Catching up

I can't believe my last post was in February! I seriously need to do some catching up!

Well, lots have been going on. We purchased our first dairy goats in April! We bought a Nubian/Boar mix doe, a Nubian buckling and 2 LaMancha bucklings. Yes, I know we don't need all these bucklings. I had in mind to later sell the LaManchas, but unfortunately we have lost them both to a predator.
After 2 weeks, I started letting the goats have grazing time on the pasture. Each afternoon, I would put them back in the farmyard. Things were going well until the first goat got gone, along with several chickens. We searched for hours looking for that goat. We never found a trace of him. I was upset to say the least.....

We lost the other LaMancha, but we did find part of his body. At that point we knew we where looking at a coyote, wild dog or a cat of some sort. Brad staked out in the woods for a couple hours, but It never came back because I guess it was too full on goat and chicken!
That same day, I walked to the Mulberry tree to try to get the last remaining berries and I saw fresh chicken feathers! I knew it was the feathers of my very favorite roo Roscoe. He was a Coronation Sussex given to me by a dear friend. Roscoe would follow me around a lot hoping I would toss him a bug or kitchen scraps. I really miss him and now wish I had been more aggressive on breeding him to my best hen. :(

We were given 2 female rabbits by some friends of ours. We have been wanting to start raising rabbits as another meat source. Several weeks ago, while we were at the covered bridge having our weekly get together with friends, Hailey caught a rabbit! It ended up being very tame and was obviously somebodys "Easter" bunny. Who ever owned it probably got tired of it and let it go. Well, that rabbit ended up being a boy! Now we are in business!
We bred one of our females to him and just this Monday she had her first litter of 6! They are not kidding when they say 31 days is all it takes! She seems to be a great first time mother and hasn't eaten a single one of her babies which we've read they are prone to do if they don't have enough protein in their diet. We are very happy raising rabbits because of the easy car of them. More on this later because we are learning a lot!

Well, I just wanted to drop in and say hello and to let you know we are still here. Just very busy. We are now in the middle of summer and everything is growing fast and having babies. Yesterday, our duck hatched out her first duckling! Cute!

Today, I am "putting by" blueberry jam, blueberry syrup, pickle relish and tomatoes. Busy, busy, busy.......

Blessings,
Melissa