Living on a farm in Slovakia

Neighbours

2012-01-28T10:43:00.000-08:00

A good neighbour is better than a far away friend is a Dutch saying. We have wonderful neighbours! Look at the path they made to connect their farm with ours. No cold feet anymore to get to their place.

sheep and goat webinars

2012-01-28T10:23:00.000-08:00

We are again following a series of webinars from the University of Maryland - this Winter they are on Sheep and Goat Nutrition and Feeding. They are free and everybody can join... you only have to get up at 1.30 am once a week (at least when you live in Slovakia).
We are feeding alfalfa silage, grass hay and a commercial sheep concentrate (mainly cereals and a mineral mixture). We don't exactly now how balanced this is since our silage and hay hasn't been analyzed. However both goats and sheep are doing very well - growing bigger every week..... baby-watch has started - three weeks to go!

Our sheep eating alfalfa silage - they love it!

Winter (walk)

2012-01-21T05:19:00.000-08:00

A month ........ or two

2012-01-21T04:47:00.001-08:00

The ewe on the left picture has one month to go (look how her lovely udder starts to develop) and the one on the right picture has another two months to go - tiny udder but what a big belly! Will she get two babies?

Big friend

2012-01-18T01:10:00.000-08:00

This spring we bought a goat kid to get some better bloodlines into our herd. She turned out to be the smallest goat of our herd so not (yet) a real improvement. Being at the bottom of the social order she has become close friends with the biggest guy of the flock - our horse Trol. She sleeps next to him and eats the hay out of his mouth. Interesting since Trol is not at all such a big friend to most of our goats.

not a sausage?

2012-01-18T01:00:00.000-08:00

Without pigs of our own we risked not to have sausages this winter. When our friends had a half one for sale this 'problem' got solved. Lost of lovely Slovak klobassa are drying on our attic.

Big (before: very small)

2012-01-13T04:15:00.000-08:00

Big ladies with big bellies bearing big promises for the future. They have another 6-12 weeks to go before giving birth.

And on the left a picture how they looked just nine months ago (!) when they arrived on our farm.

New housing

2012-01-11T00:42:00.000-08:00

This is finally a picture of our sheep stable. We put a new part in front of the old one (first picture) so it is very deep and spacious. But since plenty of exercise is good for pregnant ladies they can also walk outside during the day.

Modern or ancient times?

2012-01-11T00:32:00.000-08:00

We bought a milking machine! Compared with hand milking we are now very modern! However some of you might remember old times when most cows were milked with this type of bucket milking machines.

Getting ready

2012-01-11T00:16:00.000-08:00

We are preparing for lambing season. Modular pens are build to be able to separate new born lambs and moms during their first days. Now the first two are occupied by our (unhappy) ram so that his girls get some rest and peace during their last weeks of gestation.
Yesterday I made a 'due date' calender for the sheep and goats. most of them will give birth in March but first are expected around the 19th of February.

Winter

2012-01-11T00:06:00.000-08:00

Number 62

2011-12-23T05:30:00.001-08:00

Our sheep with ear tag number 62 doesn't want o be just a number. She has decided to be different from the other sheep in our flock. She is smaller, the only one not in lamb an walks through the bars of the sheep's feed rack. To make this difficult she is now the only one wearing a wooden frame.

Goat family

2011-12-23T05:04:00.001-08:00

Svätý Mikuláš in our village

2011-12-11T08:59:00.000-08:00

Saint Nicholas came with his angels, devils and witch... This well known Saint in the Netherlands (Sinterklaas)also brings presents to Slovak children. A nice guy since he even made it to our village, you should expect him on his name day the 6th of December but I think he came all the way by foot because we finally met him today the 10th.

Winter work

2011-12-11T00:37:00.000-08:00

The year is advancing and in February 2012 we will start milking the first sheep of our herd. Arnold has been constructing a simple milking parlor and we even managed to find a second hand one/two sheep/goat milking machine! Our sheep seem interested but have decided that is not yet time to enter the milking parlor. The only one who wanted to climb the ramp is our ram.... We will have to explain to him that this new construction is for girls only!

Bonifacius

2011-11-18T06:57:00.000-08:00

Billy goats swapped, Titus gone to Northern Slovakia, Bonifacius has arrived. Greetings to his former owners who follow this blog and drove all the way to our 'end of the world'.

