Monique meets her sweet destiny

It was time to get our does bred for spring babies.

Since we had opted not to have our own buck, we needed to find one we could afford somewhere nearby. Affordable meant $50, not $500 or $5000. And somewhere nearby meant, we hoped, just a few miles away.

There was also the consideration of quality. We wanted a line of goats that produced copious amounts of milk, as well as had udders that stayed put and were not prone to mastitis.

And of course we wanted nice-looking goats. Just in case we wanted to get into showing, which all the goat people were talking about. Or 4-H.

The goat-people grapevine gave us some suggestions, and we made our choice for Monique, a nice Alpine buck with the qualities we were looking for, at a decent price. And only 15 miles away.

The trick was to recognize when the doe was in heat, which would last at best a couple of days and not recur for 3 weeks or so. We had been coached to watch for heats from August on, so we could use the calendar to keep track and increase our chances of catching one.

Once the goat showed signs of being in heat - being lovey, wagging her tail a lot, discharge - we were to load her into the station wagon and drive her for her date with the Big Boy. We were warned to be sure she was in heat, because if she really wasn't, we would have to repeat the process another day, or leave her to be boarded with the buck, a much more costly proposition.

Then when we arrived at the home of her date, the owner of whom would be expecting her by prior arrangement, we were to take her out of the station wagon and walk her toward the buck.

Meanwhile he would notice her and if she was in heat (and with some optimistic bucks, even this doesn't matter), he would greet her by flapping his tongue up and down while making romantic noises through his nose that would sound something like huhn huhn huhn huhn accompanied by slap slap slap slap. At the same time he would stamp a front leg on the ground impatiently and try to break out of his handler's hands.

Or he would be in a yard made of stout boards 10 feet high and he would be banging against the boards and flapping his tongue through the cracks.

And in either case he would be peeing straight forward onto his chest hair.

Clearly he would be wanting to make the best possible romantic impression on this new girl.

Then the doe would either sidle over toward the buck and turn her back toward him, or she would run back to the station wagon.

So the day came when Monique appeared to be in heat, and we attached a rope to her collar and led her to the car. With some serious prompting and lifting, she went in through the tailgate. We put some hay in with her, and I headed off for our appointment with Farmer John and the big fellow.

An hour later, we arrived. I held my breath. It was not just in hopes that she was in heat, but also because eau de boy goat is INTENSE.

She noticed right away. She was looking straight ahead trying to get a glimpse of him.

Things looked good. Her tail was wagging and she was screaming her own little love song.

I went to the tailgate and she hopped out and dragged me toward the buck, the handsome devil! He flapped and sang and peed impossible distances. She started to run. Farmer John led the handsome brute into the yard, my sweet lady Monique ran spraying milk everywhere, and then at the last minute...

We were on our way back home in about 15 seconds. Monique had smug look all the way.

One doe bred, four to go...

Our little surprise

We closed on the property at the end of August and went away for Labor Day weekend, our last holiday because the next day we started bringing home the goats.

We had a little surprise for the children, and decided to tell them when we were all together that weekend.

The surprise was that I was pregnant.

I was elated. The whole concept of self-sufficiency, a family effort, was built in my mind around family. And since the early days of thinking about getting a farm, or perhaps even earlier, I had had dreams of more children.

Way back in my girlhood, I had wanted a big family. As a teen, I cried myself to sleep thinking how long it would be till I had my babies. I decided I wanted 14.

The reality of motherhood set in with our first, VJ. I breastfed him with great joy, but he seemed to have an insatiable appetite and a desire not to sleep and within a few weeks, I was exhausted. (Something I didn't know for another 30 years is that he would always have a voracious appetite and an inability to sleep.)

When VJ was several months old, I had shrunk in size to several pounds below my normal weight, and was jittery. It turned out to be a hyperthyroid condition that over time went away, possibly with the help of the iodine the doctor had me consume in copious amounts.

Then we joyfully had child #2. By this time I was definitely questioning the big-family idea. Margo reacted to many of my favorite foods and was uncomfortable throughout her infancy. And the thyroid problem hit again.

And 4 years after the first, we had #3. The thyroid problem hit very hard and I was miserable. It was so severe that the specialist we found in Boston declared I would never have children. When I told him I had just had my third, he did not believe me until John showed him a photo from his wallet. He put me on strong meds and I had to quit breastfeeding to use them, which broke my heart.

