Rough day for the baby goats.

Some days are better than others for animals on a farm. Poor baby goats were disbudded the other day. It wasn't fun or pretty but a necessary evil. I'm so glad my friend knows how to do this...it's going to be a couple years before I will be ready to do it myself. I'm going to have baby goat crying nightmares for awhile I think.

Most goats have horns. Which can be dangerous to kids, other goats or themselves because they can get their heads stuck and kill themselves. So, many goat owners have their baby goats disbudded so the horns won't grow in. If you do it young you can use heat to burn the horn buds. It is very hot and cauterizes at the same time.

Yeah it's not for the faint of heart. I saw our large animal vet do 3 calves a couple months ago. At least we could love and cuddle these babies between burns...you do a total of 4 burns, 2 on each horn bud.

Two days later...the baby goats are healing up well after their disbudding. They don't seem to hold their rough day against us.

Xan, Hayden, Lily and Jericho were pretty disturbed by the burns....they didn't come with for the procedure so this was the first they saw of what happened to the baby goats heads.

Little Man gave a gentle kiss to Heidi's hurt head. OK so Heidi is killing me, if the gal that sold us the Momma goats changes her mind on buying her I think she is going to end up staying here. This means I have to sell Dolly instead, the white and black one, or keep all 3 and swear I won't keep any next year. Hmmm.

Burned heads or no...they are always in the mood to play.

And eat...the babies are sampling everything these days.

Dolly is not going down without a fight LOL.

One of my blue olive eggers keeps going in to the goat pen....the babies are very curious about this little chicken. I have even found and egg layed under their hay holder LOL.

Let's play mom.

Or let me eat your ear.

Snack time.

Back to playing with Jericho.

Let the chicken math continue.

Spring has been teasing us...we have had some gorgeous days. It makes "farming" so much more pleasant LOL.

My farm help insists on certain perks to perform their farm duties. One is riding in style. Yes, against my better judgement, the kids ride around like this. Our quad needs to go back to the shop, thankfully this little truck is perfect in its place.

After a not so hard hour of work...he relaxes with his pooch.

It seems chicken math has a natural progression...for me the next logical step is trying my hand at hatching some of our own baby chicks. I have been doing some research, and unfortunately the process is not quite as simple as popping some eggs in the machine and waiting 21 days. I had to set it up to get it running so I can see where my temp and humidity are at. My temp is great, steady 100 degrees. My humidity has not been as easy, I guess the first 18 days it needs to be at 35-40%...then 60-70% for the last 3 days. I can't get mine under 50% right now, so I need to play with it more before I can put the eggs in.

These were the eggs I was planning to hatch, but I already made the mistake of washing them...which I guess is a no-no, so we will just have to eat them instead LOL. We are now getting 6-11 eggs a day, won't take long to get more. Hopefully I will get to set some eggs soon!

Three for three!

We got the call yesterday that Lily would be Student Of The Month this month. Three for three! When they called her name the parents seated behind us started giggling about how gigantic her smile was. She has been telling us how honest she has been at school in hopes of being recognized this month...honesty was the attribute....LOL. Way to go Lily Bug.

That smile was beaming...when your siblings have already been Student Of The Month and you are the last girl standing it is a very big deal!

Mom, Dad, little bro and Grandma came to celebrate.

It has been so beautiful out the last few days...we got the goats new area finished up while Jericho spent some time playing with the babies.

It is sure going to be hard to say goodbye to that little Heidi, what a sweetheart.

So this is where the girls will be, when they are not in the mobile pen moving around the property eating blackberry leaves. It is kind of hard to see, but the area is pretty big, about 67 feet by 64 feet, and their new shelter in 10 1/2 feet by 5 1/2 feet.

Pretty bare in here right now, but once all this stuff starts blooming the goats should be loving it.

They butt up to the chicken pen.

Some natural obstacles.

Got their minerals, baking soda, goat chow and orchard grass in their shelter.

Should be nice and roomy for 4 goats....maybe a couple more next year wink wink.

We got a few little "toys" added for goat fun...more will come, gotta keep em from getting bored.

We did a little trailer loading work with her royal bitchiness today too. We were able to load and unload Ava in her new trailer twice today, only took an hour....and half a dozen short lunging sessions. She is so damn stubborn, bought her a huge trailer because she hated loading into the small one I was borrowing from a friend....I was hoping for a little more appreciation LOL. We will keep at it. At least she stayed nice and calm the whole time...with her best bud Jason. Jason is now a horse owner LOL....I need to find a horse that likes ME. 

Having a rather useless heart to heart...does she look like she is ready to cooperate? Nope.

She would get so close then change her mind.

Well guess you better run some more. Horses are pretty lazy, usually they will put it together that if they do what they are asked they get to be still...if not you make them exercise LOL. Not even for a treat.

Run Ava, run!

Finally.

Making good on their chore deals.

Wheelbarrows are hard to drive LOL.

Beautiful view today.

Almost sun down, Xan and Hayden spent the last of the day playing out in the pasture.

I'm ready for summer...warm clear nights, can't wait. Too bad rain is back in the forecast. Ugh.