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| Our herd buck, Sergeant. He is an absolute sweetheart!!! |
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| Sergeant is a black and caramel spotted Nubian buck. |
Welcome, Sergeant!
Last kids of 2010
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| Bucklings from Maggie the Nubian (12/26/10) |
First Kids of Winter 2010-11
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| Craig and Sydney check out the kids. |
One is white with waddles, just like her! The other is chocolate with stripes and looks like his dad.
No disbudding for these little fellas, as we won't be keeping them.
We'll enjoying playing with them for as long as they'll let us.
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| The two boys sniff around while their mother eats. |
They are our only other nannies expecting. Bunny, a speckled Nubian / Boer cross, should have hers soon. She is huge, so we are expecting her to have at least two kids.
We'll keep you posted. Have a great Sunday!!!
Winter Goat Management
by Patricia Parson
Georgia Boers
| What would you need if you were out in severe cold and wind for 24 hours a day? Your main concerns would be shelter, insulation from the cold and plenty of water and food.
Animals are very well adapted to handle cold weather and tolerate it better than humans. Their comfort range can be some where between 40-70 degrees. Animals exposed to cold weather require more energy to maintain their body reserves (fat) and to maintain their body temperatures. Different species, (goat, cattle, sheep etc) tolerate the cold differently. The goat's body condition, age, if the goat is pregnant or lactating, temperature, wind chill, dry or wet weather will change the magnitude and effect of the cold. |
Kids Any Day
Funny how changes in weather make for changes in the goat barn! Looks like Maxine may have waited for the warmer temps to have her kids. It's a balmy 63* this evening. Only a few nights ago, we were contending with temps in the teens. I'll post pics of the kids when they get here!
To cull or not to cull?
The big question I've had to deal with this week is whether to cull two very questionable goats I bought at the auction a few weeks ago. I bought two Nubians, a buck and a doe, and have since bought two more really good looking goats. I am seriously contemplating culling the first two.
For me, the reasons for culling include: bad udder and age.
I did a little research and found an excellent article on Onion Creek Ranch's website about culling in a meat goat herd. Most of the basic principles apply.
Hope this information makes your choice to keep or cull a little easier.
For me, the reasons for culling include: bad udder and age.
I did a little research and found an excellent article on Onion Creek Ranch's website about culling in a meat goat herd. Most of the basic principles apply.
Hope this information makes your choice to keep or cull a little easier.
First Frost of Fall 2010
We had our first frost of the season on the morning of Saturday, November 6, 2010.
Down at the Co-op
Had an early morning at Atmore Trucker's on Saturday. My dad has started using protein supplement tubs and the Co-op has the best price around.
First frost? Weather folklore explored.
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| So many tales involve sunsets. |
"Each winter, on average, your risk of frost is from November 17 through March 13.
Almost certainly, however, you will receive frost from December 5 through February 23.
You are almost guaranteed that you will not get frost from March 31 through November 1.
Your frost-free growing season is around 249 days." Dave's uses data from the National Climatic Data Center.
I remember hearing an Old Wives Tale (weather folklore) about the first frost. My Grandpa Lancaster has long believed that the first 12 days of the year indicate the weather of the months to come. He writes temps and conditions on his calendar. Many, many people say this type of predicting works. I just might have to try it this year.
With a little googling, I found this interesting list of weather lore. See how many of these you've heard before...
Red sky at night, shepherds delight. Red sky in the morning, shepherds warning.
Evening red and morning gray will set the traveler on his way; but evening gray and morning red will bring down rain upon his head.
The evening red and morning gray are sure signs of a fine day, but the evening gray and the morning red, makes the sailor shake his head.
A setting red sun means it'll be hot tomorrow.
If the sun goes pale to bed 'twill rain tomorrow, it is said.
Who doffs his coat on a winter's day will gladly put it on in May.
The sun reveals the secrets of the sky, and who dares give the source of light the lie.
Do business with men when the wind is from the westerly, for then the barometer is high.
Evening red and morning gray. Two sure signs of one fine day.
If red the sun begin his race, be sure the rain will fall apace.
If it thunders in February, it will frost in April.
When the glass falls low
stand by for a blow;
when it slowly rises high
all the light sails you may fly.
Long foretold, long last
short notice, soon past,
quick rise after low,
sure sign of stronger blow.
At sea with low and falling glass soundly sleeps a careless ass, only when it's high and rising truly rests a careful wise one.
When the wind shifts against the sun, trust it not, for back it will run.
When the wind is from the south, the rain's in its mouth. The wind in the west, suits everyone best.
When the wind is blowing in the South, it brings the food over the fish's mouth. When the wind is blowing in the West, that is when the fishing's best!
