Farm Fresh Blog

We built a new goat pen on the farm and Briar found herself doing night shift with new roommates. At first the babies were frightened of her. Now they are getting used to the dog and although they are still uneasy with her, they call to her when she leaves in the morning.

Eventually their area will be expanded and Briar will be with them full-time, but for now she is with them at night and patrols the pasture around their pen in the morning when I get up.

 End of Night Shift

 Feather

 Sparrow wants my morning caffeine!

 They will leave their breakfast if I do not sit on a bucket beside them while they eat.

 Then a tall drink of water

 Then they jockey for my attention.

 After breakfast, much to their disappointment, Briar and I leave to continue our day.

 Briar wanders off but turns back to say,

 "Bye Kiddos!"

For all the folks who have asked, Feather & Sparrow came from G-Bar Acres Nubians in Weatherford, TX.  Sharon Galbreath really has some nice livestock and I can HIGHLY recommend her as a breeder of quality stock for both the show ring and the family farm.

After several years of milking goats, I decided to get serious about dairy goats and began shifting my focus to raising registered Nubians. I did lots of research and found some really nice breeders that were consistently producing the kind of goats I wanted. I purchased some doelings, and sent deposits down on more doelings and a buckling. And since I've already spent, and committed, a great deal of money into this foundation herd, it was necessary to do baseline tests on the grade Nubians that I already had. I wasn't too worried, but the neighbor's sale barn goat did scale a fence and breed Crimson so I thought it was wise to do a baseline test for CAE.

To my utter shock, Clover and her wether son, Dash, tested positive for the disease.

Since it is transmitted through the mother's milk, Dash clearly got it from Clover, but where did she get it? After a stunned afternoon of phone calls to Texas A&M and my breeder, I made the painful decision to place ALL my grade Nubians in pet homes.

You can research CAE until you're blue in the face. Some breeders euthanize positive goats immediately. Some simply remove them from the rest of the herd, continue to breed them, but pull the babies at birth to prevent the baby goats from nursing. They then bottle raise the babies and safely keep the genes of the mother.

There is a tremendous amount of research, and even more anecdotal stories regarding CAE. It is said that 90% of the goats that test positive for the antibodies, never develop the disease.  Some argue that pulling these goats out of the gene pool, actually reduces the number of goats that are resistent to the disease. These people tend to have more time and space to juggle positive and negative animals than I do. Still others consider a positive test result so serious that they will cull the animal immediately.

I found myself in the difficult position of possibly giving the disease to $3000 worth of innocent babies because I was too attached to goats I had already decided I wasn't breeding anymore anyway. So after some quick scrambling, I placed them in pet homes. Although negative, I didn't want to take the chance that Crimson would test positive in the future, so Crimson and her babies went to a darling young lady who already had goats and wasn't concerned if she did later test positive.

(Yes, that goat is riding loose in the truck!)

Clover and her babies were originally destined for another pet home, but at the last minute, Daughter contacted us and said their family wanted them. Since they already have a farm, this was perfect. The very understanding pet home agreed to give the goats to our grandbabies and just asked that we send her pictures of the kids with the goats. (Thank you, Ginger!)

It was painful, and it was tearful, but all my goats have gone into really good homes, and I could not ask for more than that.

Monday night we returned from North Texas with the first two of our registered babies: 

Feather & Sparrow

They are already under the watchful eye of Briar.

Yes! We have confirmation! Lazy Dog Training Program confirmed!  We explored this earlier in A Whole New Level Of Lazy , but now we have positive confirmation. Yesterday Lily was outside putzing around and didn't hear the coffee pot alarm go off, but Cowboy happily barked from his crate in the living room to announce,

"Hey! Your coffee is ready!"

I'm still fascinated by this chain of events. This dog has never been reinforced for this behavior, and the only reinforcement he sees is Lily receiving a verbal 'thank you.' Yet, this little Border Collie has decided to give me a few barks when the coffee pot alarm goes off. Today he simply barked a couple of short barks and then resumed napping in his kennel. He didn't use the coffee alarm as an excuse for self-gratifying barking.

I think this is just another example of genetics at work. These dogs have been bred for generations to be helpers on the farm and I note that Lily and Cowboy (Trace, not so much) try to anticipate our needs and assign themselves the role of helper.