How do you catch a deer

2011-11-18T06:35:00.001-08:00

A deer got trapped in our electric fence, we had to cut three expensive electric-nets of his antlers to set him free. The whole herd of sheep and some goats were running free but easily found and directed back home. Now they have moved to their winter accommodation. Most are bearing and first lambs expected around February 19th. The yellow bums will be first followed by red and blue. We have seen 21 out off 22 mated therefore we expect between 20 and 30 lambs coming spring.

Goat cheese

2011-11-05T10:36:00.000-07:00

Goats are still milked and our chef cheesemaker is getting better and better in the art of making cheese! He now makes a type of Gouda cheese and a soft fresh variety. Yummy! And even people who disliked goat's cheese like what he makes. Slovak friends have asked if he could make cheese of their milk.

Two!

2011-10-30T09:58:00.000-07:00

Two years old and still 'driving' wheelbarrow.

Autumn colors

2011-10-30T09:18:00.000-07:00

Autumn has started coloring trees, grass, herbs and goats!

Breeding season (III)

2011-10-29T00:37:00.001-07:00

We got an e-mail from the breeder of our ram with the question if he is taking his job serious. He is! All but one sheep have been mated. He is now serving the other species in his herd ;-) What will we get out of this? Geep or Shoats?

Home made

2011-10-27T12:04:00.000-07:00

We met this nice man in a nearby village and we got invited to visit his wine cellar and to taste his lovely creations.

Tarmac!!

2011-10-13T05:45:00.000-07:00

Road work finished, we now have a higway-look-a-like path going to our house (and to our neighbours).

Back home

2011-10-05T07:23:00.000-07:00

Our billy-goat was on 'reproduction holiday' at a nearby farm. Very nice since we don't want kids very early when it is still cold and we also didn't want to have a smelly guy next to one of our camp site fields! Now he has six weeks to ensure that we will get kids with nice floppy ears and more interesting colors. After that he will move on to a new home again.

Road work

2011-10-02T11:16:00.000-07:00

Some Dutch visitors tell us that life in Slovakia is cheap compared to Holland. May be, we pay less tax, incomes are however much lower not to say that pensions are too small to live of and if the road is in bad condition you have to repair it with your neighbours. Our road was really in a bad state and since camping season is over our neighbour took the lead to mobilize all 4 house owners to start working on it. So far 12 trucks of stones, 10 with loam and 1 with gravel have been loaded and unloaded. Most work is done by hand, all neighbours participating. A formula, taking into account frequency of use and financial means have been worked out to divide the costs among us.

Some girls just have fun

2011-10-02T10:34:00.000-07:00

Constructing winter accommodation

2011-10-02T10:22:00.000-07:00

With an increasing number of animals we need more winter accommodation for them - or is it for us because we humans don't like to feed our animals in the snow! Goats and horse will be in a half open shelter, sheep will get a large open front stable.

Staying

2011-10-02T09:38:00.000-07:00

Since ten days our horse is putting his best foot forward. He finally starts acting as a grown up horse not the adolescent he used to be. We had put an advert on the net to sell him, not seeing the use of him at our farm or campsite. But now he starts to earn his residence permit. We are teaching him to pull objects, so he can be used to drag wood logs out of our forest.

I also go on daily rides with him, which is with autumn coloring the forest around us something magical. Today we met a large group of mouflons and a lonely fox...

Breeding season (II)

2011-10-01T11:11:00.000-07:00

Working hard to get us a nice crop of lambs next spring, our new ram is doing his job.

Killing a tree

2011-09-30T11:03:00.000-07:00

It was an old and sick one, however it is still terrible to cut a tree. The biggest cherry tree is gone - making space for our new sheep fold.

Breeding season (I)

2011-09-24T23:50:00.000-07:00

We got our ram! Arnold collected him by car in the Czech Republic. "Don't they have good ones in Slovakia?" you might wonder. They do, however few Frisians and we suspect most of this breed to be related to our two Frisian ewes. So fresh blood had to be imported from the other site of the border. He is a half year old but already ready for 'his job'. He is wearing a harness which enables us to fix a piece of colored chalk on his chest. Now we daily note which sheep have a colored bum to know when to expect his first offspring. This morning we counted six yellow bums!
I just calculated the expected lambing dates with this tool: lambing calculator +/- 19 February 2012.

In typical Slovakian range sheep operations ewes usually do not get in heat the first year and thus first lambing occurs at two years of age. We however want to achieve that most of our ewes lamb for their first time at one year. This requires a higher level of management and feeding than if ewes are handled more traditionally. Breeding an ewe as a lamb will increase her lifetime productivity significantly.