A little rain stills a great wind. When the wind is blowing in the North, no fisherman should set forth. When the wind is blowing in the East, 'tis not fit for man nor beast.
No weather is ill, if the wind be still.
High clouds indicate fine weather will prevail. Lower clouds mean rain.
When clouds are gathering thick and fast,
keep sharp lookout for sail and mast;
but if they slowly onward crawl,
out with the lines, nets, or trawl.
When clouds appear like rocks and towers, the earth's refreshed with frequent showers.
A cold May gives full barns and empty churchyards.
If on February 2, it is bright and clear, the groundhog will stay in his den, indicating that more snow and winter are to come; if it is dark or rainy the winter is over.
Go plant the bean when the moon is light,
and you will find that this is right;
plant the potatoes when the moon is dark,
and to this line you always hark,
but if you vary form this rule,
you will find you are a fool,
if you always follow this rule to the end,
you will always have money to spend.
Fishes in general, both in salt and fresh waters, are observed to sport most and bite more eagerly before rain than any other time.
Christmas in snow, Easter in mud.
Easter in snow, Christmas in mud.
Onions skins very thin,
Mild the winter coming in.
Onion skins thick and rough,
Coming winter cold and rough.
If the grass be dry at morning light,
Look for rain before the night.
When the ring around the moon is far, rain is soon;
When the ring around the moon is near, rain is far.
It is a sign of rain if the down flies off dandelions or thistles when there is no wind.
When eager bites the thirsty flea,
Clouds and rain you’ll shortly see.
Dew before midnight
Next day will be bright.
If Christmas Day on Thursday be,
A windy winter shall ye see;
Windy weather in each week
And hard tempest, strong and thick.
The summer shall be good and dry,
Corn and beast shall multiply.
When the wind is in the north-west,
There’ll be weather at its best.
A thick fog and small moon
Bring an easterly wind soon.
Thunder in spring,
The cold it will bring.
If New Year’s Eve night, wind bloweth south
It betokeneth warmth and growth;
If west, much milk and fish in the sea;
If north, much cold and storms there’ll be;
If east, the trees will bear fruit’
If north-east, flee it, man and brute.
If clouds be bright, ‘twill clear tonight;
If clouds be dark, ‘twill rain, d’ye hark?
If the cock moult before the hen
We shall have weather thick and thin.
If the hen moult before the cock
We shall have weather hard as a rock.
When fish refuse bait or fly
Storm it is that now is nigh.
If the thunder comes from the north, it will surely double in wrath;
If it comes from the south, it will open its mouth;
If it comes from the west, it will never be at rest;
If it comes from the east, it will never give us peace.
The first frost of the year will occur three months after the sound of the first cicadas.
An open anthill indicates good weather; a closed one indicates an approaching storm.
Dust rising in dry weather is a sign of an approaching change.
A dream of gardens foretells great joy.
If bees stay at home, rain will soon come;
If bees stay away, fine will be the day.
If harvest flies hum
There’s warm weather to come.
A Plan for When the Farm Outlives You
The Daily Yonder
James Fashing
Today's Farmer Tammy Shafer was widowed a year ago. Since last summer, she's learned a lot about the special problems of estates and estate planning where family farms are involved. There's an old saying about farmers: you're land rich and cash poor. You hold most of your assets in land and equipment. And that situation creates complex problems when it comes to passing on the farm to family.
Tammy Shafer will never forget June 27, 2009, the day that her husband, Roger, died in a pickup accident. The couple had no estate plan or will. Tammy agreed to share her story so that others might learn how to prepare for a similar situation. more...
James Fashing
Today's Farmer Tammy Shafer was widowed a year ago. Since last summer, she's learned a lot about the special problems of estates and estate planning where family farms are involved. There's an old saying about farmers: you're land rich and cash poor. You hold most of your assets in land and equipment. And that situation creates complex problems when it comes to passing on the farm to family.
Tammy Shafer will never forget June 27, 2009, the day that her husband, Roger, died in a pickup accident. The couple had no estate plan or will. Tammy agreed to share her story so that others might learn how to prepare for a similar situation. more...
Gardening by the Moon Calendar
The Farmers' Almanac Gardening by the Moon Calendar is determined by our age-old formula and applies generally to regions where the climate is favorable.
October 2010
19th-21st Good Days For Planting Above Ground Crops, Extra Good For Vine Crops, Where Climate Is Suitable.
22nd-23rd A Barren Period.
24th-25th Good Days For Planting Beets, Carrots, Onions, Turnips, And Other Hardy Root Crops Where Climate Is Suitable.
26th-27th Poor Days For Planting, Seeds Tend To Rot In Ground.