Need a reminder your coffee is ready? Have a Border Collie or two (or three) on hand, and you'll never miss that alarm again!

If you ever need an assistant, or a Girl Friday, or just a reliable farm employee, a Border Collie is definitely a good route to take. Unlike teenagers they don't spend the day with their noses crammed into their phones. They don't drink alcohol, so no coming to work drunk, or missing work from hangovers. And since they're neutered there is no distracting girlfriend/boyfriend drama. They don't care who was voted off 'Dancing With The Stars' last night and so their productivity is not likely to decline as a result of phone time with their friends while at work.

So if you get right down to it, if they had thumbs, Border Collies would make the perfect employee for your small business. It's something to consider in this economy, folks . . . 

Just sayin'. . .  

     We always seem to make an adventure out of everything we do and buying cattle is no exception. The big Livestock Show & Rodeo started this week. For us this involves looking at a lot of cattle, and that's what we were doing yesterday. We have slowly started adding Santa Gertrudis heifers to our herd. Bred to Angus bulls, these produce fast growing babies that give us little or no problems in this climate.

     Despite the fact that we were planning to attend the 7 pm Santa Gertrudis sale, we sit down in the bleachers for the 2 pm Braford sale - just cuz. Cuz we have time to kill. And our feet are tired. At a show this size, finding a place to rest tired feet is an issue, so Other Half urges me to go to the cattle sales arena and plop down. I cannot be held blameless since I agree to this. My feet are tired and my experience has been that the upscale cattle sales work very much like Las Vegas casinos. They WANT you to stay. They WANT you happy. They will provide free food and drink to keep you there. So although this area has limited access to the 'regular'public, people with 'real' cowboy hats and real cow shit on their boots are welcome.

     So we sink into the bleachers and relax for a moment. And then Other Half looks around. I have known him long enough to recognize that look. Before he even utters the words, I know what he is going to say.

"Since we're here, I might as well register. You never know. We might see something we want. You never know."

"But we're steering towards all Santa Gertrudis heifers . . ."

My words just kinda hang in the air.

He is quick to point out "Dancing Cow is a Braford. You like Dancing Cow."

     I don't point out that Dancing Cow is a Black Baldy, a Hereford/Angus cross, not a Braford, a Hereford/Brahma cross. He knows that. I know he knows that, but he doesn't know I will remember that. Typical man. To him, a group of cattle is a group of cattle. To me, every one of those cows has a name and a personality. I KNOW those individual cows better than he does. Nevertheless, I let it go.

     My feet are happy to be sitting here. Besides, this is an International Sale which brings in buyers from Mexico and South America. No matter how many times we bid against those big Mexican ranches, they still take home the best genetics. They pay dearly for those genes, because we don't let them go cheaply, but the big money normally wins these things. So with that in mind, I'm happy to sit there and preview the sales catalog.

     Brafords. Nice cattle. Big red cows with large splashes of white. I like them. But then again, I'm not here to buy cows. I'm here to rest my feet. He returns and happily plops down beside me. We study the sales catalog like we're buying Brafords. I know NOTHING about Braford genetics. I am simply looking for a nicely built, naturally polled heifer. 

     The sale begins. The prices quickly climb. What we're looking for easily runs $3000-$5500. For unproven heifers. Fine if you're planning on buying it, but not really what we want to spend for a cow we didn't plan to buy anyway.

     Then this little cutie walks into the ring. She's young. Other Half looks at me. I shrug. Whatever. He starts bidding on her. I assure you, Las Vegas has nothing on the allure of a cattle sale. In no time, Other Half is happily involved in bidding on a heifer that isn't even part of our breeding plan. And each time he looks at me for assurance, I nod. What the hell!

     All is well and good for a while. Things are getting excited though, and through the shouting and chaos, I note the calf getting more and more stressed. As her excitement builds, she begins to sling that little boy handling her like

a rag doll -

and then - she drags him across the arena -

- and then -

she jumps out of the freakin' arena!

She flies! Like a bird! Like she has wings! (like a Brahma cow!)

My mind races backward in the bidding. Yes! Yes! It had stopped on us before her fit. Oh crap!