Ewe lambs can be mated successfully without negative affects on future reproductive performance providing they achieve a threshold body weight within the breeding season. In general, ewe lambs must weigh approximately 65 percent of their mature body weight at the start of the breeding season in order to insure a high percentage of them breeding. With good management, this should produce conception rates of 75 to 90 percent. We hope to get at least 20 out of our flock of 22 lambing next spring.

Lazy

2011-09-23T00:23:00.001-07:00

'Lazy' is not only the name of our campsite. In Slovak it means something like 'rural place'. In/on Lazy live Laznicks 'rural people' which is something like a 'boor' but for those living there (including us) also a proud nickname.
In/on Lazy life is pure and can be rough, it is not like some of those 'Country and living' or 'Landleven' (Dutch) magazines delude of country life. You wont find design benches and wrought-iron gates, flower arrangements and tables set with the right crockery.
Living in Lazy is about growing potatoes, chopping wood for long and cold winters, milking at five in the morning, eating your own produce, not being bothered by fashion or interior design, often some poverty but also a certain freedom. After ten years working in a environment where careers and politics where more important than people and solidarity we longed for a different lifestyle. Being Laznick suites us. Maybe it is just a phase but at present I cannot imagine returning to that part of the society where I was supposed to fit in.

Growing

2011-09-12T09:43:00.000-07:00

This month we will collect theit husband in Czech Republic!

Thanks!

2011-08-24T04:59:00.000-07:00

Our goat mow grass, produce kids, milk and entertainment. They have earned their weight in gold this year!

Rural campsite

2011-08-04T08:27:00.001-07:00

With 14 occupied pitches by 44 satisfied guests - camping season is going great. And since we have 100.000m2 land every body has a super large place for his tent or campervan.

Water

2011-07-09T11:41:00.001-07:00

We got a new well drilled. We now have the highest quality clean spring water. Great for our camp site and Katinka's swimming pool.

Trol

2011-06-30T08:12:00.000-07:00

In his shiny summer coat!

Katinka

2011-06-30T08:06:00.001-07:00

Baaaaah baaah sheep

2011-06-30T07:57:00.000-07:00

Farm?

2011-06-22T06:41:00.000-07:00

We grow a lot of tourist! They do eat our vegetables, eggs and cheese - so we still do farm (not only tourist).

We also grow trees ;-) and weeds :-(

Garden - beginning of the Summer

2011-06-07T02:01:00.000-07:00

Last weeks flowers start to become fruits! Peas, Courgettes (summer squash), broad beens, beetroots, carrots will be ready soon. Now we have new potatoes (!!!!), mangetouts, spinach, lots of lettuce, rucola, onions and russian kale on our plate.

Flowers and fruits

Cabbages and kale (savoy, russian, red, brocolli)

Working the twig

2011-06-05T11:29:00.000-07:00

We would like to have a second source for water since we use a lot with our campsite. Our neighbour knew a good dowser, mr. Guten, a man who has the gift to work with the twig in search of water. This is the method still used to find subsoil water sources. We also worked with dowsers in Africa. I still find it amazing to withness!

Mr. Guten could indicate water sources, but also their depth and expected output. To my big surprise he told me that I also might have this skill - since I am of blood type O. But I did not tell him my bloodtype! When I tried to estimate the dept with a water bottle on a string it swung the other way around - logical since I am rhesus negative........

At the last picture you see Katinka practising it with some wooden sticks :-)

Gardens like sunshine

2011-05-30T11:25:00.000-07:00

Last year our vegetable garden was a nightmare - too much rain and no sun. Now we haven't had a drop in weeks but we can use our pond to water our garden. Everything is growing very well! Lettuce and spinach are on our plate several days/week. Soon we can add mangetout and broadbeans. Potatoes are also doing great. One of our guests said he hadn't seen such beautiful potato plants as ours this year - and he used to work in the agricultural sector. Since we had some very cold nights I did cover the plants with a thick layer of hay, luckily they survived. I make fun of my Slovak neighbours waiting till May before planting them, If mine would have died from night frost they wuld have had a nice laugh!

