Megan, one of our goats, had quads last week and I can’t resist showing you photos of her cute kids.  One of them was dead and they were really tangled up inside her but the 3 that were alive are all doing well.  Soot is the boss of the 3, the biggest kid at birth and by far the heaviest already, probably taking the lion’s share of the milk. Megan developed mastitis when she was dry during the winter which means one half of her udder is out of action so the 3 of them are suckling from one side, which can get a tad competitive!

Clay and Soot

Clay is the other boy and we have only one girl which is a shame. Kate has named her Katie which is extremely original seeing that she already has a cow named Katie Lou and a calf named Katie too! Katie was the smallest and wasn’t taking that much milk to start so I’ve been giving her some by bottle. While she seems to be standing up to the boys more now, I’m still giving her 2 bottles a day, partly because I enjoy sitting down with her on my knee for a cuddle, she is gorgeous!

Katie

The 3 of them sleep in the tightest spot in their shed, there is an old cupboard there with some boards behind it and the 3 of them snuggle in there as tight as tight can be – it must be a little like being in the womb together again!

Clay

Poor Megan has really aged in the week! Giving birth to triplets and then keeping an eye on them all is hard work!  I had been letting them into the back garden so I could keep an eye on them but yesterday, the kids were skipping and gambolling all over the raised vegetable beds (which didn’t really matter as there isn’t much in them) but Megan started nibbling at all the strawberry plant leaves so they’re banished to the field now!

The 2 Ks

And I couldn’t leave out a picture of the cows – taken the other evening as we were bringing them in to be milked.

Back tomorrow with a ‘Wallpaper Wednesday’ post

I haven’t posted about the farm in ages, partly because it has just been so busy! We’ve been calving for just over 4 weeks now and the first 3 weeks was a bit mad, put it this way, our % of successful ‘first service to AI’ was good!

The calves are usually taken from their mother once they have drank the first colostrum.  I guess to non farmers this probably seems a bit cruel. The cows are dairy British Friesiens and would give too much milk for a single calf so they are milked in the parlour and most of the milk goes to Glanbia.  The young calves are bucket fed twice a day and as they get older and can nibble at hay and meal, they get milk in the mornings and water throughout the day.

The cows are out now by day but still in at night. Here’s a photo of some of them in their slatted shed.

We actually had our first caesarean section on the farm since we started farming almost 9 years ago. It was a small heifer, first time mum and her calf was huge!  The vet came out and made his diagnosis pretty quickly. As the children were at a birthday party, I stayed to watch and ended up holding her tail in the air so she wouldn’t kick the vet! They make the incision in the left side as the small intestine is on the right side, thereby preventing it falling out of the hole!! There’s an interesting but useless piece of information for you.  It was a huge bull calf.  Really interesting seeing all the layers of muscle being cut and being sewn up again and to see the uterus – incredible to see how quickly it shrinks back in size. Mother Nature really is incredible.

Mother is doing fine and Brian was expecting to have to feed the calf but when he went out to check on them, he had suckled and had a full tummy so she’s just been kept away from the other cows for a few days in case one of them knock against her stitches.

All’s well that ends well

Well, it is St. Brigid’s Day there and it is officially spring (although I did see somewhere that has now changed and it is officially spring now on 1st March). But although we may still have plenty of frosty days, the calving will be starting here within days so we’ll have lots of spring births as per usual.  The record last year was 10 calves in one day, ten might not sound a lot but for Brian, it means getting very little sleep as he waits for them to calve, checking in case there are any problems, bascially acting as midwife and offering assistance if required. This usually means hooking up the calving jack to the calf’s foot and while I am ratcheting the jack, Brian is steadying the calf and putting pressure on the rope to ensure a safe delivery.  Sometimes calves need to be turned right way up in the womb which can be difficult and if one is born scarcely breathing, one has to act fast with tickling the nose with straw, throwing a bucket of water over the calf or lifting it up over a gate and squeezing the lungs – enough detail!!??

All 3 goats have been impregnated and hopefully all are pregnant. Two years ago, the lambs and kids were all born the one week and were all very small and cute at the same time. This year the births will be spread over 2 months which will keep our 6 year old happy if she has a ready supply of cute kids to play with. We don’t have any sheep this year but may get a couple of pet lambs.

And what about inside? Well, our utility has been plastered and I’m really looking forward to getting some shelving up, new flooring, new sink unit and to get painting.  I’m thinking blues ….. but this could change!

And to keep you in a springlike mood, here’s a sneak peek at some of Greengate’s new ranges and yes, we will have them online in our store very very soon.

Greengate’s new Wendy collection

Greengate’s Owl Cushion and Spot Green range

And the gorgeously cute little Wendy flour dredger.

Well, I have seen so many ‘snow’ photos around that I just had to join in – rather late considering we’ve had snow since Saturday but if you can’t beat them, join them! Snow may be inconvenient but there are many beautiful photos out there. I’m doing an 8 week beginners photography course at the moment (missed last night’s class though due to the snow) so hopefully mine will improve!

Here’s a few of mine:

Our garden at Garrendenny

Our tractor which is almost as old as I am!

The infamous Garrendenny Lane!

I intended to have the tree in the right in the foreground in focus but didn’t think the tree in the background would be so out of focus!

It has been some time since I mentioned the farm here at Garrendenny Lane and we are just about ready to shut things down for the winter. The cows are still milking and are indoors at night. Brian is trying to keep them out for as long as possible (rain permitting) during the day as we’ll be able to keep them milking that bit longer. But they will soon be dried off (which means they stop milking) for a couple of months. The first cows will be calving in early February and the whole cycle starts all over again.

For those of you who enjoyed updates on our few sheep, there have been a few changes. Sally was sold some time ago, Bill went to the butcher and is now in the freezer (we have had the lamb chops so far and very tasty too). We were going to keep Matilda and Lucy but they kept breaking into a neighbour’s sheep or else going walkabout to try and break into them. Poor Matilda got to the stage that she would stay at the far end of our field, looking out into the neighbouring sheep so she was obviously looking for some adult company! We decided to sell them then, partly so she could have ‘sheep friends’ and partly because the children really only enjoy them as pets so we may get some pet lambs again in the spring.  Matilda will be indoors when she lambs in the spring so we will be able to go down and see her and her baby lambs.

All the chickens have been killed and we have quite a few in the freezer. I’m not sure that we will be repeating this – yes, they taste great and goodness, some are nearly as large as small turkeys. We had family for Sunday dinner yesterday and they thought it was a turkey when they saw its size.  Why won’t we do it again?  It actually takes a long time to kill, pluck, hang and then turn around a few days later and clean out a chicken.  Maybe we are slow at it but it would probably average out at 45 minutes for each one which is a long time when you are doing 5 at a time and have a lot of other work to do!  I think our next mini poultry enterprise will be hens for their eggs like we have done before.

And the goats, how could I forget the goats!  Megan has been brought to a Billy goat and seems to be in kid, we haven’t noticed her being in heat again.However, we missed Becky and Polly this time around so need to keep an eye out. Goats tend to go in heat every 3 weeks but this can vary, well, judging by our experience.