Tiny But Mighty Goat Kid, Using Waste Beans as Cover Crop & Pumpkin Fest Continues

Fall kidding season began with a slightly troublesome situation, there’s cover crop beans sprouting all over the farm and pumpkin fest continues!

This first-time mom kicked off kidding season early Saturday morning with a healthy little buckling (small stature but filled out) and the one of the tiniest doelings I’ve ever seen.

Worse, she absolutely had no interest in it. When I walked up on the scene, I initially thought it was stillborn, but I picked it up and it started crying and moving. The buckling was completely cleaned off, fluffy and nursing and the doe was not at all cleaned off and not able to stand yet.

I was hoping mom was just a little confused so I kept putting the doeling closer to her, encouraging her to lick her off, but she wouldn’t.

So I went to get molasses water for mom to drink for an energy boost and a towel clean the kid off. If I remember correctly (it’s already a bit of a blur), she would kind of let her nurse when I held her up even initially, but she just wasn’t showing any interest in taking care of her.

When does fully reject a kid they sometimes violently butt it away. This felt more like a confused first-time mom situation, so I wasn’t ready to definitively make the doeling a bottle kid right away.

And of course, it’s really critical that newborn kids drink colostrum, ideally from their own mother, to populate their gut. I had some in the freezer for emergencies but it’s really old at this point and figured it was worth a shot to milk some and feed it to the doe in a bottle to make sure she got it.

Grant was busy so I first attempted on my own and to my surprise, even though this momma isn’t very friendly, she complied when I grabbed her by the horn with one hand and then milked one teat into a jar with the other. It was quite a feat but I got enough to make it worth it.

The doeling drank most of it and then I was prepared to do it again and start mixing with milk, but by this point, she got enough strength in her legs to stand and walk around and I kept holding her at the teats and she figured out how to latch and momma actually let her!

The mom still didn’t lick her and kept sniffing the buck and licking him and then sniffing the doe and ignoring her, but allowing her to nurse was a win enough in and of itself.

The goats still had access to a whole six acre field during the day and she stayed right where she had the kids most of the day and didn’t venture off to rejoin the herd or leave her kids. I brought her some pumpkins to tide her over.

Eventually once I put the herd in a smaller area with net fence, she wandered up to see them (and presumably because she was hungry). So I let her in and she ate what was left of the feed from the troughs. I went and got her kids and was thrilled to see when she butted another doe away from her tiny doeling. Some protection instincts coming out!

Meanwhile I mucked out a stall in the hog farrowing barn, which is nearby in this same field and put fresh hay, feed and pumpkins in it and with Grant’s help we brought her in there for the night. I couldn’t imagine the tiny doeling doing well if it rained a lot overnight on Saturday and they trio definitely needed some more solo bonding time.

Every time I’ve checked them, little doeling’s belly is full and I’ve seen her nurse multiple times a day. Some does do reject kids at 3-4 days old, so I wouldn’t say we’re entirely out of the woods, but at least if that happens I know she has gotten enough colostrum.

I am also gradually winning over the momma with butt and neck scratches! She’ll be one of my clingers in no time!

Meanwhile, everyone else in the herd is still holding out giving birth. I was worried we might get a lot of rain on Saturday night and yesterday, so I was perfectly fine with them waiting.

The bucks broke out and rejoined the herd on June 11, which put 150 days (the average goat gestation) at Saturday. So if a few of them got bred right away, which based on observations, there’s a few I believe did, we are at day 152 today.

We have them in the field that surrounds our new house. Eventually we plan to put up a 20 foot by 30 foot hoophouse that was at Laughing Buddha for years as a rain cover for kidding (and since we can put it near the farrowing barn, it can also be used for weaned piglets if need be).

Because the buck herd is in the acre paddock, that’s too close to the hoop house in the field with our tiny house where they kidded in January to use, plus we have a set of breeding boars in it right now, too.

So we chose the house field for easy access for me to check on them and because there’s a lot of pine tree cover and higher ground in the upper part of the field. I can currently see them out my dining room window, which is lovely.

Saturday was pretty hot, so after romping around the field all day, Heidi got IN the water trough once I moved them up to this section. Pigs do stuff like this all the time, but goats generally hate water and hate getting their feet wet. She has done this multiple times before when she’s hot though. Hey, if it works for her, we aren’t going to stop her!

And then another doe (the twin to the tiny doeling momma, actually), gave me a scare when we laid down in the fresh hay I spread like she was dead! She was acting normal all day, so I knew she was just getting really comfortable, but for a fraction of a second I thought she might be bloated and dying on me. Of course she was fine though!

Thanks to the rain last Thursday night, there’s several fields Grant had seeded with cover crop beans that are popping off. One of the things we reroute away from landfills are cull beans — flooring sweepings, split beans, etc. that get sorted into super sacks separately from the food grade beans.

We land apply it and then bean pieces act as fertilizer for the soil and the beans that are whole will sprout and serve as a legume to fixate nitrogen and create biomass. If we time it right, we can also graze the cattle on the bean sprouts (when they’re at least 4-5 inches tall). Whatever the cattle don’t eat or sprouts after we move them through is also a nice forage for deer.

And of course, we’re always watching the biological activity in every field. In one field the cattle just passed through a few days ago, I couldn’t help put stop and take photos of some cow patties with not only worm castings and dung beetle activity, but also mushrooms sprouting up right through the center. These are a type of parasol mushroom, not the cubensis, the psychologic mushrooms known to flush in cow patties!

Since these fields were burnt out row crop fields, it’s truly thrilling to see all this decomposer activity and the soil coming back to life.

We had great hauls from a few different pumpkin patches this year! Thank you to St. Paul’s School in Lakeview, Clearview Plant + Garden in Metairie and the Tent Man in Mandeville (who even delivered to the farm!).

On Wednesday, I took the first bin full from the pumpkins donated by individuals at the shop, too.

The pigs and goats have been getting their fill all week long and then yesterday, Grant dumped a bin for each chicken flock, too! Since the weather has been so warm, we have to distribute these faster than in cooler years when we can stockpile them a bit.

But if past years are any guide, the bulk of the pumpkins dropped off at the shop actually happens after Thanksgiving and December is the busiest month for moving pumpkins from the shop to the farm. So there should be weeks ahead of good pumpkin eating for the livestock!

Flock 1 is also at the edge of the section of a field where we normally rotate them, so they get to have a few days spreading out compost piles, as well, made up of coffee grounds, tea leaves and crab shell.

Just a few more of my favorite shots of the week. My favorite barn kitty, Lavender, is adjusting to us not living in the tiny house any more. She would come to our door almost every night and sometimes I’d let her in. I am contemplating driving her over to the new house and seeing if she’ll stay around this field instead, but I don’t want to confuse her!

The bumblebees are loving the goldenrod and wild asters and I’m still taking in the beautiful sunrises and sunsets I can see in the field with our new house.