What’s new on the Homestead

As we stated in our last newsletter there will be no podcast this week. That doesn’t mean there aren’t any shenanigans happening on our Homestead. So let’s get you up to speed.

It’s a wonderful time of year on our homestead. We are in kidding season. What does Kidding season mean? That means our goats are delivering kids, or babies as some may call them. That means we are in milk season. There’s nothing more wonderful than to opening your refrigerator door and see milk that has been produced from your Homestead.

I must say it has been quite the journey to get to this magical spot on our Homestead. First, we started this journey a year and a half ago. We purchased two goats from some friends local to our area. They wanted to get out of keeping Nigerian dwarfs and mini Lamancha’s. So we purchased one mini Lamancha and a Nigerian dwarf. However, because their animal practices are different from ours, there was no way to be sure that they were pregnant. As it turned out, they were not.

We waited about another six months until we could get them pregnant by a buck of our choosing to keep the type of goat lines we wanted for our herd. We thought both of them would be pregnant, however they were not. Only one was pregnant. Fast-forward to last year, 2023, and that particular doe indeed kidded two bucklings. We were ecstatic!

Buttercup, is the name of the goat who kidded the two bucklings. She is one of the sweetest goats I’ve ever dealt with. All of the stubbornness and attitudes that people attribute to goats, well she is the complete opposite of that. She is sweet, easy to be around and is not mean, or stubborn.

When she kidded both of her bucklings little did we know that she had already developed mastitis. This was devastating. Since we were new goat owners we didn’t think to wash her utters prior to her kidding. Sadly, as if things couldn’t get worse, one of the bucklings died. We don’t know why he died and it was very, very tragic. However, things took a turn for the better on our Homestead, and this is the point of todays newsletter;