OUR STORE IS NOW OPEN!
I had really been procrastinating getting everything ready and posted for my store since we weren't able to get into either of the Farmers Markets. One was full for the year and the other I didn't get any information back in time to join. Then out of the blue were were told to come to the meeting on Tuesday and we got accepted for the remainder of the year in Bemidji! We will be there every Saturday if possible and will be selling our soap, crafts, my dad's yard art, and my daughters art (plus she will draw custom portraits). If you would like to see what we will have for sale this week or if you are looking for soap or some amazing drawing or photos, please check our our links below or join us at the market!
SEVEN WINDS AOJ CITRINE KIDDED!
Seven Winds AOJ Citrine is one of our top two milking does. She received her Bronze Juju as a 2F and milked 810 lbs. She is our highest milk fat doe. She is shorter stature doe so she was bred to the overheight buck that was polled, moonspotted, and blue eyed from Sugarmoon lines to help bring down his height but hopefully get some awesome milkers. I messed up her due date and was at my son's softball game when she kidded. I hadn't even checked her thinking she wasn't even due yet! She gave us two beautiful doelings we are retaining- one is blue eyed, polled, and moonspotted like her sire, the other is polled and moonspotted. Citrine also gave us a handsome blue eyed buckling who we are retaining in place of his sire. His sire has some amazing lineage, especially on his sires side (Sugarmoon lines) and we are expecting great things out of all three of these kids.
RETAINED TWIN CREAM DOES AND BUCKSKIN BOY
BUILT ON THE ROCK STAR BERYL KIDDED! For Sale this Fall
Our last kidding of the spring was Built on the Rock Star Beryl (Twinkle). Her dam & Citrine are our best milkers but her dam is our prettiest udder by far. Her first milk test she had .1lbs of milk more then her dam as a FF. Her sire's dam is an Elite Top Ten doe. She is for sale this fall though. We were at my son's meet when she freshened. Her ligaments were not even gone when I left so I thought she should be fine to leave out as we would only be gone acouple hours. We came home to three kids - two boys and one girl. We were so excited for the girl as she was our third we needed of Brecciated Jaspers to get him his B+. Fate had other plans though. We got Twinkle into her birthing stall. One of the kids was not using their back legs so one of us took him inside to get warm and see if we could get him standing. The doeling also was wet and cold and not very active as only the one buckling was cleaned off and Twinkle was ignoring the other two. We were worried the weak boy was hurt by another goat as Twinkle isn't super high on the herd hierarchy and she freshened in the barn. She was very stressed out. She was taking super good care of one kid but still was ignoring the other two. After much work and determination we got the girl stimulated enough and the one little boy up and standing and everyone was eating on their mom. Even though Twinkle favored the one boy, the other two were still being cared for and fed so we left. The next day everything was great again so we ran to another event for my son and when we got home Twinkle had laid on or stepped on her daughter and killed her. We were so very heartbroken. We couldn't believe it. She was a first time mom and I know she was really stressed out delivering with all the other goats, but this is not a common issue. We have only ever had that happen with one other goat and she ended up doing it more then one time. Since then, Twinkle does run when she hears her two boys cry and feeds them. She prefers the one boy still as the other has had a messy bottom acouple times we had to wash off but overall she has been a good dam after the death of her daughter. It was so crazy, I literally said on the way home that I think she was going to be my favorite kid this spring and then I go to the barn to find her. Farming is not always easy for sure. Both these boys are sold as wethers pending pick up. If interested in Twinkle, she will be available this fall if we decide to sell her and you can get on her waiting list here: builtontherockfarm@yahoo.com
SOLD PENDING PICK UP
DNA TEST RESULTS FOR ROSES GIRLS
For those of you who didn't read Rose's kidding post, last fall I bred her to Brecciated Jasper. The issue was when I let him out, Spearmint also got out! He was a very skittish goat and I was home alone. Needless to say, I didn't catch him in time. She was bred by both bucks. That left me with not knowing who was who when these beautiful girls were born! We are retaining both as we found out they have two different sires! One is Brecciated Jaspers and one is Spearmints!
Brecciated Jasper's Daughter Spearmints Daughter
Thanks to Krebs Dairy Goats, Stone Ridge Dairy Goats, Fox Acres, & Fredin Acres for SD & SSD udder pictures
PREGNANCY RESULTS:
OPEN - yep, all of them are still open :( We rebred them one last time for October delivery and if they do not take this time then we will be waiting for fall when their heat is stronger. All three were the goats I got in Dec. from Kreb's farm. I think it was too stressful of a move and so late in the year and then not strong enough heats. Hopefully we will be getting some milk from these girls this winter! Will keep you updated when we send in the next pregnancy test.
