It's the rainy season!

It's the wet season here in NE Oklahoma, and when I say wet, I mean DRENCHED!!  It started out with a nice storm on Friday, sprinkling a little bit and lightening a lot.  It filled up some ditches with a little water...

 and made everything very green!

 And then yesterday, there it went...Sprinkling turned into downpours!  Our house is on an elevated piece of property, which I'm VERY thankful for, and you'll see why in the following pictures.  Most of the rest of our property is not though.  Pretty soon, everything was covered in water...

About 3" of water

Pasture 1

The front yard

According to one lady, this is the most water she's ever seen in Tahlequah for 30 years!  This series of storms has just made a HUGE mess out of our goat barn and pen area.  Inside the barn is flooded as well as the outside...

Kinda cool how the water snakes around!  The water's cleaning my goat pen, LOL!

We also have a wet-weather creek that never runs unless it rains a lot.  It was flowing SO fast, kinda like a mini river.  It knocked out a bunch of vegetation because it grew so large!

And to end this messy Oklahoma story, we have a NOT so rare surprise for you...

Yep, that's the 2' long adult Copperhead me and my brother found and killed this morning!  It was in the chicken pen, all tangled up in some netting...and boy was that thing hissing!  Thank God it didn't get to our chickens!

So, that's all for today :)  Still storming here a bit.
-Hannah

Shared on Barn Hop #10

Around the ranch today...

A small milestone has happened on 7 Thunders Ranch...our first ever batch of baby chicks hatched!  Take a look at the pics below.

First chick to hatch

WARNING!  Very broody hen

This hen has been up in the chicken house rafters for about a month, and she is SO broody.  Talk about mama hen syndrome, LOL!

Here are a misc. couple of pics from around the ranch today...

Me and my first LaMancha, Ohara.  She's a horse, LOL

Silly Snickers

 Oh, and I just had to post a picture of me and Tick-Tack, one of Suriyah's (GoodGoats) tiniest goat kids I've EVER seen!  He is SOOOO CUTE!

That's all for today!
-Hannah

Lesson #1: Bloat in Goats

Bloat

a.k.a:  Ruminal Tympany, Tympanities, Hoven, Meteorism
 

Although I've never had a goat with bloat, it will most likely occur one time or another, especially spring and summer when pastures are readily available.  This condition stems from the goat's inability to rid gas produced by the rumen, due to either feeding on too many legumes (Alfalfa, fresh grass, clovers, etc.), a sudden change in feed or hay, or eating too many grains (oats, barley, wheat & rye).  Signs of bloat is an enlarged left flank, difficulty or laboring to breathe, and upon thumping the left side, it will sound like a drum or ripe watermelon.

If the goat's eyes and inside of it's mouth turn from pink to blue-ish purple, this indicates a lack of oxygen, which equals approaching death.  Obviously, this is not something to take lightly and should be treated promptly, before this has a change to occur!

Treating Bloat:
Here's the recipe for treating bloat:
1 Cup of Oil (mineral, corn, etc.)
About 2 TBS of Baking Soda

Mix that up and either drench the mixture down the goat's throat with a syringe (NO NEEDLE), a drencher, or tube it directly into the goat's stomach (that's if you know how to do it safely, but it's more risky).  NEVER try to tube a goat unless you have experience doing it!  You may accidentally put the tube in the lungs, and basically drown the goat.  Give C&D Antitoxin...this won't hurt the goat.  This medicine is water soluble, so if it is not needed in the gut, the goat will just pee it out.  C&D helps calm the gut down and balances the rumen.  Most of the time, a few days after the goat gets bloat, it comes down with Enterotoximia, and this is a very fast, life threatening situation too.  If you are dealing with an adult goat, give about 15 cc/ML of C&D Antitoxin (not Antitoxoid) Sub-Q, a few times a day until they're back to acting and looking normal.  You can also give them an extra boost of electrolytes...of which I use Nutri-Drench for goats.

C&D ANTITOXON

If you're dealing with a kid, give about 5 cc of C&D (Sub-Q of course). Sometimes, bloat will come with diarrhea.  Just let it run it's course, but make sure the kid is getting enough liquids and offer electrolytes a couple times a day.  If you have TheraBloat or AgriLabs Bloat Release, you can give them the recommended dosage.

After the goat has bloat, it's always a good idea to give them Probiotics for a few days to aid in the healing of the gut.