Fish

2011-05-30T02:05:00.000-07:00

"Within an hour we catched more than 30!" - should you believe what fisherman say when you haven't withnessed it yourself? Arnold finally went fishing with our neighbour. And I have to admit, lots of fishes came out off the bucket.

morning duties

2011-05-22T23:12:00.000-07:00

We get up at five; to feed our sheep and put then on a new field, milk our goats, clean the camp site toilets and showers (with out being in the way of our guests), walking the dogs, doing some household duties and than, finally, coffee!

to be milked (urgently)

the young ones

sleeping campsite

our horses says 'good morning' - we have started training him again, he will be lovely with camp site kids this summer!

sheep have breakfast

Great multi-functional wheelbarrow

2011-05-19T11:46:00.000-07:00

Thanks Hans and Margreet! For this great off-the-road buggy sometimes also used as wheelbarrow.

voor tante Ans

2011-05-17T12:41:00.000-07:00

Camping season

2011-05-17T10:20:00.001-07:00

Camping season has started so no time to take pictures or to post anything on this blog....... because we also have a tree nursery to weed, goats to milk, milk to make cheese of, sheep to take care of, a horse to train, and a lovely girl!

just some impressions;

This is our own bedded tent (rent-a-tent) isn't it a beauty?

Better late than never

2011-04-27T11:55:00.000-07:00

Finally our last goat kidded, a buck and a doe from our Anglo-Nubian billy goat. The boy has floppy 'aeroplane' ears and the girl hasn't! Strange since they are both Nubian x Slovak shorthaired white goat crosses... It will be the first billy of the year not to be castrated because we will try to sell it for breeding.
Our little 'inbred' billies have left our farm, one went to friends and the second has gone to the happy grazing grounds (and/or our freezer).

Easter on our farm

2011-04-24T10:15:00.000-07:00

Lubos from the great website Slovak Cooking writes about easter in Slovakia in his newsletter;
It’s not Easter bunnies or chocolate eggs hiding in a bush. In Slovakia, Easter Monday is celebrated by guys chasing girls around with a whip (a switch) made off willow branches (korbáče) and also pouring buckets of cold water on them. And as a sign of gratitude, girls reward the boys by giving them beautiful hand-decorated Easter eggs, chocolates, liquor, or even money. What an awesome traditions! Ok, perhaps some girls will disagree with me.

Easter at our place was with lambs going outside for the first time. Very exiting for them (and for me more frightning than exiting). In Holland some farmers give tranquillizers to calves going outside for the first time. I now understand why! A group of over exited young animals don't see any fences or barriers. So we are starting slowly, everyday a few more minutes.

They grow very well, more than 300 grams/day. - And this is the most beautiful girl of all.

Very busy

2011-04-20T12:00:00.000-07:00

With great wether, camping season to start soon, gardening season started and lots of young live on our farm we are rather busy!

However we got help from our new electrician, if she is not too busy playing in her sandbath, she assembles the elctricity for our campsite.

Lambs are doing well, eating, growing, getting used to their new environment. Goats are less happy, they have lost complete freedom till at least end September. We fenced a field around our pond for them.

The garden is, although it is very dry, doing fine. Potatoes are sprouting, peas have germinated, spinach too and was then eaten by a chichen :-(, red beets, lettuce, onions have surviced chicken attack.

And last but not least - our road is about to be finished! We have been scooping many cubic metres of gravel on the stone-filled tracks.

Deer

2011-04-10T11:13:00.001-07:00

This late afternoon a nice herd of red deer in our 'garden', normally we have fallow deer around our house. They were much shyer and ran away before I could take a close-up picture.

Breeding and keeping livestock

2011-04-08T11:28:00.000-07:00

Cutting tails with a knife, piercing ears, castrating without anaesthesia, trowing with young animals, weight them bij binding a string to their front legs and hang them on a scale in the air, not feeding them enough because feed is expensive..... this all might be normal to certain farmers, it is absolutely not normal to us.
We now have a stable full of lambs, slowly getting used to their new home... I would like to fully feed them but for now we are careful not to overfeed them with concentrates since they are not yet used to that. Clean water, good hay, some concentrates, fresh air, love and attention hopefully get them over being separated from their mothers and some rough handeling.

Animals

2011-04-08T11:25:00.000-07:00

On the left side stork on the right side (our) goats.
Click on the picture to enlarge.

Harrowing

2011-04-08T11:12:00.000-07:00

We still get questions from people in Holland if they do have tractors overhere - in western Europe we do think that fields are still worked with horse and plough.

