The family. We are a strange little band of characters trudging through life, sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that binds us all together.

- Erma Bombeck

Sunday, April 27, 2014

Our Family is Whole Again

This weekend we brought home the goats.  It was fantastic.  We didn't have the palace set up as much as we'd like, but it is something we can continue to work on as we go.  And now we'll have help.  Goat help.

We went to our friend's house to pick up the goats in the Expedition.  Now, we have been struggling with hoof rot, hoof scald, and lice at their house.  Because we didn't have a trailer to quarantine the goats in for a few days (and hubby refused to let them stay in the car that long), we had to do our best to treat as we moved them.

To this end, we cleaned and treated their hooves as we loaded them into the car.  We treated their hooves again when we got to the house.  And we treated for lice the minute they were out of the car.  Permethrin really stinks so I didn't want it in the car.

Here is the video of the goaties unloading to their new home.


By the way, we tried a new procedure for delousing this time.  Because I usually use Eprinex Pour-On, I had to do some searching to find the correct dosage for Permethrin - what I had bought at the store, thinking that is what I always use.  I mixed Permethrin 10% at a 1:2 ratio with vegetable oil.  That brought the percentage down to 2.5%.  I saw several references to 1% and several to 5%.  I figured 2.5% was a good compromise (and an easy ratio to convert).  With a small syringe, I poured no more than 1.5cc's of the mix down the spine of each adult goat, and about .75cc's for each little one.

NOTE:  AFTER TALKING WITH THE VET, WE LEARNED THAT USING PERMETHRIN AT FULL STRENGTH IS JUST FINE FOR GOATS.


Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Show Chickens

We are now the proud owners of show chickens.  We've had them for about two weeks now and while some of the chicks are easy to tell which breed they are, others are still a mystery.  We got the chicks through Urch Hatchery - as a favor to our poultry 4-H project.  It was a great deal.  We ordered 100 chicks.  He sent us 100 chicks at $2 a piece.  He guaranteed that all chicks would be show quality birds, but that was it.  He got to choose the breeds and it was a straight run.

We shared the chicks with all of our poultry project kids and Z kept eight of his favorites.  Here are two that we can tell will be fun birds for fair.  This first one is most likely a Plymouth White Rock Frizzle.  His/her name is currently Mrs. Frizzle.

Our second favorite is a Naked Neck Red.  Her/his name is Ostrich (for obvious reasons).
Oh, it is so much fun to watch them grow into their breeds.  I love my chickens.