Thursday, January 28, 2010

Getting Ready for Snow?

The weather forecast is calling for snow tomorrow. Hard to believe since it was 60 today! They are also calling for extremely cold weather for the next few days so not wanting to take any chances I went ahead and prepared for the worst. Buckets in all the pastures were rinsed and filled to the top with water. Lots of hay was stuffed into the feeders and round bales put out for the big critters. Stalls cleaned and fresh shavings for those that may have to stay up.
After finishing up the every day chores I decided to spend some time working with the dairy goats. Only one tried to kill me. She was dam raised and is just plain nutty. To be quit honest I don't know why she is still here! Everyone needed their feet trimmed. I checked all eyes, everyone looked good and pink, meaning no heavy parasite loads at this time. I still gave each girl a dose of "tonic". It is a recipe that a fellow sheep breeder came up with. It contains molasses, red cell, vinegar and garlic. Smells pretty yucky and the girls aren't fond of it, but they got anyway. It has lots of vitamins and minerals and the garlic is a good anti-parasitic. I intend to dose each one about once a week through the spring and summer months in hopes that it will help keep the worm load down. We shall see. The nigerian does look like that may explode at any second so I chose not to trim their feet. Best to do that after delivery I decided. They are so huge they probably couldn't have hopped on the milking stand anyway! All in all a good days work.
I milked the cow a bit early today and was about a quart short but still have an abundance and plan to make cheese and yougurt this weekend. I hope to get a lot of soapmaking done as well. Plenty of inside things to do so, let it snow!

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