Barter trade

2011-04-04T23:57:00.000-07:00

I exchanged our geese for chickens and pigeons. The geese didn't do what they were supposed to do; keep our Christmass tree field free of weeds. They didn't stay within the fence - prefered total freedom. Understandable but with a campsite not practical. They do shit a lot and make too much noise in the mornings. Sleeping guests would be awake before six o'clock. Not really what you like when you're on holiday.
So I did put an advert on a Slovak website: 4 geese to be swapped against chickens or pigeons. Or any other interesting offer. Please send me an e-mail.
So I got several phonecalls and strange offers; fishing rods and enamel pins (?), money and finally somebody called with chickens and pigeons. So finally we got chickens on our farm, six bantams, laying 6 eggs a day so far, and a couple of Slovak pouter pigeons.

Blessed

2011-03-29T12:21:00.000-07:00

Today we collected another pure East Friesian lamb for our future dairy sheep herd. It commes from the Kovac's familly farm in Zarnovica Huta. Being a month older than the other two she is bigger and already got the obligatoiry but ugly ear tags. We parked our car in the village and walked to the farm in the hills since still had the small and steep mountain path in our memory from our first visit. Also the tiny bridge we crossed with our car which I never imagened it could be crossed by a vehicle...

Sheep and lambs at the Kovac's farm. Raised with love and skill!

Home at it's new home!
And soon we hope to collect the 20 Lacaune lambs in Kremnice Bane...

Garden

2011-03-27T12:49:00.000-07:00

One kilo of white and yellow seed onions, more than 150 garlic cloves, some red beets seeds, peas, mange-touts and broad beans have touched our soil. Two weeks earlier than last year: Belana, Magda and Vera, covered with a thick layer of straw and hopefully our neighbours will again not notice that I did plant potatoes before Ice Saints (half May!!). We love early potatoes so it is hard to wait another 8 weeks before local traditions and beliefs allow us to put our first tubers into the soil.

Spring!

2011-03-22T13:29:00.000-07:00

Trees

2011-03-21T12:11:00.000-07:00

The tree plantation regularly needs attention. When the snow finally was gone we cleaned/mulched the whole field and applied fertilizer for the first time. Now they are ready for another growing season - and at least six more years to go in Slovakian soil.

Will be green

2011-03-21T12:03:00.000-07:00

Certainly within two weeks time it will be green. Trol our horse is dreaming of it (and we too).
The winter was long, dark and cold. Not my thing... Depressing. Maybe I live in the wrong country - somewhere with a Mediterranean climate would be nicer. However here we can own a farm with land and livestock while elsewhere we would have to do with a stamp-size garden if any... Hot summers make up for cold winters - so let 2011 be warm and dry.

Together

2011-03-21T11:04:00.000-07:00

The goats go on long walks during the day in search of young green grass. In the early evening the return home by themselves and gather in front of their open stable. When the evening falls I separate them from their kids to be able to milk the does in the morning.

Growing up

2011-03-18T13:20:00.000-07:00

Our little lambs are getting bigger. Growing more than 300 grams daily and playing in the garden... waiting for the others to arrive!

Spring

2011-03-18T13:15:00.000-07:00

Last week, lovely sunny days!

Meat man

2011-03-10T09:09:00.000-08:00

We have met Stefan who lives on a farm nearby which we visited last weekend. He has worked some time in Holland in a slaughterhouse. He also butchers cattle and other livestock for farmers over here. It is a nice guy and great to know somebody with this kind of expertise......
He wants to borrow our billy goat this autumn which is great since we would like to get kids a bit later next year. So first billy will do his work at Stefan's place before returning home somewhere in October/November. Stefan is heating his goat stable! We saw little kids sleeping next to his wood stove while ours are walking outside in the snow.

Dairy man

2011-03-10T08:41:00.000-08:00

Monique, Katka and Arnold went on a cheese making course in Velky Blh at 'Farma Kozinka' were they learned to make a large variety of Slovak cheeses. This is a spaghetti-like fresh cheese; a typical Slovak cheese snack and it will certainly be made on our farm this summer (pictures: Monique Smets). We have actually started to milk our goats again this morning. The first batch of kids is now a month old and they are separated at night from their mothers in order to be able to milk them in the morning. During the day the herd grazes on the hills not far from our home. Between the brownish dry grass nice green leaves have started to appear.

Hungry wildlife

2011-03-04T23:43:00.000-08:00

Deer are now coming out of the forest and are regularly seen grazing on our fields. Last night a hungry fox must have visited our fenced yard, one of the geese is missing.

