Goat Conditioning & Prize Winner

Yes, finally the contest is over and the winner is Goat Lady!!! As soon as I have your address I'll send this wonderful book out to you. Just let me know at hollyrexroat@gmail.com.
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Yes, we are going to talk about you Leta. In fact, she is going to be the naughty example. Don't you mind the look of complaint on her face and her mumblings about the whole thing. If she wasn't so difficult I wouldn't be talking about her. If you've been reading this blog you know I've had an estreus problem with the two older does. Chicory, the two year old, seems to have taken on the first trip to the buck and has a lovely glistening black coat. Today, she gets to be the goat on a pedestal held up as a shining example. Ornery, cantankerous Pudge will be the goat in the middle of the pack. I'm hoping the sourness is due to the fact that she is ten and pregnant. I don't know that. The part about her being pregnant anyway but I'm hoping.

Always the curious one, I looked up the maximum age longevity of a goat and it was 15. I'm guessing it is a weather or a buck. They have the easier lives where as a does milk for 9 to 10 months a year and typically has twins. That's enough to wear anybody out. Of course the chart also said that horses live a maximum of 40 years old. How many 40 year old horses have you met? Me, a few 30 year old ones but not 40.
With that in mind, I think the 15 year old goat is a real rarity.

Since I've been all concerned about health lately with the problems my old girls have been having, I thought we'd talk about conditioning. Chicory

Note the shiny, soft coat. Yes, Nubians usually have a softer finer hair than Saanen so you do need to know what is normal for your breed of goat.

Leta

In this picture she has a soft coat for a Saanen and notice how smooth it is. White hair will simply not shine as much as black hair so you'll have to take my word for it that it is shiny for a Saanen.

Leta
But wait a minute I can almost hear you say. Yes, this is Leta and the picture above is Leta. I took a photograph of Leta's from a few months ago and cropped a section of it so you could see how her condition has deteriorated. This is what she has begun to do the past couple years when ever she is pregnant. Her hair will deteriorate even further as she gets closer to kidding. When spring weather takes hold, she may loose clumps of hair and leave somewhat bald patches. That is why this is going to be her last year. Her body can't utilize feed efficiently and so she gives everything to the kids. Leaving kids on her to nurse pulls her down even further and if she's milking heavy, she isn't real pretty either but picks up from her haggard look of pregnancy. With consideration given to her age plus worsening health issues she will be culled sometime this year. This picture is a recent comparison of coat conditions. Pudge is the goat standing at the bottom of the picture and Leta is above her. This shot is a good comparison of a coarse, dry, rough coat and a smooth soft one.
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This is a lovely chart if you have memory lapse like I have. Most of the parts of an animal I'm always forgetting. You know the saying that if you don't use it, you loose it. Well, the goats don't care if I use proper language and the only body part they've learned is hooves. Just say, "Let's go trim your hooves." and they'll head for the other end of the pen. They'd hurt my feelings if I thought I was bad at the task but actually I'm pretty nice about it. They just like it about as much as our grand daughters like their hair combed. And while were on the subject, why do we say, "Let's go ....". because let's is for let us and their isn't any us, just me. Then again, maybe I'm the only one who says such silly things. Sorry, I do get off the subject easily. So I apologize if you are a stickler for body part names, I'm trying. I promise to keep the chart handy and refer to it but forgive me if I slip. The kids are all grown and not in

4-H anymore and half the people around me use nanny instead of doe for a female goat so maybe it's just bad influence. But please if you ever hear me say, "I seen it." slap me. The poor language skills in this county are a atrocious. The ones you see in this blog are partly do to the fact of all the rewrites that didn't get smoothed out.

For this tutorial I'll be looking at the chart so I can use the proper names and not - "You know the cannon area on the front leg? It's that area only it's on the back leg." That is what I told a horse breeder last night when I was describing an injury on his horse's back leg. I know, pathetic and here you probably thought I was smart since I do a blog devoted to education. The secret is that I'm really trying to educate me.
You may have noticed that in the last two pictures I'm touching behind the front leg on the ribs. The spine should not be sticking up noticeably and there should be only a slight depression visible in the loin area. The ribs should be well covered. You can use an old rule of thumb we learned when showing sheep and beef. Feel the back of your hand. The ridges right before the fingers where the metacarpal bones meet the Phalanges. Yeah, the joint right there. Okay, I looked that up. I know what phalanges are but I wasn't sure where the metacarpal was on the hand.
The goat's ribs should feel like that spot on your hand when it's open.When your making a fist the ends of you metacarpal stick up and are bony. That is what the ribs should not feel like. Go ahead and run you fingers over your other hand. If your goat feels like the first picture with your hand open it is in good body condition. Poor is when your fist is closed. Emaciated is of course when you can count the ribs. If you can't find the ribs then cut back on the feed - the goats too... fat.