She is quickly captured by a gang of burly ranchers who thrust her cowhide back into the arena. One of them has relieved the boy and is trying to handle her himself. It isn't going well. She now climbs the podium, knocking flowers everywhere.

Oh f*#*!

As I watched a full grown cowboy ski across the podium, the stage, and back into the arena, I have two thoughts -

1) I bet that cow now belongs to me.

2) Thank God I have Border Collies.

The auctioneer continues. Yes indeed. The bidding had stopped at us. Does anyone want to pay more for this beast?

Crickets chirp.

No one? Really?

The gavel comes down.

And that's why this little cutie will be at our ranch instead of Mexico.

     Now some things are just meant to be. Over my lifetime, I've come to trust that God has a plan. So even though the absolute LAST thing I need is a wild cow that jumps fences, I am willing to sit back and let God drive. Other Half goes to pay for this beast while I gather up my courage and walk around the curtain to meet her. 

    She is standing calmly tied to the fence. No hint of the wild critter that was flattening flowers five minutes earlier. I speak to her and she looks at me suspiciously. An old man in tennis shoes comes up. I inform him that I am the new owner of his beast. He shakes my hand and assures me that she was just scared. This was her first trip to town. He apparently had pulled her straight out of the pasture, given her a body clip, and brought her to the show. As long as he was with her, she was calm, but she didn't know the young man who showed her, and once she stepped into the sales ring, she was no longer with the other cattle. She was alone. She was scared. And this Sister has just enough Brahma in her to say,

"Nope. I'm done! I'm outta here. I can flyyyyy!"

And fly she did. 

So here's the freaky part:

Other Half returns with the sales papers and the men begin to negotiate for transport of the animal. In an eerie twist of fate, we realize that despite the fact that there are cattle from all over the country at this sale, this breeder lives two miles down the road from us!  Yes!

     I drive past his pasture and admire his cattle all the time! I have probably watched this little calf grow up! The rancher agrees to bring her home so we don't even have to hook up our trailer. He also agrees to keep her and breed her to his registered Braford bull and return her when she's pregnant.

THUS -

we now have a 14 month old registered Braford show heifer and a registered calf from this heifer for less than half her value because she got scared and jumped out of the show ring and no one wanted to pay big bucks for her when other better-behaved cows were still for sale.

Once she is bred and settled, we will transport her to North Texas where she will fit in fine with the rest of the cattle there.

Side note: since she can fly like she has wings, I decided to name her "Delta."

     I believe we have already established that I'm a lazy dog trainer. I'm just lazy, period. As a dog trainer, I like to get bright dogs bred for certain tasks and simply shape behaviors the DNA leans a creature toward anyway. Am I aware that a bloodhound can be trained to do agility? Well yes, but I'm too lazy to do it. Am I aware that a Border Collie can be trained to track? Well, yes, but I'm too lazy to do it.

     I once completely confounded a Border Collie person when she invited me to attend her tracking practice with my Border Collie and I said, "But why would I train my Border Collie to track? I have a Bloodhound. I don't expect my Bloodhound to work cows and I don't expect my Border Collie to mantrail."

      I heard it said once that training a bloodhound to do cadaver work was like using your finest wood chisel to open a paint can. I'm not sayin' it can't be done. I'm just sayin' why go to the trouble if you have a better tool in your tool box.

     So that said, my laziness reached a whole new height this week. Even 'I' am amazed at how simple dog training becomes when DNA works in your favor.

Consider this:

Other Half is going deaf. We have seen a steady decline in his hearing over the years. Because of this, since Lily was a puppy, I've encouraged her to bark when she hears high pitched alarm sounds. Many of these pitches are completely outside the range of what Other Half can hear. Most of the time she is only alerting on alarm clocks and the microwave at the ranch, but my brand new coffee pot beeps to let me know the coffee is ready and Lily feels this is important enough to warrant alerting the household.

Every morning Lily is outside when I'm making coffee. Every morning Cowboy (Rescued Border Collie of Unknown Parentage) is in his crate in the living room when I'm making coffee. For the last two weeks each morning that the coffee pot beeps, Lily has erupted in barking from the front porch.