28th-29th Best Planting Days For Fall Potatoes, Turnips, Onions, Carrots, Beets, And Other Root Crops Where Climate Is Suitable. Also Plant Seedbeds, Flower Gardens.
30th-31st Grub Out Weeds, Briars, And Other Plant Pests.
Big, bad rooster
see more funny videos
I saw this online today and laughed so hard. Who hasn't been chased by a rooster? Last year, we bought a beautiful Australorp rooster and found him to be quite aggressive. He tried to chase Sydney over and over again. He was even brave enough to try to spur me one day. He learned that lesson the hard way. He went on "vacation" to Grandpa's house.
When I was really young, probably about four, my 90-something great-grandmother went out to feed the chickens and was spurred by her rooster. She was so afraid the rooster would attack me that she gave me a big stick and told me if any of the chickens got too close, whack 'em! Well, she didn't count on my tossing out corn to the chickens and hitting them when the came to eat. Momma said she walked in the door at our house, distraught and holding my hand tightly.
"The 'Little Thing' has killed all my chickens," she said. From that day on, I knew how to protect myself when it came to ornery roosters.
Russia Wheat Production May Drop 33%, USDA Says
By Whitney McFerron
(Updates with barley and corn forecasts in fifth paragraph.)Oct. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Russia’s wheat production may plunge by 33 percent this year after the most-severe drought in 50 years harmed crops, a U.S. Department of Agriculture unit said.
Perennial peanut provides quality pasture, hay
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| Perennial peanut blossom |
This winter, in place of our usual oats, we will be feeding our goats perennial peanut hay. Due to the spike in oat prices directly related to the Russian drought, we began search for alternative supplemental feed. We settled on perennial peanut hay and bought several bales from a friend who sells hay at the sale barn in Brewton. The goats love it and clean it up much better than they do with grass hay.
Here's some additional information on perennial hay from the U.S. Department of Agriculture...
No other perennial warm-weather legume adapted to the Gulf Coast comes close to the rhizoma perennial peanut (Arachis glabrata). It’s often called “the alfalfa of the South” because its protein and mineral content are very similar to alfalfa’s. But as a long-lived perennial in the region, A. glabrata is less costly to grow than alfalfa. Its recognized quality, persistence, and broad uses are making it a good forage crop in the lower South.
Rhizoma perennial peanut has become the premium forage for the Gulf Coast due to more than 50 years of collaborative work among several state and federal cooperators, says Mimi Williams, former forage agronomist at the USDA-ARS Subtropical Agricultural Research Station (STARS) in Brooksville, Florida, and now with USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) in Gainesville, Florida. In addition to STARS, the NRCS Brooksville Plant Materials Center and the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agriculture Sciences (IFAS) worked on this long-term effort.
Williams says that interest in A. glabrata began when a collection of accessions from South America was introduced to Florida in the 1930s. This initial work resulted in the informal release of selections Arb and Arblick in the 1960s, but both had very limited use because of slow establishment and low productivity. That changed in the 1980s, with formal release of the cultivars Florigraze and Arbrook, which produce much higher amounts of forage than the earlier releases.
Extensive research conducted by Williams and coworkers at Brooksville in the 1980s and 1990s demonstrated the nutritional value of A. glabrata to livestock and is widely responsible for its current popularity as a hay crop.
Horse, goat, and dairy producers in the region imported more than $100 million worth of hay per year before the perennial peanut became available. Adapted to upland soils of the lower Coastal Plain, it’s being used throughout much of the eastern Gulf Coast region, with an estimated 25,000 acres planted in Florida and southern Georgia. Much of it is being grown on row-crop ground that previously had very marginal returns. Now, A. glabrata’s net profit exceeds $1,000 annually per hectare, with current demand for hay exceeding production. Current sales—mainly as hay, but also as planting material and ornamentals—exceed $7 million.
“It’s a win-win situation for everyone,” says Sam Coleman, research leader at STARS. “Financially, it makes sense for hay producers to grow perennial peanut, and as long as there are cattle and horses in Florida, there’ll always be a demand,” adds Coleman.
Researchers are now seeking ways to make the perennial peanut more economical to grow for hay or forage in wetter soils or in more northern areas of the region. Traditional breeding methods aren’t practical because the plant produces very little seed, so new plant material has been sought from its native range in South America.
While at STARS in the early 2000s, Williams—working with others at ARS’s Plant Introduction Station in Griffin, Georgia—led two expeditions to Paraguay to find germplasm for expanding the range of perennial peanut. They brought back 85 accessions of wild and domesticated plants for testing. Those plants serve as the basis for the current A. glabrata research by Coleman at STARS; Andrea Maas, a plant geneticist at ARS’s Crop Genetics and Breeding Research Unit in Tifton, Georgia; and researchers from NRCS and IFAS.—By Alfredo Flores, Agricultural Research Service Information Staff.