Don't be fooled by a big belly.

We had a large lamb that no matter how much we exercised him and how we changed his diet he had a big belly. His ribs, legs and other areas in which you gauge conditioning on a market sheep were excellent. When we showed up at fair with him people who knew our reputation couldn't believe we'd have something with such a belly on it. We have been told by beef judges, sheep judges, and poultry judges that we really know how to condition an animal.

Well that sheep judge not knowing us took one look at that wether and you could see the disgust on her face. Then politely she handled him anyway and her eyes about popped out. She stepped back to look at him again and then forward to feel his ribs, loin, hindquarters etc., stepped back with an amazed look on her face, and had to feel the lamb again to make sure her hands were'nt really lying to her. She then turned to the crowd and said this lamb is amazing. To look at his belly you would have thought him bloaty and fat but you should take the time to feel him, he's amazingly fit.

If we had been foolish enough to feed him according to his belly, his ribs would have been sticking up for all to count. Remember the pictures of the children starving in Africa your mother threatened you with to get you to eat your vegetables when you were little. Well, maybe you are too young for that since it was in the sixties when that ploy was used. But my mom use to tell me to think of the starving kids in Africa and how they would love a meal like we were eating to try to get me to swollow my broccoli. Of course I just thought, "Why don't you send this to the kids in Africa instead of forcing me to eat it. The point being that starvation causes the belly to pooch even though you can count every rib.

Then when you've felt the ribs, feel the hip bones. Are they sharp or sufficiently covered? Pretty hard to tell in the winter with their heavy coats unless you take the time to place your hands on them.
An older does will be slightly sharper in the hip bones due to age - slightly sharper not a lot sharper.

I see many does, way too many, with too little cover over their hip bones and ribs because their belly hangs down and the owner is using that to gauge how fat they are. We have a few things that begin to go south too as we age.

Leta

If a goat is grossly fat then you will have to press very firmly to even feel their ribs and they will carry lots of fat around each side of their tail bone and down into their pin bones. The same areas that a beef carries excess fat except a beef gets real heavy in front of the shoulders also. I've never seen an obese goat but I'm sure they exist. I would make a guess that it is more likely amongst the meat breeds where they aren't milking 9 or 10 months of the year and then pregnant for 140 to 150 days. Most of the goats we've owned have kidded at close to 145 days but Pudge and Leta go at 152. For some reason I thought you'd want to know that.

Chicory
Your does will naturally change during their different stages but I learned a few interesting things I didn't know from a Washington State University site.

During late lactation goats should have recovered fully and be at the peek of conditioning.
At this point 40% to 50% of the nutrients consumed is going toward milk production. The rest of the nutrients are for the fetal growth and recovery of fat reserves lost during early lactation. (Remember that a couple months or so after the kids are born the doe peeks in production of milk.) Body fat is put on 38% more efficiently during the late lactation period than when she is dry. Let me rephrase that. When a doe is in her late lactation it takes less feed to put her in excellent body condition than when she is dry. Monitor your doe to make sure she gains her condition back at this period and doesn't become too fat as it will hinder kidding and cause metabolic diseases.

During the dry period you are maintaining body condition. It is imparative that a doe be dryed off at least 60 days prior to kidding so that her udder has a chance to regenerate. If she isn't given this period of time her milk production in her next cycle will drop.

Overconditioning increases the chances of metabolic diseases by 43%. These diseases include detosis, milk fever, displaced abomasum and fat doe syndrome. All of these can cause incidences of retained placenta, mastitis, lower milk production and kidding difficulties.

Don't change a doe's condition too rapidly or she will also have metabolic problems as will she also if she is too thin. Basically you have to get it right or your asking for problems. We obviously did when we didn't pay attention to our goats age and their changing feed requirements.