"Your coffee is READY!!!"

And each morning I answer, "Thank you, Lily. Good dog."

Yesterday this happened:

Coffee pot beeps. Cowboy and Lily erupt in barking. I thank them verbally. Get my coffee and ponder whether or not Cowboy has learned to alert on the coffee pot despite the fact that he has NEVER received any reinforcement for this or any related behavior. Decide it is a fluke. Finish my coffee and go on with my day.

Today:

Coffee pot beeps. Cowboy and Lily erupt in barking. Cowboy starts barking BEFORE Lily. I thank them both verbally and realize that Cowboy has indeed probably learned to alert on the coffee pot by LISTENING TO LILY.

Many animal trainers will tell you that dogs do not learn by watching each other. To them I say this:

Horse Hockey!

Dogs can and do learn from watching other dogs. I've used sibling rivalry for years to train dogs, but what I've watched Cowboy do this week is different.

The part I find most fascinating is that to my knowledge Cowboy has never been trained to alert on high pitched sounds. We've had him for several years and have never seen this behavior before, and yet, after watching Lily alert at the coffee pot for two weeks, he has decided that this is a chore he wishes to assume himself. Note that he has never seen Lily rewarded for this behavior in any way other than a simple "good dog." He just knows that in some way, the beep must be important to the human, so he should bark to alert the human when he hears it. Interesting. Very interesting. You realize, this opens up a whole new level of laziness for me.

I continue to be both amazed and humbled by the mind of a dog, particularly a breed of dog that has been bred to assist man in some way. I am firmly convinced that when it comes to teaching them, we are only limited by our own imagination, and their lack of thumbs. 

Good dog, Cowboy. Good dog.

As we have already established, what started out as a delightful puppy grew to become a first caliber troll. This begs several questions. How? Was he always a troll? Could we have done something different? Will he ever change?

So let’s analyze the Troll Dog.

Trace is a troll because he is your classic 'resource guarder.' In layman’s terms that means Trace classifies everything in his world as

1) belonging to/or important to Trace’s survival/fun,
2) not belonging to/ or unimportant to Trace’s survival/fun

Here are examples of things the Troll values:

* Food
* Water
* Human attention
* Vehicles (trucks, 4-wheelers, mules, etc… “if it rolls, it’s Troll’s!)
* Toys
* Anything another dog wants

It is interesting to note that Troll’s aggression is ONLY aimed at other dogs. He has never shown aggression to humans. Despite the fact that he will rip another dog’s face off for walking near his food bowl, a human can reach down and pick it up without incident. He is quite submissive to humans.

Troll is not an overly dominant dog. He is actually only above the Labrador on the Doggy Totem Pole. His status in the pack does not affect his aggression in the least. Given the opportunity, he will launch himself at Cowboy and Briar at meal times, and - they will always kick his little arse. He does not learn, and will not hesitate to do it again. Troll is such a monster that at the hint of meal time or vehicle time, he will race across the yard, snarling and drooling like a, duh, troll. He will attack any dog in his path with absolutely no provocation. Because of this, he is only allowed loose outside with Cowboy, Ranger or Briar, because he intimidates Lily, and Dillon will flat-out kill him.

Did we create this? No, I doubt it. He was always fed separately and never had to fight for food or anything else. We also do not indulge his behavior. We don’t think it’s cute, but we don’t bow to his brattiness either. Trace was selected for us by the breeder. I wanted a male. He had two males. Someone else chose the white one first, so we ended up with Trace. Had I seen his behavior in the puppy pack, I seriously doubt I would have brought this dog home to a multi-dog household.

Ironically, if we didn’t have other dogs, we might not ever notice his extreme troll-like behavior, because he confines his aggression to other dogs. It is possible he might try this crap with children if given the opportunity but he is not allowed free access to kids so we’ll never know.

Will he ever change? No, I seriously doubt it. Trace is a troll. A leopard doesn’t change his spots. We simply accept that he is a troll and protect the other dogs from him, and we protect him from himself. (i.e. keep him away from sweet-natured Dillon who is slow to anger but will makes an earnest attempt to murder Troll when he is attacked by the little snot)

So there you have it, the anatomy of a troll. It isn’t pretty, but then we didn’t buy The Beast to be a family dog. He was purchased to be a working cow dog. His parents were kept in an outside kennel and not part of a pack. I seriously doubt his breeder had any interest whatsoever in doggy social skills as part of his breeding program. (But trust me, I will ask about that with any future dogs!)  Would I reproduce this creature?