This research is part of Pasture, Forage, Turf, and Rangeland Systems, an ARS national program (#215) described on the World Wide Web at www.nps.ars.usda.gov.
Samuel W. Coleman is at the USDA-ARS Subtropical Agricultural Research Station, 22271 Chinsegut Hill Rd., Brooksville, FL 34601; phone (352) 796-3385, fax (352) 796-2930.
"Perennial Peanut for Quality Pasturage and Hay" was published in the March 2008 issue of Agricultural Research magazine.
Rhizoma perennial peanut has become the premium forage for the Gulf Coast due to more than 50 years of collaborative work among several state and federal cooperators, says Mimi Williams, former forage agronomist at the USDA-ARS Subtropical Agricultural Research Station (STARS) in Brooksville, Florida, and now with USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) in Gainesville, Florida. In addition to STARS, the NRCS Brooksville Plant Materials Center and the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agriculture Sciences (IFAS) worked on this long-term effort.
Williams says that interest in A. glabrata began when a collection of accessions from South America was introduced to Florida in the 1930s. This initial work resulted in the informal release of selections Arb and Arblick in the 1960s, but both had very limited use because of slow establishment and low productivity. That changed in the 1980s, with formal release of the cultivars Florigraze and Arbrook, which produce much higher amounts of forage than the earlier releases.
Extensive research conducted by Williams and coworkers at Brooksville in the 1980s and 1990s demonstrated the nutritional value of A. glabrata to livestock and is widely responsible for its current popularity as a hay crop.
Horse, goat, and dairy producers in the region imported more than $100 million worth of hay per year before the perennial peanut became available. Adapted to upland soils of the lower Coastal Plain, it’s being used throughout much of the eastern Gulf Coast region, with an estimated 25,000 acres planted in Florida and southern Georgia. Much of it is being grown on row-crop ground that previously had very marginal returns. Now, A. glabrata’s net profit exceeds $1,000 annually per hectare, with current demand for hay exceeding production. Current sales—mainly as hay, but also as planting material and ornamentals—exceed $7 million.
“It’s a win-win situation for everyone,” says Sam Coleman, research leader at STARS. “Financially, it makes sense for hay producers to grow perennial peanut, and as long as there are cattle and horses in Florida, there’ll always be a demand,” adds Coleman.
Researchers are now seeking ways to make the perennial peanut more economical to grow for hay or forage in wetter soils or in more northern areas of the region. Traditional breeding methods aren’t practical because the plant produces very little seed, so new plant material has been sought from its native range in South America.
While at STARS in the early 2000s, Williams—working with others at ARS’s Plant Introduction Station in Griffin, Georgia—led two expeditions to Paraguay to find germplasm for expanding the range of perennial peanut. They brought back 85 accessions of wild and domesticated plants for testing. Those plants serve as the basis for the current A. glabrata research by Coleman at STARS; Andrea Maas, a plant geneticist at ARS’s Crop Genetics and Breeding Research Unit in Tifton, Georgia; and researchers from NRCS and IFAS.—By Alfredo Flores, Agricultural Research Service Information Staff.
This research is part of Pasture, Forage, Turf, and Rangeland Systems, an ARS national program (#215) described on the World Wide Web at www.nps.ars.usda.gov.
Samuel W. Coleman is at the USDA-ARS Subtropical Agricultural Research Station, 22271 Chinsegut Hill Rd., Brooksville, FL 34601; phone (352) 796-3385, fax (352) 796-2930.
"Perennial Peanut for Quality Pasturage and Hay" was published in the March 2008 issue of Agricultural Research magazine.
An egg or two or three or four a day?
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| Sydney, feeding chickens bread crumbs. |
Have you ever thought about how many eggs a chicken lays each day? The thought never crossed my mind until a couple of years ago.
We started our original laying flock back in 2007. My grandfather reestablished his flock at about the same time. Grandpa asked Craig to take care of his chickens for a few days while he was a little under the weather. Craig fed the chickens and gathered the eggs. My dad asked him later how many eggs he had in the basket. Craig, noticeably disappointed, said, "Only seven."
Daddy asked, "Well, how many hens are there?"
"Seven," answered Craig.
Going to the Fair!!!
Craig and I are taking Sydney to the Alabama National Fair in Montgomery next weekend. So excited because this will be our first time at a real fair. Not just the Pensacola Fair. Craig and Sydney can hardly wait for the games and rides. Me? I'm so excited to be able to attend the dairy goat show.
For more information, visit Alabama National Fair.
Also, find the fair on Facebook.
Getting ready for winter
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