Our first born.

Calamity had quite the eventful Sunday. We were expecting her to give birth about three to four days from today. However, when we woke this morning, we could hear Calamity's consistent yelping from our bedroom. It sounded like she had reverted back to her old yelling habits. We knew she was due anytime now and we figured the sounds were because of her discomfort. We went about our day, just as we normally would. Jake went off to do chores, I went to church to help with Sunday school, and impeccable timing goes to our good friend Corey Baron who decided to come visit for a few days during her spring break. We all would've predicted today would be just a simple day- we were even hoping to plan a hike with this beautiful weather.

Jake was working at a neighbor's, while Corey and I had brunch at home. We decided to go for a short walk to enjoy the weather, but before we did, we passed by the goats and something seemed a little off with Calamity. Sparing the brutal details, there was evidence coming from Calamity's body that made it very clear she was ready to give birth. I gave Jake a call, he said not to worry, even if she was early, it would take a couple hours. Corey and I went for a walk, chatted with the neighbors and when we got back, Calamity's "evidence" turned into much more. She had a large bubble just waiting to emerge from her. Again, I called Jake, he assured us he would be home in time. Meanwhile, Corey and I grabbed a seat and waited just in case Calamity would surprise us. As we watched carefully, we could see a little white ear in the middle of her bubble and we could hear her pushing, trying to let this little creature free. Jake finally got home and with some coaxing he was able to help her get her firstborn out. Sadly, we could tell right away that this baby didn't make it. For a little bit, we all were bummed out, hypothesizing what could have gone wrong, why Calamity lost a firstborn kid for the second season in a row. Last season, Calamity only gave birth to one kid and it too did not make it alive.

Surprisingly, we noticed that she pushed again and another ear was popping out of her. Calamity was so out of energy that we could not get her to push long enough to give birth to a second kid. The time between giving birth to her firstborn and the second became a concern and Jake had to intervene to help this little one if it had a chance. I had to hold Calamity still while Jake manually pulled a baby goat out of Calamity. Almost immediately, Corey and I thought that the this second one was dead too, but thankfully Jake had more hope (and experience) and got it dry and breathing within minutes. We were so excited that right away we started snapping pictures, I told Corey that she could name it and we were just all so relieved that the first time watching a goat give birth wasn't all for naught. While we were in the midst of all the excitement, Calamity gave one more push that I thought was afterbirth, and suddenly another kid came out! We had no idea that Calamity could be pregnant with three babies, and the third one came out alive as well!

Safe to say, Calamity did a great job being a mama, and although we lost 1 out of 3, it was quite the success! Today was such a learning experience, with so many unpredictable things that come our way. We had all the ups and downs of farming and the natural life cycle of animal husbandry all wrapped up in a couple of hours. Stay tuned to keep up with all our first time farming adventures.

Old friends and a new enterprise

This year, we added some new permanent family members to our farm. I work for a farm called Lamborn Mountain Farmstead, run by  James and Carol Schott. James had a career a large scale goat dairyman for many years, then retired with his wife to Paonia in 2008. While I was still interning, I would go up to the Schott's farm to irrigate and milk the goats early in the morning and take care of their 35 acres when they would go out of town. After my first year, James underwent shoulder surgery, which resulted in me milking and irrigating every day. Nearing the end of the season,James and Carol approached me about taking over their small goat herd enterprise. By then, I had stopped interning, and Sharon and I had purchased the farm already. The decision seemed like an easy one, and after a couple of meetings, we scheduled the move for February, 2016. As for the logistics of the transfer of ownership, we decided that I would purchase all the equipment (stanchion, pails, totes, supplies) and the goats would be traded for milk over the years.

In February, after building a barn, milking parlor and transforming our basement into a washroom and kitchen, we welcomed our herd of five does  and two bucks- Bert and Buck that we keep for breeding. They are quite the addition to our farm, and we are excited to see what they have in store for us this season.

Meet the Herd:

Gwen- an Alpine, the oldest, but the spunkiest. She is twelve years old, cunning and sneaky, but the most consistent milker. Age has had no effect on her energy, nor her plans for escape, so she definitely keeps things interesting.

Daisy- a five year old Saanen. She is the biggest goat in our herd and was the only goat that was not bottle fed as a kid. She can be flighty at times, but produces the most milk. She is my favorite to milk and will usually nibble at my hat or beanie if she's done eating.

Calamity- enough said, her name is pretty self explanatory. To say that she was vocal as a kid is quite an understatement, and she was a terror to train on the stanchion. Although, now that she has grown into maturity, her name-sake is almost ironic. She is a two year old Nubian, one of our sweetest, and will hopefully ramp up production this year.

Gertie and Duchess- they are the youngest, both yearlings. Gertie, the most curious and friendliest, is Gwen's kid and Duchess, who appears to follow slightly after her mother, Daisy's. This will be their first year of stanchion training and milking.

I've known these goats for some time, but all the decision making will be new to me. It's a pretty big step for us, especially since we haven't had any breeding livestock until now, but like I said, we're pretty excited.