Heritage Hill Homestead

Goats, goats, more goats

We have had a busy week around our little homestead with several new goat kids!  Wednesday, Cupcake had twins, 1 buck and 1 doe. Then Thursday morning Pumpkin finally had a single doeling.  I had her due date as the 8th, so according to that she was a whole week late??  As soon as we had her settled in, Brook went into labor too.  She delivered a little buckling, we came in the house to eat lunch, went back out to check and she had delivered another little buck.  These two that had twins are yearlings which many times have singles their first time.  Because of this, their babies are smaller  than most we have had this year weighing 5-6 pounds.  I was anxious about Brook's because she was bred to the same buck that had been producing some pretty big babies, but she delivered without any problems.  Thank you Lord!!

Then this morning, DH left to take the pigs to the sale barn and before he was 1/2 mile down the road I found Honey with twins.  Now she was another one I thought was due a week ago, so I was relieved for her to finally kid.  The surprise was that though she is a light brown 1/2 Nubian doe........she had the prettiest little paint doeling!!  We are thrilled with her color. I couldn't wait for DH to get home to see her.

Still have 2 does looking pretty close, but we are getting close to another break in kidding. After them there are still 2 yearling does that I don't have a due date for and then 3-4 stragglers that are quite a ways off yet. 

Now, I am excited to tell you about loading these pigs for the sale!  I know, little things make me happy.............Anyway, DH backed the trailer up to their pen last evening and opened the door.  He threw some feed in the trailer and they jumped immediately in, I shut the door........job done, just like that!  Now, that may not sound like much of interest to you, unless you have been involved in a bad pig loading experience.  We have.  The last pigs we raised were quite a different story. They had an appointment with the butcher, well after working an entire day, and calling a friend to come and help, we finally got one of the two loaded!  Had to take the second one when we picked up the meat of the first one.  It wasn't easy to load the second one either let me tell you!  They tasted that much better though.  So, compared to 2 days, the 10 minutes this time is quite impressive don't you think?

We got the 3 little pigs last winter to till up some new garden space, they have done a fine job. We really didn't have any other place to move them now that it is time for gardening, so we decided to go ahead and sell them and buy some that are ready to process instead of finishing these out ourselves.

DH was able to purchase a goat wether today to have processed......yeah, we will finally have goat meat.  I am going to be very careful not to let myself get attatched to him in the few days he will be here, wish me luck.

This afternoon we went to Sutherlands to pick up some fencing supplies since they were having one of their 15% off sales today.  We ate in town before coming home.  After finishing chores about dark, I sure was thankful I didn't have to come in and fix something to eat.

Happy Irish Day to all.

God's blessings on you, yours and the work of your hands.

Marilyn~at Heritage Hill Homestead