The boys on the sofa

2011-03-04T12:18:00.000-08:00

East Friesian

2011-02-27T11:11:00.000-08:00

One of worlds best dairy sheep is the East Friesian. It is like a Holstein cow, when it is kept under good conditions it can produce lots of milk. However it will not thrive when it receives low quality feed and is not properly looked after. Few sheep of this breed can be found in Slovakia where most sheep are kept rather extensively.

We would like to have a flock of these beautiful animals but it is hard to get them in Slovakia. Dolly and Molly and hopefully 2 or 3 more lambs will be the beginning of a larger flock. Dolly and Molly are doing very well, they gained 1.5 kg each within one week. With the goats and their kids outside, they got a larger stable and more space to run and play.

The East Friesian is considered to be the heaviest milking breed of sheep in the world, analogous to the Holstein cow. In fact, The East Friesian was developed in the same region as the Holstein, the Friesland area of Germany and Holland. The average milk production of the East Friesian can exceed 1,000 lbs. of milk during a 220 to 240-day lactation. East Friesians are efficient lamb producers. Mature ewes average more than two lambs per lambing. Even yearling ewes are capable of producing 200 percent lamb crops. East Friesians are docile and adapt well to intensive parlor milking systems. They are a higher maintenance breed. Source: Sheep 201

Lacaune

2011-02-27T10:27:00.000-08:00

This picture of a Lacaume sheep and it's proud owner is one of the amazing and beautiful pictures of Yann Arthus-Bertrand; animals and a magnificent collection of areal photos (la terre vue du ciel).

Lacaune sheep produce milk for the world famous Roquefort cheese. It is a French breed which has been intensively selected to improve it's milk production. It has also been imported to Slovakia and certain breeders in Slovakia go every year to France to buy new rams since good dairy sheep are of high value over here.
We have been to a sheepfarm yesterday, and we have reserved 20 lambs for our new flock! They will be old enough to be weaned and transported to our place at the end of March.

The Lacaune is a French breed of dairy sheep. In France, the Lacaune breed has been rigorously selected for improved milk production. Annual genetic improvement for milk yield is 2.4 percent. As compared to the East Friesian, the Lacaune is a hardier breed of dairy sheep. They give birth to fewer lambs and produce less milk, but their milk is higher quality, giving better cheese yields. The Lacaune has very little wool. Its head, legs, and a good portion of its belly are bare. This lack of wool is advantageous when it comes to milking. Source: Sheep 201

Kids

2011-02-27T08:44:00.000-08:00

Brother and Sister

2011-02-27T08:41:00.000-08:00

Boy and not-boy

2011-02-27T08:24:00.000-08:00

One of our latest kids is a hermaphrodite - it has no penis, no vulva but an opening where you would normally expect it's balls. This is not because of inbreeding but caused by crossing a polled (hornless) goat with a polled billy-goat. The other kid of this twin is a billy-goat (or was since I do castrated all the billies).

Boxing day

2011-02-27T06:55:00.000-08:00

Road work part III

2011-02-20T06:31:00.000-08:00

I cannot and do not want to recall when we started with working on our road. We finally got eight truck loads of stones which we filled the dug out tracks with. Yes, by hand with only the use of a wheelbarrow. Quite a job...
Now we can go to the next level, putting gravel on top of it. Then the earth needs to be removed and our road will be finished. We sincerely hope this to happen before the 1st of May...

Bottle-feeding lambs

2011-02-20T06:13:00.000-08:00

We got the lamb's milk! Mr. Roháček from Milki S.R.O. supplied us a bag of the right stuff for feeding lambs. No homemade recipes anymore. Quite a relief since we certainly don't want anything to go wrong with these lambs.
Dolly amd Molly are doing very well on it. We still keep them under a heath lamb since it is again freezing cold.

Exploring

2011-02-20T03:29:00.000-08:00

Kid 4 and 5

2011-02-16T05:51:00.002-08:00

Today two kids came out of the huge bulging belly of ten month old Tita. Last Autumn I haven't seen her in heath so it was a surprise when the kids would come and who had sired her. Clearly Smurdy our white billy-goat is the father of these two all white baby goats. Because of inbreeding they wont stay for ever with us. Now the lambing stable with 5 kids, 2 lambs and 3 adult goats is rather full. But it has snowed again so they will all stay inside for a few more days.