I am not an expert at this and have not had any close personal experience with this, but have seen it in my friend's goats.  The article above originated from an article that my friend at GoodGoats wrote.

See the links below to purchase the products I listed above.  I've had great success with all of these products!

Thanks for reading!
-Hannah

Shared on Barn Hop #7


 

Blooms & Sprouts...EVERYWHERE!

It's looking very colorful and green here at the farm!  The flower blooms and grass sprouts are all over the property.

Below are some pics of our apple tree, in full bloom.  The flowers are so pretty!

And just a couple of misc. pics of the day!

Have a good night everyone!

-Hannah

"Compost City" - How to compost

Today was a FULL outside work day!  Me and my brother built a 4-in -1 compost bin out of old pallets.  We also started compost in all four of the bins, using the resources we have on the farm, including goat, rabbit and chicken poop, old hay and pine shavings, food scraps and dead leaves.  Take a look below to see what we built!

Front of the bin

Back of the bin

Middle of "compost city"

Now we have 8 compost bins (including the ones I built a few months ago).  I stir each compost bin every Monday (or try to ;), that way it gets enough oxygen to break down the components of the organic material.  I'm hoping to get enough compost to fill all of our beds, and keep them going all year long.

Wanna know how to make compost?  Here's how (not promising that it'll work for you, but it has for me)

Start out with a fresh, bare bin.

Put a layer of old hay or grass clippings, preferably if it's peed and pooped on by chickens, rabbits and goats.  This layer should be fairly thick.

Add some food scraps (not too thick & too big)

Add a layer of dead leaves on top of the scraps

Add a small dousing of water to the bin

Do this kind of layering over and over until you have your bin at the fullness you want it.  Make sure that you stir it at least once a week, and add stuff to it throughout the week.  My bins usually take about 6 weeks (most of the time, composting takes longer than this, but I think mine compost faster because of the chickens scratching around and pooping in it every day...and the kind manure I'm using tends to compost faster) to completely compost into rich dirt.  It's better if you have some earthworms in there, as they help break the compost material into rich soil...but don't worry if there isn't.

Me adding scraps to a bin

Thanks for reading!

Goodnight everyone!
-Hannah

This post is linked to the Homestead Revival Barn Hop #6

Spring Is Here!

Take a look at the lush, green sprouts!  The 20th was the "official" day of spring...although it's been getting green ever-since March 1st  :)

The other day, the whole herd got the runs and milk production dropped drastically!  How and why did this happen?  Us not having a steady schedule and too much green thrown at them at once.

Lesson from this...never just throw your goats out on fresh green pasture after they've been hibernating all winter and ALWAYS have a schedule, ie.  7 am - 7 pm.  Since we've started on our new early morning schedule, the goat's milk production has raised and no more runs!

We recently got in with a local grocery store to take all the produce that they would throw out otherwise.  I encourage ALL farmers and livestock owners to approach your local grocery store and find out if you can have access to the produce that they throw out!  I hate seeing food go to waste, when it could be used to feed other living things.

Have a good weekend everyone!
-Hannah

How to prune a blackberry patch gone WILD...

If you live in NE Oklahoma and have a good piece of property, you most likely have a few wild Blackberry bushes!  We have one pretty big patch of them, but...how, when and why do we weed and prune them?  Keep reading...

The reason for pruning our patch was for ease of gathering and to produce more berries (since we have some friends that like to come over and pig out on them too ;)!  If you don't prune them, this is what happens...

Yep, it gets all overgrown with weeds and the bushes themselves go WILD!  The best time to prune them is late winter/early spring.  This is the first time I've ever pruned Blackberries before, so I'll update in the Summer to see how the production is going.  If you're getting the proper amount of rain, don't even worry about watering or fertilizing them.

Where do you start on such an overwhelming task as this?  I just start out by picking a spot, sized to my liking in the patch and kinda "eyeball" the parimeters.  I call these little spots in the patch "mini-patches", separated by skinny walkways that run in and out of the patch.

As you can imagine, it's super fun crawling through thorns, NOT!  Make sure you wear thick leather gloves and jeans!

Here's what the front of the Blackberry patch looks like after I pruned it...

First "mini-patch"

So, that's what I've been doing every Sunday and Monday for the past 3 weeks...and believe me, it is NOT an easy job!  Be careful not to cut down live Blackberry vines, even if they look dead...they're probably just dormant.

Thanks for reading and I hope this helps someone!

-Hannah

This post was shared on Barn Hop #4