After the birth and death of 'Easter,' our first baby goat of the year, We were a little apprehensive about Selene's impending kidding.
Tuesday she had a very healthy little billy goat. For now I am calling him Billy Boy.
He may be spoken for so rather than ponder for days looking for a name for him, if he goes to a new home his new family would probably want to name him them selves. If I end up keeping him, Billy Boy works for me!
I wont let him go until he is weaned at around 4 months. I will also get him wethered. (Neutered)

It has been a race in the mornings trying to get to the duck egg before the ravens get it. The ravens usually win.
This morning my husband saw the raven as usual but it was further down the yard than it normal post on top of the goat house.

I went out to feed every one and I saw why he had moved to the new location. A mink has killed our only Khaki Campbell hen and the raven was feasting on it.
I have put the carcass in the live trap and hope we get the mink before it gets more of our fowl.

Last year we trapped and killed 4 mink but not before they killed at least a dozen baby ducks and a few chickens.

A sad post script to this post. The little doe that we named Easter, didn't make it through the night.



I have two pregnant goats, Selene and Jenny. They are due at the end of April.
Imagine my absolute surprise when Jolene gave birth to this little doe this afternoon! I had no clue that she was pregnant let alone ready to give birth!

I hope to add guinea fowl to my back yard menagerie .
An acquaintance of ours has all kinds of fowl that he breeds.
We met him when we were looking for bantam chickens. We got our Old English and Japanese bantams from him.
He called by the other day to say 'Hi' and was telling us his Guinea fowl are laying eggs and he is finding them all over his yard.
Of course I zeroed in on the conversation and asked about the possibility of getting some of the eggs from him to put in my incubator.
He said he will start collecting eggs that he knows will be fresh laid and will save then for me.
He may also have a pair of Guinea fowl that he will sale to me.
My long suffering husband just shakes his head at the thought of more critters around here.

Hear are a few pictures of the Greyhound Christmas Party.

Greyhounds are amazingly social dogs. Even with this many dogs together they never growl, bark or fight with each other.

I took the fleece from last falls shearing to the mill to be be washed and picked.
I usually do it my self but it is time consuming.
As a treat to my self I thought it would be worth the cost to get it professionally washed and picked free of all the vegetation etc that inevitably gets caught in the fiber.
I had to wait a couple of month before getting it back and I think I wasted my money.

I carded a bit of it hoping the debris that was still in it would fall or be easy to pick out as it went through the carder.
No such luck. I don't know if I had too high of an expectation of how it would come back from the mill or if it is a bad job. I do know I won't be sending it away again.

I have about 13 lbs of fleece that I got back from the mill that I will have to pick through again. The goats are due to be sheared again in a couple of months so I need to get serious about working on it all and getting it ready to be carded and ready for spinning.
Now I just wish I knew how to knit!

My goats are due to have their hooves trimmed.
I decided not to make the investment on a proper pair of hoof trimmers as they are quite expensive. Instead I use a $13 pair of tin snips. They are easy to handle and look and work like a pair of scissors. They work great on the hooves.
I tip the goats over and straddle them to trim and check their feet. Except for Arnie, he gets tied to the fence. He is too large to handle with anything but respect! lol

The goats also need to be powdered for mites. The powder has to get down to the skin. The angoras are not easy to do at this time of year. Their coats are long and thick, they haven't been sheared yet and getting down to the skin is no easy task.