Also it talked about feeding too little grain which lowers energy levels and lowers milk production and if you feed too much grain it lowers the pH in the rumen and it becomes more acidic killing the microrganisms that help the goat to digest fiber which also lowers milk production.

"Feeding more concentrates will not substitute for forage quality and will not satisfy fiber requirements. By feeding high quality forage, the doe's fiber requirements can be fufilled, her need for protein and energy can be met, and you can use a lower percentage of concentrates in the feed ration. Feeding high quality feeds saves you money in your rations and in your herd health. Forages should contain a maximum amount of protein and/or enery allowed for that particular feed." Washington State University. http://smallfarms.wsu.edu/animals/goatfeeding.html

I'd like to add that I too have found that you feed significantly less hay if you have the best quality available. We travel six hours to get one load because of its quality. This time the rancher put up in small square bales in second cutting alfalfa which he usually does a orchard grass second cutting alfalfa mix that our goats thrive on. We will have to cut back a bit further on the grain strength with straight high quality alfalfa hay. We learned the hard way when we bought Leta and she gained weight too quickly ont the straight second cutting alfalfa hay of high quality.

Her first year with us she had a bad case of milk fever. What a wake up call as before that we had always raised our own does and had no problem. They were use to the rich feed program. Here again we are in new territory with old does. We've never kept them this long before. When the kids grew up and there was no more 4-H projects needing young animals, we began breeding our Saanens to Boer bucks and selling the kids. They were easier to get rid of than the fully dairy kids. There's a very small market for dairy goats around here. Actually goats of any kind.

The years passed and our does grew old and once again their feed requirements have changed. Here we go learning and changing once again. I hope this post helps in understanding goat conditioning and how important it is to our goats we love and our pocketbooks for we will either pay in feed or in vet supplies if we get it wrong. I'll talk soon about setting up your exercise pen. Yes, it's the one the goats live in. We learned the hard way what happens if pregnant sheep don't get enough exercise. Believe me, they won't exercise if you don't have a built in system that makes them and that includes most goats.


Congradulations once again to Goat Lady for winning one of my favorite gardening books.

Passing It On

We had our oldest granddaughter here for four days and during that time we were doing livestock chores for some dear friends. Bundled in ski pants, coat, hat, mittens and her grandma's wool socks tucked inside chore boots our granddaughter trailed after me through muddy wet pens.

While I fed stallions, mares, foals, and yearlings along with nine heifers, she stood safe next to Sailor, a 16 hand stallion that's stretching for 30 years old, stroking his neck and carrying on a one-sided conversation. Our friend's Araucana chickens were another big hit with their green eggs. I realize I made a mistake not ordering a couple for our coop last year by the way her face lit up when she found them tucked in the corner of the coop. And how she insisted on having scrambled green eggs for breakfast each morn.

With a kitchen chair slid up to the counter top, she'd crack green eggs one at a time into a cup just in case their were pieces of shell that insisted on remaining with the contents. No biggy as I'd fished them out and she'd dump the eggs into the skillet.
When we discovered this whopper sitting in the middle of our coop Saturday, she claimed it for Sunday morning. She would have had just eggs for breakfast and Kirk's favorite cereal for lunch everyday if I hadn't insisted that stew and fruit be included.

It was a bit hard to distinguish that there had been two yolks in the shell as the egg was a little large in her hands and she mangled it a bit trying to crack it open. None the less, it tasted wonderful alongside the sour cream and almond flavored pancakes.
I only had to say let's get our chore clothes on and her eyes would light up and she'd be dressed before I'd had time to get my coat and boots on and grab the milk pails. With the additional chores, the time at the corrals stretched on for hours as I walked slowly waiting for her short legs to keep up. And put a few inches of water into a small bucket each time I filled my four gallon ones so she too could help fill the waterers. If I had an arm load of hay she had a five-year-old sized one. She even had to have a try with the pitchfork.

I use to often take just one of our children to the corrals when they were teenagers. It was a good time to talk, and teach each other. There is something about working together at a task that opens the lines of communication. Our three children have learned to love this lifestyle some parts of it far more than others according to each of their personalities. Our middle daughter never did like the pigs or chickens, she likes goats just not the goat milk. She always loved the beef and sheep but now that she is grown she says she'll have chickens just for the eggs. I think our son is partial to the beef himself and our oldest also wants some chickens someday and maybe a goat.