No. Absolutely not.  Do we love him anyway? Yes. He is, in fact, a delightful little creature in many ways. One simply has to remember that he has the heart of a troll, and not blame a troll for being, well - a troll.

     It's been wet. It's been yucky. Today is the first sunny day we've had in a week. All this is the perfect combination to bring the Outside Dawgs inside and throw the Inside Dawgs outside. Since Other Half has been out of town all week, it was also the perfect time to sneak Little Miss Thang into the house. Miss Briar loves All Things Inside.  Here is a list of her favorite Inside Things:

* Air Conditioning

* Heating

* Carpet

* Kitty Litter Box

* Cat Food Dish

* Dog Toy Box

* Carpet Underneath The Air Conditioner Vent

* Carpet Near The Heater

And so it was that I brought Large-Fluffy-Dirty-Outside-Dog-With-Hay-And-Briars-Stuck-In-Her-Coat inside the house (Cuz Other Half wasn't home and what he doesn't know won't hurt him!)

Anyway, today Briar discovered yet one more thing she loves about Inside. I settled down on the couch to eat lunch. Lacking imagination, time, and any concern for my health, I was eating a $1.29 frozen pizza.  (Yes, I KNOW it's bad for me, but it was cheap, and it was THERE!)

So I ate a couple of slices of pizza with Cowboy, who must be watched closely lest his lift his leg in the house, and Trace The Troll, who must be watched closely because he is a Troll to every living creature except humans.  I was flanked by Border Collies. Briar had staked out some territory on the carpet and was happily watching television - apparently one more thing Briar likes about Inside.

Since I ran out of steam after two pieces of pizza, that left two large pieces for the dogs. Cowboy and Troll are quite familiar with this process and sat up expectantly as I began cutting the pizza into forksize pieces. Briar continued to watch television.

I speared a chunk of pizza with my fork and offered one to Troll. (He can eat off a fork as well as any human toddler.) Also a pro, Cowboy shifted in place to angle himself for an easier delivery. I forked one in his direction and then speared another one. Briar was watching all this with casual interest but the only thing that moved were her eyebrows. So I called her.

She heaved her big self up and ambled over to the fork. After a quick sniff she cautiously closed her jaws over the fork.  Her expression was priceless. She was experiencing true bliss. For $1.29.

I took great delight in watching her savor each and every bite from the fork. Her manners were impeccable. She waited her turn every time, and took each bite gently when offered, but when the plate was empty, she looked up at me with the cutest expression: 

 "Y'all been holdin' out on me!"

This is me, when I spend all morning working on goat milk soap and realize that time has gotten away from me and it is now time to get ready for my 'real' job:

"Sigh... time to go to work."

I was in the groove! Got up in the morning and fed The Masses. Milked the goat.

Cut up two batches of fresh goat milk soap!

Stacked cut soap to dry

Got ready to make another batch of soap ..... and noticed the time.

"Well crap! Where does the time go?"

I really wish making soap paid as well as playing Twister over dead people.

Heeeey!  Remember this little face?

 Well he and his sister are eating solid food now and that's the green light for me to start milking their mom.

 This means that at night the babies are locked in a pen inside their mother's pen. They are given alfalfa when I tuck them in at night so they won't be hungry. They get to eat their breakfast when I milk Clover in the morning.

 She can give me almost half a gallon each morning, but I don't take all that. I milk enough to fill my jars and then leave the rest for the babies.

 "Mmmmm.... warm milk!"

All this means that I am back in the soap business - my favorite kind of business!

WARNING: Graphic!
 

A wise old man once told us that you're never bored

"as long as you have a windmill and a black bull."

His reasoning was that you always have work to do on one or the other. Our black bull is normally never any trouble, but he's been getting up in age and that brings special health problems.

We returned to the ranch in North Texas last Friday after the nasty winter storms released their grip on that country. Bully didn't make it.