Paradise

2011-02-13T23:48:00.000-08:00

Maybe paradise is all these things: a garden, an enclosed park, the memory of mother's milk or a golden age. Maybe the Garden is within or exists in the holiness of daily labor, the body making food for itself; or maybe it surrounds us every second if only we open our eyes.
Could it be that the dheigh at the root of the word paradise was, in fact, a dairy? A place where people learned to milk other animals?

From the book I am reading at present:
Goat Song, A Seasonal Life, A Short History of Herding, and the Art of Making Cheese - by Brad Kessler (page 132)

GWNs

2011-02-13T06:06:00.001-08:00

More baby goats! A twin (m&f) from the same mother but I do think they have different daddies... No names yet, this year they will all be Goat Without Names (GWN) till end of March when our goat-naming-competition gets a winner and the goats finally their names.

Dolly and Molly

2011-02-13T05:57:00.000-08:00

Natural versus Artificial - Abnormal versus Normal

2011-02-13T02:32:00.000-08:00

We get lambs! Arnold left this morning to collect them, I am waiting excited at home for his return.
Two pure East Friesians with a pedigree from Slovakia’s best breeder mr&mrs Kovac! One of their ewes has rejected her two female lambs and they have offered them to us. We very happy since it is extremely difficult to get lambs from East Friesians in Slovakia. It is the most productive dairy sheep breed you can get.

However now we have to artificially rear them and in our area you can't get special lamb milk. Sheep milk is not for sale yet since it is the beginning of the lambing season and here it is normal not to separate lambs from their mothers during the first two months. At two months or 12 kg the lambs are weaned and sold to Italy and the ewes are milked for a few more months. The milk is use to make delicious sheep cheeses.

It is not recommended to feed cow milk to orphaned lambs since sheep milk is much richer. But if you have nothing else you can try to make your own lamb milk from it by enriching it. We keep our fingers crossed that they wont get stomach problems since natural sheep milk is of course much better for them.

Luckily we have the bottles needed for artificially rearing these lambs. We got them as presents when our daughter Katinka was born. Like we got several dummies. Apparently with human beings it is normal to rear your child artificial. Although the official WHO recommendation is to breastfeed for two years in the western world it is considered abnormal and almost obscene. Katinka still gets mum’s milk if she wants, because it is natural and normal! It is the healthiest drink she can get, it comforts her when she is upset and she loves it.

So now we have found a use for the bottles, any suggestions on what we should do with the dummies?

New life

2011-02-11T00:41:00.000-08:00

First kid of the year. A beautiful all white female. Not being named yet since we hold a competition for our campsite; the person who comes up with the nicest name wins a week free camping. If you want to participate, go to our campsite website and use the contact form to submit a name.

We are also still following the series of webinars on managing ewes and does from late gestation through weaning. Very interesting since we are now in the middle of it (expecting more kids very very soon) and especially since we want to go into commercial dairy sheep business.
Yesterday we learned that you should clip, dip, strip and (make-) sip. Something we have always done so we will continue this;
- clip umbilical cord if it is to long
- dip it with betadine
- strip some milk from the udders to remove the wax plug and be sure that the doe/ewe has milk
- be sure that you see the kid/lamb sip some milk within the first 30-60 minutes and if not you should assist it

This kid came at night so when checking the stable in the morning it was a lovely surprise. She is doing fine and at three days old already starts to chew on hay and other solid food.

Stray dog attack

2011-02-04T10:48:00.000-08:00

Two stray dogs entered our farm and attacked one of the geese. I don't want to think what might have happened if they would have attacked our heavily bearing goats. They now sleep inside at night also because first lambs might come within a weeks time.
It is the first time I have seen big strange stray dogs roaming around on our land, this is not something which is socially accepted in rural Slovakia; to let your dog run free and bother other peoples livestock.

Extraterrestrials

2011-02-04T10:40:00.000-08:00

Go out for lunch

2011-01-30T02:26:00.000-08:00

When it is freezing and the soil is covered with snow (so no contamination) I feed the animals their hay outside, just for variation to safe them from boredom. They also got trimmings of willow to nibble on. I think they are also longing for the spring with fresh green grass.

And the heating is on

2011-01-28T23:50:00.000-08:00

The cold has returned. So no digging or other outside jobs. I went through my vegetable seed collection to select this year varieties. Nice job with this kind of weather.

I made my selection of this year's peppers and tomatoes.
- Garderner's delight cherry tomato
- Caro rich orange tomato
- Marina the earliest and tasties red tomato
- Habanero hotter than hot pepper
- Kalocsai Hungarian hot pepper
- Alexander sweet red pepper
- Slovakia sweet green pepper
- Sweet pickle medium hot pepper (yes for pickles)
A nice short list of great varieties!