Now Kirk and I begin to teach the next generation about the treasures we've discovered within this more natural lifestyle. My prayer is that we will be able to instill a reverence and appreciation for things. It's pretty easy to throw food out when all you did was purchase it from the store. You think about composting and recycling scraps back to the chickens and pigs when you've labored for hours to produce that food.

I want our grandchildren to sense the comfort and nurturing feelings that comes from listening to the milk swish against the pail. To understand its blessings, the diversity of rich products that can come from it, and the self-assurance that comes from gaining it for yourself. I want them to experience the joy and laughter from watching the animal's antics, the knowledge that you gaine in the process of caring for them. To learn the humbleness that comes when your efforts aren't enough and you must rely on the Lord for help and guidance.

Most of all I wish for our grandchildren to gain a feeling of reverance and gratitude that directs their actions. For this lifestyle, if you'll let it, will develop that.

As I first stroke Penny, the Buff Orpington that invariably sit in the corner on the nest, and listen to her quiet cackle of discomfort as I reach underneath and grope for the eggs of the other hens that she's been warming, I gain a connection with them and their gifts I receive each day. That ice cream we savor after supper traveled first from the goat, to the strainer, the milk separator, the stove where the custard was made, and then into the ice cream maker. With this process comes confidence in myself, appreciation, and an adventure in the journey that can't be had in a purchased peppermint ice cream carton from the store.

It's hard work but I don't want my children or grandchildren to shy away from things because of it's difficulty. A good life is hard work. Maybe I don't want them to go so far as to not know the difference between work and play which my children accused me of when they were growing up. I'm working on that fault. But, I want them to enjoy the fruits of their labors and most of all enjoy the journey not just wish the end product of it.
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So this weekend I polished off my teaching skills and talked with our grand daughter about saving the egg shells for the worms in the garden and putting it in the ground so our tomato plants didn't suffer blossom rot.
I asked her to help me with washing the eggs. She counted them, putting them in rows of six so we knew how many cartons to bring up from the basement to put them in. I want her to not just know but learn that numbers aren't just squiggly lines on a piece of paper and that math has application. Even when she is just counting to 18 today.
We discussed the way eggs should be stored to preserve their freshness - pointed side down. Something she may not learn just grabbing a dozen from the store. She insisted they be put in the egg carton pointed end up. I figured it was a five-year-old's creative choice. Not worth arguing over. We'll have this conversation again the next time she comes to help and maybe her choice will be different. Learning is repetitious. While we were washing eggs and cooking breakfast, Kirk was in the garage cutting up the hind quarters that he smoked into hams and ham steaks. Breakfast comes first when our grand daughters are here for they wake up with a smile and the first words from their mouth are, "I'm hungry!" When our oldest grand daughter's cute tummy was full, I cleared the dishes and began to wrap the meat. I taught her to make the letter H. First describing it auditorially and then showed her while saying the same words. Then we moved on to the number 10. She already knew how to make an A and a M.
Somehow teaching this grandchild to write was a whole lot more fun than teaching our three children to read and write. Yes, we home schooled for fifteen years doing the book learning and then trying to apply as much of it as possible to real life. Applesauce heated on the stove for breakfast with cinnamon and sugar became homemade mud pots like the ones we'd seen in Yellowstone Park. The heat from the stove's burner increased inside the dense mass until it burst forth parting the sauce with a plop. When we butchered, we dissected the organs. The children learned first hand that a chicken like a human has all the eggs she will ever have tucked inside her ovaries.

Now it was time to start over again. I watched out of the corner of my eye while I wrapped, for our grand daughter was concentrating hard doing her task in her little precise way. Her cute little rosy lips tightly ohed with the A...s
Pulled to the side with the M...s and once more I thought how this schooling had far more meaning than just practicing writing Ham on a piece of paper over and over again. Not only did she learn the word but the package had real ham inside. She further learned that you wrote what was inside the package and the year you placed it inside the freezer. I once cleaned out my mother-in-law's deep freeze to discover that she, a city girl transformed to the country, had written on the butcher paper what was inside and the month and day it was placed there. The ice encrusted sides of the freezer threatened to be categorized as icebergs and I had no idea how many years ago those packages were placed there. She was very ill and 70 some years old. Someone needed to have taught her.