 We knew it was coming. He was pretty old. He wasn't maintaining his weight. His vision wasn't good. He had started getting nosebleeds. Death has been creeping up on him. Apparently Death caught up with him during this last ice storm.

The rest of the cows are fatter than dog ticks. They survived the weather just fine. Although the cubes had run out of their feeders, they had plenty of grass in the forest. Bully didn't starve to death. I examined his body quite closely. I'll spare you the most graphic photographs, but the crime scene investigator in me had to detail Bully's death in pictures.

Although I was sad that Bully died, I was happy to know that he had not starved to death, nor had he been attacked by coyotes. There was plenty of grass in his belly, and no evidence of bite marks on his hindquarters, tail, nose or ears. It looks like he just laid down and died in the cold.

My next concern was completely selfish: the location of his death.

Bully often hung out beside the cabin. Not only did he appear to enjoy the company, we later put a feeder there to make hauling feed in sloppy weather easier. I feared Bully would die beside the cabin and I'd have hundreds of pounds of rotting bovine upwind of me.  But no, Bully died like he lived, with very little trouble to us.

He died in the forest below the pasture, far enough from the cabin that even when he began to thaw, we couldn't smell him. Good ole Bully. He was such a sweet bull. I miss him. On the other hand, he was an old bull and he lived a good life. Other Half and his rancher buddies point to Bully's death in the forest as a waste of money. He could have been taken to the sale barn months ago and we could have gotten 'something' for him before he died.

I guess so, but the idea of an old bull, confused and frightened, being prodded to his death, bothered me. I felt like Bully deserved better than that. As it was, we got two more good calf crops out of him and he got to live, and die, like a wild cow. (Not really wild because he had a feeder in addition to all that acreage, but it was a lot closer than most cows ever see to being wild.) So I was okay with Bully's death, and once he was gone, the scientist inside me wanted to study him.

First I had to study his death scene like any good crime scene investigator. I looked for some cause of death. Since I saw no signs of murder, I opted for "natural causes." I had to photograph the scene. Don't ask me why. It's just habit I guess. Finally, his death provides me with the opportunity to examine the predator/scavenger population.

WARNING! Graphic! (well, not really by my standards, but then I recognize that my standards are pretty screwed up, so I'll bow to what is considered graphic by normal people.)

We found Bully on Friday. He had just started to thaw and the flies were arriving. Most of his body cavity had already been cleaned out by critters prior to our arrival, but there was still plenty of eats available so we set up a game camera to capture shots of everything that bellied up to the Bully Buffet. (pardon my sick humor - it's something Crime Scene Investigators have in spades)

I was most disappointed in our pictures. What I expected: coyotes, raccoons, oppossums, bobcats, buzzards, and maybe a curious cougar!

What I got:

Possums   Lots of possums, or maybe just lots of visits from the same fat possum

Coyotes  

 No feeding, just curious

   And a mangy coyote that reminded me to keep my dogs away from there! This rascal is what gives rise to tales of the "chupacabra!" (people who live outside of Texas will need to google this)

But two nights and hundreds of pictures and that was it!

Except for this visitor:

Paisley came to stand with Bully for a while. It broke my heart. I don't even like Paisley, and it still broke my heart. I had noted that Paisley was particularly aggressive with our dogs this week, and couldn't help but wonder if it had something to do with watching the coyotes eat Bully.  Something to ponder . . .

And even though Paisley annoys me, I found a little spark of fondness grow in my heart for Paisley when I saw these photos.

Despite it all, I have no regrets about Bully. While I don't mind selling older calves for meat, I just didn't feel right about sending ole Bully down the road to slaughter. He'd been a good bull for us, and I suppose the best I could do for him was let him die with some dignity. We could have brought him back down to South Texas to die, but he was happier there.

So last night I pointed out to Other Half that he no longer had "a black bull and a windmill" to keep him busy. He then reminded me that he does indeed still have a black bull!  In fact, he has three black bulls! He had kept these three to watch them grow in order to decide which bull to keep as a replacement for Bully. And true to form, we were gone for four days and they flooded the pasture twice while we were gone!  They still have a fascination with water spigots.

 Bully lives on!

Vaya Con Dias, Bully