I first got into goats I thought bottle kids were such fun. Now, not so much. I still fall in love with them but I dread the responsibility. But this is part of the job when raising animals whatever the breed or species. My first two are not siblings, not orphans but victims of happenstance. One little guy started out with a great mom but he is just a dummy. He knew to go to his dam and butt around but couldn't figure out what the teat was for. I thought surely he would figure it out. I milked mom and tube fed him hoping with some colostrum in him along with some additional Thiamine maybe his brain would kick in. I tried a couple of times to help him nurse through-out the day but he would take 4 or 5 sips and back off and start crying again. Poor mom kept looking at me as though asking me to fix him. I brought him in. He loved the bottle and for the first time he was warm and full. He fell asleep standing in front of the gas heater. He finally woke up enough and sat down on an old radio we got out when we had bad storms come through earlier in the week. Later he decided it was okay to lay down.

The second kid was just born to a dummy mom. First time to kid. She had no idea what was going on and spit one out, focused on it and never looked back at the second one. Put her in a small bonding jug and she would bite, butt and try to grind him into the dirt. I held her several times a day to let him nurse. Fortunately, for him he is a fighter and he took every opportunity to snatch milk from her. He stayed full but after finding him wandering loose in the hay barn I decided enough. She had to have butted him up the panel at least 18 inches off the ground and shoved him through a hole for him to have gotten out of the pen. He loves being inside and gulping down a bottle without having to chase after it. 

It's triplets for Bridgette!!

Bridgette, is what I call the "perfect" commercial goat. Her great grandmother was my LaMancha doe, Blondie. Blondie was bred to a Boer buck. The doe kid from this breeding was bred to a heavily muscled Myotonic buck. That breeding produced Bridgette's dam. Her dam was then bred to a heavily muscled Myotonic buck and Bridgette was born. This year Bridgette  was bred to a TexMaster™ buck and she gave us triplets.........a buck and doe with gopher ears like their mother and an eared doeling. I  have the hardest time keeping any doelings from these breedings...........from Blondie's kids and all of her daughters. When buyers see these meaty, fast growing kids they snatch up whatever doelings I will let go of. I turned down so many buyers wanting Bridgette and still do. Everyone wants her when they see her. And they always want her gopher eared daughters. This time I plan to keep the newest "Blondie" for myself. Sorry.........folks!~Pat

Our lovely roosters and some of our hens. We enjoy our chickens so much. The fresh eggs are so much better than those bland, anemic yolked things you buy in the grocery store. 

Our chickens free range. They have almost completely wiped out our tick population and it was horrible. They break up into 3 different groups at night when they roost. One group goes to the chicken house, another group roosts behind the barn and the third group roosts on the big bird cage on the porch. ~Pat

It was a warm, sunny January day and Nuisance and Nunsy, TexMaster™ yearling sisters were having a blast running, bucking and playing "king of the hill." They would run to the top of the woodpile, jump down and gallop over to the top of the bathtub and circle back to the woodpile. At one point Alice in Wonderland, a Myotonic doe strolled by. Nunsy made it clear that Alice was not invited to play with them.~Pat

Susie is one of our Anatolian Shepherds who guards our goats. She is the daughter of our very first Anatolian, Samsun. He was a fabulous guardian, who is greatly missed. Susie is very serious about her job. She mourns whenever there is a loss and is excited when the new babies come along. And on rare occasions she will put up with us doing silly things to her.~Pat

The past couple of days have been heavenly. Lots of sunshine, temperatures in the upper 50's. The babies are loving snoozing in the sunlight. Sunny days makes both the animals and the humans very happy~Pat