So I begin the journey with this precious grand daughter to teach her far beyond emptying the trash or making her bed, which doesn't seem to have much meaning to kids. I'm helping to teach her what it is to help and aid her family. Her efforts meant their would be food in her's and her families mouth for half of one pig is theirs. Maybe she doesn't completely understand it all but I know she is beginning to grasp the concept for I remember the feelings from helping my grandparents in their garden and I remember watching our own children. A close knit family starts out with warmth and love, moves on to needs met. One of them is the need to belong and to be needed.

Some grandparents think it is their duty to spoil their grandchildren. I know it is my duty to teach them and help them to become the best that is in them for grandparent isn't just a word but a important role to carry things forward. Knowledge is a gift and with that gift we've tried to help our children learn wisdom that they in turn may be a blessing to their families, to our world, and most importantly to our God.

Smoking The Hams & Bacons

My oldest granddaughter is sleeping in the bed next to me as I type away. We were at the corrals a long time today as we did our chores, took pictures of the condition of the goats for another post, and took care of the many livestock animals of the neighbors. Kirk, bless him, got the hams and bacons ready for the smokehouse by himself and then hauled a large wheelbarrow of wood down to the basement in preparation for the 2-5 inches the weather man has promised us. We'll see.As I searched through the refrigerator for scraps to take to the chickens, a bright flash and a rumble caused me to turn my head toward the kitchen window. Our granddaughter came running into the house wide eyed. "Grandma!"

"I know sweetheart", I told her soothingly, "It was lightning and snow thunder."

It is something that doesn't occur often but once in a while when the weather has been warmer -high forties- for a few days and then a snow storm moves in with its cold front, the two differing temperatures collide. It happens in the springtime. Our piling snowstorms that keep us confined for up to three days come in March or April but most likely the end of April. There the kind that spawn stories that locals tell southerner to watch the panic looks that cross their face. Snow doesn't typically float to the ground softly like it did today or should I say the snow pellets that floated softly. We knew this little storm was coming and with a storm almost always comes the wind. It's due to continue into the night with the addition of thirty mile an hour winds. Not bad but awfully hard to keep the smokehouse lit with a wind blowing the flames out like a birthday candle.

So Kirk set up the camp stove in the garage and put two canners full of water on it to boil.

They will be poured into a large container and a side of bacon put in to soak. When most of the salt that was rubbed into it has washed off he pulls the side out and empties the water putting in fresh and soaking the side again for a while to draw the salt out. The bacons were rubbed thoroughly with curing salt and put in plastic bags to sit to cure on. A couple times a day I flipped the bags over and so they have sat waiting until Kirk was off from work again today. We would like to leave them in the salt cure a shorter period of time but it would tax me lifting the hams in and out of the water and walking up a ladder each time to hang them from the rafters while the water was changed and then in and out of the top section of the smoker.

While I'm snapping pictures before heading to the corrals Kirk is finishing up the last side of bacon.

Yum! The bacons are out but the hams are still in the smoker. Looks like the wind is starting to pick up. They had better hurry. After the bacon cools we'll slice them. Kirk has to work again tomorrow so I may do it by myself tomorrow.

This pig butchering project goes on forever. I just finished washing greasy coats and clothes and I've still the Butcher Boy saw to wash down and then Kirk will cut up the hams after they cool. Then I'll wash the saw down again.

My granddaughter is eating pudding in the kitchen and Kirk is off delivering cakes I baked for a church function tomorrow. It was pretty easy to get him to run the errand when I told him I thought the yellow slip we'd gotten in the mail was my new bread cookbook I'd ordered, one for European style artisan whole grain breads.