One of the most tender moments of my life happened right after that. I had 2 days to quit breastfeeding, so I began to wean Fritz onto a bottle, all the while mourning the change. But I did it with complete dedication, even while still feeling very sick with the thyroid condition. At the end of second day, we were done. I nursed him in the evening, but gave him a bottle for his last feeding before I went to bed. Then I crawled under the covers and laid there crying to myself with the loss of it.

And in his crib Fritz lay awake, restless, not crying but not settling down. He was 2 months old.

The hours went by and we each lay there awake. I could hear him. He never fussed, he just made baby noises. My heart was fully turned toward him and I felt that his was turned toward me.

Finally the sky began to lighten. It was probably 4:30 in the morning. I got up and went in to him. He was awake. I picked him up and carried him to the living room, sat in my rocking chair, and nursed him one last time with the last bit of my milk. He looked at me and I looked at him and we said our goodbyes. We acknowledged it would be ok.

Then I was at peace and so was he. We went to bed and slept well. We adapted. Life went on.

So now I was pregnant. Fritz was 6. It had been a while, and I was ecstatic.

The children were excited beyond words. It was a big unknown to them, and a bit abstract when we told them the baby would not be born till April or May.

From that point I felt a lot of fatigue, and some queasiness. It was obviously a good solid pregnancy, for which I was grateful. But it interfered with my ability to do as much around the farm as I wanted and had expected to do, primarily because I was so tired.

But I knew that in three months I would be feeling myself again and would be in full bloom of a happy pregnancy, feeling robust and in excellent health.

And it was true. I began to feel myself again by the middle of November.

A few weeks later, at the end of my 4th month, I miscarried a beautiful, perfect, but much too tiny baby.

It made no sense.

What goats are like, part 1. Herd animals!

The biggest surprise of our first months on our homestead was encountering the nature of goats.

Up till then, we had thought of them as cud-chewing milk-producers on 4 legs.

We had a lot to learn. Goats are incidentally good producers of delicious and nutritious milk, but their real purpose in life is to be part of the family.


That's because goats are all about being in herd. They are happy to join the little herd of people who bring them home, and expect you to know all about herd rules.

The herd's first rule is Stay Together. If the family were to bring a single goat home, then leave it in the pen while the rest of the family went into the house, then this rule is broken, and two things happen as a result:

1. The family is loudly commanded to return for their member who was left behind.
2. If that doesn't work, all effort must be put forth to leave the pen and rejoin the family.

Goats are usually successful in rejoining the herd through one of the techniques.

The second rule is Follow The Leader. Herds know who the leader is. It is perhaps the tallest goat, or the bossiest goat, or maybe the one goat that is both tall and bossy. If the family were to bring a single goat home, the goat would recognize the leader of the herd immediately. It is that tall and bossy person that all the other members of the family herd around.

So don't expect obedience to anyone else.

Monique was our herd's leader. She was oldest, the first to arrive, and she was big. Maybe goats have other criteria we don't know about. In any case, she was the boss.


That's why when we went for our walk in the woods, all we had to do was entice Monique to come along and the others would soon be following.

Herd behavior explained a lot.

But what happens when you bring home a goat who has been the Top Goat in another herd, and your herd already has one?

Well, the usual bickering of course. Calling names. Butting. Kicking sometimes. Lots of discussion. Then one goat emerges as leader, and it's almost never the new girl on the block.

Take Paula for example. Paula didn't come to us for several years, but when she did, she expected to be boss. She was big and sassy, with a mouth that just wouldn't quit. But she had a lot of competition: Monique had been there for four years, and even though she was approaching 9 years of age, the high end for a goat, she had an eye for leadership - a very goaty intense no-nonsense eye - and Paula did not prevail.

So Paula said Fine! You may be the boss of this herd, but...butt butt butt...

Now about this time one of the younger does had 3 kids. And Paula had 4 of her own, all tough little bucklings of whom she was very proud. Paula saw her opportunity. Every time one of those happy, bouncy new babies ventured near her, she spanked it.

I was sitting in the milkroom one day milking the new mom, while her babies cavorted just outside the milkroom door. Paula hustled over and reached down and gave each one a mighty smack with her muzzle, which sent it flying.

Her own boys could do no wrong in her eyes, but anyone else's baby was fair game. She was the boss of the nursery. So there.

In the wild there's safety in numbers, and only the most vulnerable get picked off. Whenever a stray dog ventured into the yard, the goats would huddle together and faced them. When goats run with sheep in a herd, it is just for this reason: the sheep allow themselves to be herded by the dog or wolf but the goats stand their ground.

And interestingly, our own children were allowed to be part of the herd, playing in the pen around the goats, but other children were not.

If we just understood how herds worked, we stayed out of trouble.