GOATS FOR SALE
To find out more information on each goat please check out my sales page. If interested in reserving or purchasing one please email me at builtontherockfarm@yahoo.com
ADGA & AGS REGISTERED BREEDERS
1 & 2 Does in milk this fall $350-$500
3. Aquamarine/Spearmint Doeling $350
4. Beryllonite Buck?? To be determined $350
UNREGISTERED or PET GOATS - $25 discount per goat if getting 2 or more
Doe 1: $150 (pet only)
Doe 2: $100 (blue eyes - pet or breeder) ON SALE THIS WEEK ONLY
Goat 3: polled moonspotted blue eyed wether $150 or buck $200
BARBERPOLE WORM
Our first experience with barberpole. For those of you that do not know what barberpole worm is - it is a parasite that can be deadly in goats. When you are checking the goats FAMACHA score you are checking for anemia caused by barberpole. I think there were several factors that contributed to the issue. As you all know, we had a super nice winter! Which is great for us, but it is also great for parasites as they do not have the normal die off period. We then have had a very wet spring which also increases your animals risk of an overgrowth of parasites. We also were in the middle of transitioning feeds and the new one was not complete and they were not doing as well on it. Then add to that, some kid but we did not deworm them (we use herbals) after kidding. This is a MUST! Especially with barberpole worms. They can sense when the hormones change and they then all release their eggs after kidding overwhelming the goats system so that the parasites can survive. We had a crazy busy spring which is why there hasn't been that many blog posts too. Because of all of the above, we had my favorite goat, Rose, go down! At this point we checked everyone's FAMACHA. Acouple that had kid were alittle lighter pink, Rose was completely white. One of the new goats, Delta, was also white. We obviously dewormed everyone! We used a double dose of herbal on all goats for 4 days instead of 3. We dewormed everyone again 10 days later and then ran fecals - which were all good except Delta.
So the day Rose went down we started Rose and Delta on Red Cell, B-Complex shots, molasses and electrolyte water. Delta wasn't down but all this caused her to get loose stools. Rose was making zero improvement and she wasn't eating or drinking. Our vet said that she would be willing to try a blood transfusion - it would be a trial and error as she didn't have the setup or equipment available to do a proper transfusion. At this point though, she is going to die if we don't do anything so besides the cost involved of the transfusion, this was our only hope and i would rather be out acouple hundred dollars and have a chance to save Rose then save the money and watch Rose die. We had to find a super healthy goat (preferably one not in milk or pregnant as their body is already doing alot more with that) - so we picked Beryllonite! He is a sweet buck we were going to put up for sale because we are going to be getting two Rosasharn bucks this fall. My daughter thinks after this though he needs to stay as he is a hero. We brought Rose & Beryllonite to our shop. The vet gave the buck a small amount of a sedative and if only I would have gotten this all on video! It was the funniest thing you have ever seen! He instantly looked like he was stoned. He just rested his head on my husbands hand and started drooling everywhere. You can see after he started to wake up fully what puddle he had left!
After he was sedated the vet put a port in both goats to transport the blood back and forth. She had medicine in the tube to keep it from clotting and took 3 syringes out of Beryllonite and put into Rose. It sounds like a simple process but it was much harder then you may think to get that much blood out and then back in again! When the vet gave the buck a wake up from the sedative it was even funnier then when he got it in the first place. His eyes shot wide open and he tipped his head straight up in the air with his nose to the ceiling. We were all dying of laughter watching him go from drooling one minute to completely tweeking out. We gave him some red cell for acouple days and he is doing great - like nothing ever happened.
The vet had said that there are different types of blood for goats but they can normally accept one transfusion from another with no issues.....hopefully. And it worked! There were no issues or rejections of the blood! Her eyelids were now pinker and by the next day - when the sedative completely wore off (even though she wasn't given a seditive we believe she got enough in his blood to effect her) - she was standing and eating again!! We kept up with the red cell and b-complex for a week and are still giving the red cell once a week until she is back to normal. After about 7-10 days we let her back into the barn with her kids. She was miserable without them and they were miserable without her. We pull the kids every night though and we are not milking her at all so she doesn't have to make so much milk to hopefully give her body time to recoup. So far she is doing awesome! We are so happy we decided to get the transfusion. It saved her life.
Delta was still struggling for weeks. It has been about 6 weeks and we still could not get her loose stools to stop. We put her in her own pen, with grass only hay, loose mineral, and water. There is no reason she should have had the sever baberpole as only the goats that kid had any issues. She obviously was immune compromised so she should never be bred and pass that trait on. We had done everything from deworming, to probiotics, to multiple cud transfers, etc. Nothing we tried ever firmed up her stools. Even with the barberpole better & the red cell & all the anti-diarrhea items, she could not get rid of the loose stools, and she was still severely anemic - her lids were still white. She had been locked up for weeks alone which isn't fair for a herd animal, and made no improvement, so we finally decided to make the hard decision and let her go to greener pastures. It was a hard decision but the right one - she had been suffering alone for weeks and that is not right. Farming is a tough - and barberpole makes it that much more so.
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