Estrus Irregularities

I've been studying my goats and particuliarly Leta. She is quickly growing more round, definitely pregnancy. I fed her some beet pulp yesterday and when her head was down her belly was accentuated. A major shifting accured to the right, leaving her very lopsided and we know that tummies don't do that without help. End of April possibly beginning of May I figure for a due date but I'll have to look up her breeding dates to get a more accurate time table. And since I've been breeding her since Novemeber it puts a big question mark into the due date. She needs to start making some bag if it is going to be April but we'll see.
As for Pudge, I'm not sure. I'm leaning toward her being pregnant since she is a grouch about hopping on the milk stand and she is pudgier than normal. Chicory on the other hand is due to come in estrus today if she isn't pregnant. On th last possible estrus cycle we left for my mom's birthday party and so she could have cycled later that day or the next but she wasn't cycling when we drove off.

I took chicory over to the buck's fence across the way yesterday since I didn't want to misread that she was coming into heat. Time is of essence to get her settled. Nothing, they weren't interested in each other and Chicory didn't even wag her tail once. I'll do the same thing twice today and tomorrow to make sure. The young buck is much smaller than her in size being only just barely a year old and so whether she was covered properly is in question.

This whole goat estrus mess up has given me great pause to think. After Linda's comment that it could be copper that was causing the estrus cycle mess ups and sulfer that was causing Leta to creak in the knees I've been watching them closely and thinking. But I haven't had the opportunity to do any serious reasearch. I was having one of my not so good health days yesterday and so I had some down time and I spent it on the Internet looking for the symptoms of the lack of copper.

In adult goats they have a poor appetite, weight loss, diminished milk production, and sometimes diarrhea. A paler rough hair coat is often the most visible sign of lack of copper but how much paler can you get than white? That symptom was only going to do me any good if it happened with Chicory, the black Nubian. If you look at the picture you can see that a pale rough coat is hardly Chicory's problem.

Oh no! white around the eyes. Wait, I already have that Leta seems to say.

An inefficiency also causes white circles around the eyes. Well, my goats being white already have white circles around the eyes and all over the body. That wasn't going to help either. The part that caught my attention was that they sometimes have continual estrus cycles, short cycling, coming into heat repeatedly, and have trouble conceiving. That I could relate to. Though I now suspect Leta took the first or second time I took her to the buck, she continued to cycle. It also said that they will have delayed shedding of their hair coat but the animals are just now showing hints of loosing their winter hair so that symptom isn't much help yet.

The part that really concerned me was that they retain their placenta and the kids can have hoof deformities, bent legs, immune problems which includes pneumonia, mange, or other fungus type problems, and lice infestations. Now I suspect that Leta is pregnant, I have to get on the move to cure the problem before it is passed on to her kids.

Further study into goat nutrition led me to selinium which also can cause estrus cycling problems. As for the sulfer it did say creaking knees, and Leta's creaking is growing to the squeeky dry hinge stage. Worse than ever before. I figure I'll try to cover all the bases so I ordered some acidfied copper sulfate from the goat supply catalogue and I'm headed over today to pick up my oldest granddaughter so I'll stop by their feed store to survey the mineral salts. I think I'll also bring home a mollases lick tub. You know the kind with lots of mineral good stuff in it. It's suppose to be okay for goats and I figure molasses has sulfer in it. I've also got some good powdered vitamins for animals in the basement that I usually start giving about six weeks before the goat's kid so I'll start that.

Further more research says that older does have a tendency when they grow older to not be able to utilize our food efficiently. That's a no brainer actually since humans do the same thing and I've watched lots of horses, cattle, sheep, and goats grow less thrifty as they age. It just came as surprising wake up call when my dependable does started having trouble. I hadn't noticed how long I'd really had them until they had trouble and I looked up their ages. Chicory, the Nubian, is the new kid on the block being two years old next month and she looks great but my older does are obviously going to need some additional help. She can't help but get in on the program too as I'm not taking any chances with her.

If you're wondering yes, I'm still getting a new goat because I'm sure this will be Leta's last year. She didn't milk real well last year and she has never been as healthy as my other goats. Pudge can still stick around if she changes her attitude and straightens around health wise. Her days are numbered though being ten years old.

As I've thought back what I've done different leading up to the breeding season, the only thing was a change in where I purchased my hay. We had to buy some from a different rancher to fill in until ours was baled and then we spent a while using it up. Different ranch, different soil. I did notice a change in the condition of our goats on it but they were at that time getting grain and being milked. When the hay from our usual hay guy came, I combined the two, to up the goat's conditioning. Obviously I should of just switched and given the other rancher's hay to the beef and horse and not the goats. That new hay might of cost us a bit less but in the end it will cost us more with nutrient supplements and possibly trouble during kidding. It has definitely caused it's share of frustration.