Winter sport: reading seed catalogs!

When the ground is frozen solid, then is the time to read.

1. Organic Gardening magazine
2. The whole Little House collection out loud to each other
3. Seed catalogs

10,000 kinds of beets! 1100 kinds of carrots! a dozen types of kohlrabi...

We could sit and drool and think of spring. And we did. Discussed bean varieties, decided we liked Gurney's best because the seeds were cheaper and the catalog more humorous.

We were not a TV family. This must have been the festive winter scene in houses of a decades earlier before electronic alternatives.

People still read seed catalogs today. When we visit our friends and family members we often find them in their bathrooms.

We didn't understand about local foods back then. Today I would not pick Gurney's, which is in Indiana. (Their website, http://gurneys.com/, barely mentions their location, though - maybe the current fashion of using seeds from local varieties would make advertising their midwest location treacherous. And I didn't see the good ol' silly Gurney's humor on their site, either.)

We read many catalogs, bought from Gurney's, would end up planting too much. But we didn't know that yet. It was great entertainment.

A death...

The inevitable part about animals is that they die.

We were still sorrowing for VJ's puppy Charlie, when another loss struck.

Fritz was milking, VJ was feeding. It was dark in the barn. Erica didn't come to the feed trough. VJ went to find her, and tripped over her body.

She was lying in the middle of the barn, cold, with her tongue hanging out and foam in her mouth.

We never knew why she died. It could have been a poisonous plant in the new hay a neighbor had given us. Or it could just have been the change in hay.

It mattered so we could prevent the same thing happening to another goat. There she was, one of our milkers, VJ's goat, bred for spring babies, and she was dead.

John dug another hole in the ground and buried her.

Her death made us feel more vulnerable in this undertaking of ours.

Freshening

The purpose of having dairy goats (at least in theory) is for the milk. Good goats produce milk for 10 months and then slacken off. To get them to start up again, they need to have a kid. Some great goats will go longer, but the usual rule of thumb is to freshen a doe once a year.

Like so many animals, dairy goats are on yearly cycle. A doe kid is born in the early spring, eats well for the better part of a year before winter conditions arrive, and has her own baby or babies when she is a year old, the next spring, so that the cycle can repeat itself on schedule.

The gestation period of a goat is 5 months, and at the end of that time the newborn is ready to leap up and begin life, on the move so as to avoid predators if in the wild.

On a farm, the newborn kid is not in danger of any predation except excessive petting and picture taking.

But the 5 month rule still applies. If you want babies in March, better get them started in October.

Most breeds of dairy goats are in season throughout the fall, and the kids are born throughout the spring. Some breeds aren't so particular, such as those whose origins are closer to the equator. These will breed in the fall for spring babies, but they will also breed in the spring for fall babies, or at any other time, just about.

We had only goats who were in season in the fall, and that presented a challenge if we wanted year-round milk. Does are usually milked 3 months into their pregnancy, then dried up for 2 months so all their energy can go into the babies. So that is two months when that doe will not be contributing milk to her owners.

The smart course is to breed some of the goats early, some late, in the fall season. Say some in late August with their first heat of the season, and some in November. Anything later than that is risky because the breeding season is almost over.

Freshening is all about bringing does into milk, not producing baby goats. In a sense they are throw-aways in the process, little mouths to feed that use up the precious milk.

But with good planning, they become assets, with homes waiting for them. More on kids later!

With a couple of does freshening around the end of January, and others coming into milk in April, the flow of milk can be out of bounds. Milking all those does is a bigger chore than it was in the fall, when the milk supply was running down and last year's doelings were not in milk at all.

What to do with the seasonal abundance of milk is the big issue of a goat dairy.

The wintry day, descending to its close...

The days were short. Flurries became storms. Milking was done in the dark at both ends of the day, and required boots. Water froze in the buckets and chores included carrying pails of hot water from the kitchen sink to pour onto the ice in them. The goats drank the water hot and loved it. We called it goat tea.

We shivered in the milk room. The milk began to freeze in the pail before we were done. The barn was cozy, but not warm. The goats seemed comfortable enough, but ate more, and we gave them extra hay.

When the chores were done, we headed back to the house. A bright yellow rectangle lighted the way and served as a beacon. We were happy to reach the door, hand over the bucket of milk, and feel the first waves of warmth of the kitchen and the waiting meal and cozy pajamas.

Or if this was the morning milking, the children scurried to get on their school clothes, eat their hot cereal, and bundle up again to meet the bus. It was hard going out into the wintry day again, and their thoughts were already turned to returning home.