Animal Farm

2011-01-27T07:31:00.000-08:00

Katinka likes animals, living ones, in her books or toy animals. She is showing her book to Zoef who doesn't really seem to be interested....

Gardening season 2011

2011-01-21T08:32:00.000-08:00

The gardening season has started. I am digging (again), spreading manure on the future vegetable beds and I did put a new fresh layer of compost in the cold frames. Two scoops have already be broken, our friend Stano will of course weld them for us. It is nice to see how the soil is improving every year thanks to adding organic matter, minimum tillage and no tractors compacting the soil.
This year's crops will be more oriented towards the needs of our campsite guests. A common joke is that Dutch tourists always travel with a sack of potatoes in their caravan. Because they are afraid of not finding the right potatoes for a decent price abroad. No need for this when they come to our campsite!

Training

2011-01-17T06:30:00.000-08:00

Last month of gestation

2011-01-17T06:22:00.000-08:00

Last week I followed a webinar on late gestation management of does and ewes. It focused a lot on feeding the individual animal according to it's needs.
The kids gain +/- 70% of their birth weight during the last six weeks of the gestation period, therefore animals bearing twins/triplets and those kidding at < 12 months of age needs lots of energy. I am feeding our best hay at present and supplementing our youngest goat Tita with a daily portion of wheat.

The young ones

2011-01-17T06:16:00.000-08:00

I am still wondering if Titus will be the father of Tita's babies. Maybe I can tell in about 2 weeks time?

Farm visit (3)

2011-01-13T04:03:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we visited the Roziak family who have meat and dairy sheep, make cheese and sell their own meat. Thank you Family Roziak for sharing information and inspiring us to go into the sheep business.

Late evening attack

2011-01-13T03:43:00.000-08:00

This happens when you lock up your geese a bit (too) late. However I was just in time to save this female from being fox's dinner.

Cars and girls

2011-01-13T03:36:00.001-08:00

Late

2011-01-13T01:57:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I am a bit late with adopting new technology. I haven't yet embraced the so called 'social media' like Facebook and Twitter. Tonight I will experience something new (for me) in the age of the internet. I will participate in a webinar on late gestation. This webinar will focus on the feeding and management of the pregnant female (sheep/goat) during her last month of pregnancy. I am very curious how this will be. Haven't been participating in seminars or collages for at least two years because of living - how will I say it - at the end of the world. If this webinar-thing works fine I will be going for many more. Never too old to learn more about livestock management.
It will be a long night..... the webinar is scheduled in the evening in the USA so somewhere after midnight in Slovakia.

First signs

2011-01-10T04:57:00.001-08:00

I am keeping eye an our youngest goat - just 9 months old but having a belly like an hippo. I missed her first heat but clearly one of our billy goats hasn't. Today I noticed that her udder starts to develop. How many more days? I wish she could tell me, I certainly do not want her to kid outside or in the crowded stable.

Growing Christmas trees or weed management..

2011-01-10T04:43:00.000-08:00

Managing weeds is one of the main issues when growing Christmas trees. Our Nordman trees especially need attention in this field since they are slow growers and weeds aren't. Last season weed management was a failure. Too much other things needed our attention. With snow slowly disappearing our trees are slowly reappearing. No signs of frost damage or or having suffered from being slightly overgrown. However next year weeds will be kept under control with Arnold's weed terminator mowing machine.

No news continued...

2011-01-08T07:11:00.002-08:00

I found some nice goat/sheep websites I like to share:
- The Dairy Goat Journal
- a series of doe/ewe management webinars!

No news just cold and white

2011-01-08T06:39:00.000-08:00

Nothing interesting enough to post is happing but with between 50 and 700 (!) visitors/day I sometimes feel more or less obliged to post something on this blog.

We are working on the PR of our campsite, soon Arnold will go to the Netherlands to participate on a 'rural tourism fair'. We will also have a bedded-tent for rent on our camping next year and it is already rather popular to our pleasant surprise.

This Year we will also collaborate with two other small and 'green' campsites. I have made a nice website (sorry in Dutch only) Rondje Slowakije.

With my niece in the Czech Republic we will organize some interesting camping trips for owners of caravans (mainly Dutch so again a Dutch website: AHOJ Kampeerreizen.

So lots of computer work: making new flyers, banners, posters and websites.