When someone tells you goats can eat anything, they're ignorant. Goat's nutrition is simply different. They can eat things cattle, and horse can't and get by but the same can be said the other way around. My horse and beef did fine on the hay but the goat's lost weight. The neighbor's horses and cattle are eating it and doing fine.


So I'm doing a condition rating on my goats today and Ill let you know how they're doing. I can see Leta is drifting downward and I want to take the time and get my hands on her and really check her out thoroughly. Her protruding belly may be misleading me on the level of her condition. Our children showed goats, beef, sheep, pigs, and poultry at fair for the sixteen years when they were in 4-H or FFA and always did very well. You have to learn about conditioning to stay competative and we were pleased when judges publicly pointed out how well our animals were conditioned. I know what to look for in the different species but how to explain it to you I'm a little iffy on so I found a good explaination at the Washington State University site and I'll go take pictures to assist in my explaination. The conditioning also naturally changes during the different periods of pregnancy and lactation so different levels are exceptable at different times but that's information for another post.

Before I close, I want to say a big thank you to Linda for sending me on a new Internet search and pointing me in the right direction. I've found many blogs in different states that treated their goats routinely for copper insufficiency and one site said Arizona had lots of problems with it. I wouldn't know.

Oh there are other problems in this area of the country but copper difficiency I havent heard about. Selinium on the other hand is a Golilocks mix of too high, too low, and just right depending on what plot of land your referring to around the county. Earl, an old rancher use to say that if you have stock you'll never quit learning. He had been telling me about the year an unsettling number of his lambs were cyclomped, one eye in the middle of their head. It was traced back to a new kind of weed growing in abundance in the pasture. Wish I could remember what it was. Other years it would be something else that he'd never dealt with before and so it goes if you raise livestock you had better love learning.

Part II Animals and Tracks

It's that time again for round two of our book drawing, contest or whatever you call it. Remember you can enter twice once on last weeks blog post Part I Animal and Tracks and today on Part II. That will put your name in twice for the drawing of one of my favorite gardening books. For complete possibly confusing instructions go to the Part I post but really it's simple match the the animal with its corresponding number to its tracks with its alphebet letter and comment at the bottom of this blog with your answers or e-mail them to me at hollyrexroat@gmail.com. Go ahead and try. You only have to get one set right to be entered.
A hint so you don't have to scroll down and up so much, as you move down through the post write down the 1. Pronghorn Antelope and leave a space then scroll down to the next picture and write that down and so on. Then when you come to the tracks you are just filling in the blanks with letters.


1. Pronghorn Antelope



2. Percey, the barn cat


3. Me

If you get this one wrong I'll be shocked.


4. Common House Sparrows

5. Pudge, dairy goat

This is the only tricky one where you have to tell the difference between a Pronghorn antelope and a pudgy goat's foot prints but pudgy is the hint to the difference in the track in the snow.

6. Geese

Here we go with the tracks in the snow.

A.

B.

Don't be mislead by the macro view, these are tiny prints in the snow.

C. No one should get this one wrong even if you are a city slicker.

D. No this is not a rabbits two hind feet, we don't have one in this week's challenge. This is one hoof print. Oh, maybe I shouldn't have said that.

E. Now look carefully at D. and E. Remember I gave you a hint about these two earlier.

F.

It wasn't so hard now was it?

Stay tuned as they say for my seeds came in and so I'll be photographing for another chicken feed blog and we still have a few days of meat cutting photos. Today, I grind the Leaf Lard for rendering and smoke the sausages so I had better hop to it and get things done. Have a wonderful day and I'm looking forward to hearing from you.

Cutting Meat

It's the beginning of March and it's time to process the beef and the hogs. The most difficult thing in the whole job is to try and get Mother Nature to cooperate. The weather can't be too warm or the carcasses will not cool out and definitely not too cold or they freeze solid. That left last weekend out with the nights in the single Fahrenheit digits. Too bad since both our sons would have been available to help. So minus one son, this last Friday Kirk killed the two pigs and we removed their insides and hide, cutting them in half so they would properly cool. We then pulled the tarp off the Butcher Boy meat saw, set up the tables, and pulled out the equipment for the biggest work day, Saturday.

On the far left of the saw blade is the pork chop. The lighter meat just to the left of the saw blade is the tender loin. To the right is the bacon. The ribs are cut away from the bacon which is underneath them. We aren't fond of pork ribs even barbequed and so we slice the meat between the ribs and chunk it up for sausage.

Sometimes I wonder if it would be nice to just let the butcher do all the work but there is something about doing it yourself, your way, that makes the food taste so much better. I don't know if it's the gained appreciation of the product or if it really does taste better. I know we would miss the adventure of trying something new every time we cut up meat.

It doesn't matter if you are a consumer or raising the hog yourself, it's good to know where each cut of meat comes from and I don't mean which grocery store. Because at the grocery store you can have as many pieces of whatever cut you want but if you have only one hog some things just aren't happening.

I've heard from many a butcher that has had to try and calm the lady of the house down when he told her she can't have a grocery store selection of meat cuts from her one hog. For example pork chops, pork tender loin, and Canadian bacon from her hog in the quantity she desires.

Let me explain. We know we are going to get 29 - 3/4 inch thick pork chops from each side of the pig's back totaling 58 chops. If we want Canadian bacon then we aren't getting pork chops since they come from the same location on the hog unless we cut 29 chops off one side of the spine and make the Canadian style bacon off the other side. We've done that several times.

Now as for pork loin well, it's part of the pork chop. The pork chops toward the shoulder don't have the tender loin but the ones further back toward the rump do. So from one side of the spine it is feasible to get a few pork chops from toward the shoulder and a tender loin which is nearer the rump but you'll pay extra for the time the butcher spends dividing. We have also done this.

But you are not getting two tenderloins, 58 3/4 inch pork chops, and lots of Canadian Bacon too or you've got a hog with a really weird back that everybody wants the genetic make up to, including me.

This is a side of bacon that is cut off of the inside of the ribs. Our hogs were a little fat since we couldn't coordinate weather, my mom's birthday party, and time off to get the job done until they had gain a bit more weight than we'd of liked. Oh well, we're making lots of sausage.

This is one side of the hogs back. The hind quarters and shoulder are cut away. Note the leaf lard that hangs down on the inside of the hog. Kirk has his grey gloved hand doing the Vanna White thing showing you it's location. This long pieces of fat is called Leaf Lard and is coveted for making pies. I'll be showing you later how this stringy white thing turns into golden yummy pie crust but first we have to get the rest of the pig put into nice little white packages for the freezer.

The saw makes quick work of cutting up the large sections of meat but most of the process is still done by hand with a knife. The above picture is of Kirk cutting up a front shoulder into roasts.

This is Toby trimming the excess fat off the pork chops. It will be used in the sausage making which we did today and I'll be showing you in a couple days.

This is a cuber which we use on steaks that have no bone. These pork cutlets come from the hind end of the pig. So you can either have ham or you get pork cutlets. We make one hind quarter into ham and the other into pork cutlets. The white piece of machinery is a cuber. I've never understood why they call it a cuber since it doesn't cut the meat into cubes.

What's inside are these pieces of thin metal that act like knives and cut into the meat tenderizing it. We love this machine and use it when we cut up pork, beef, antelope, deer, and elk. I have some major TMJ joint problems but I get by very well chewing meat as long as it's tender. That is something we have some control over and the flavor mmmm...! Lots and lots of flavor which comes from the type of foods you feed your animals. You can taste the same cut of meat from animals that have been fed different diets and have a subtle to a fairly dramatic taste variance. Like eating deer off a sagebrush flats or shall we say not eating the deer since it ate off the sagebrush flats. Not even our dog when we had one would eat the deer who ate off the sagebrush. The deer who grazed off my dad's oat and alfalfa feilds on the other hand we couldn't get enough of. That's another reason why we like to raise our own meat. We get the flavor we desire.

But I forgot I was talking about cubers. My husband just cooked some sausage on the grill and was feeding me pieces while I type so you can see why I would get distracted and start talking about flavor. Now where was I? Oh yeah, some cubers are separate machines but ours is an atachment that goes with a meat grinder and they interchange on a motor.

This the motor with the meat grinder attachment.