Lambing season and piglets comming home

We had a very successful and happy lambing season this year. 49 sheep lambs and goat kids were born, 49 were healthy and lived (happily hereafter?). We sold all sheep lambs after a good start of two months with their mothers and to our big surprise we also managed to sell all billy goats. 8 promising goat kids stayed on our farm.

 Two months old, just arrived....

A week later, going outside!

And meeting the other family members.

Kids

It's a boy! Two boys.

First offspring of Driekus and Bep: two healthy billy goats.

Re-integration

Finally our billy goat Driekus has joined the herd again. We managed to reintegrate him in the group. Having grown up alone he is a some what anti-social goat.

Surprise

Our first goat is due at end of February so big was my surprise when I found this guy standing alone in our goat stable. It took me a few minutes to realise that a young yearling, gotten from a friend last Autumn, must have been in kid when we got her.

Green grass

It´s end November and all goats sheep and horses are still grazing green grass! It´s perfect to train Louisa our little bit too enthousiastic sheep dog. Every afternoon she brings home our free ranging goats. This week our first hay has arrived. We are getting slightly nervous of not yet having the ordered winter feed for 20 goats, 35 sheep and 2 horses....

Winter coat

Since three days it is cold outside. It always suprises me to see that animals, inspite of a lovevly warm Autumn, develop their winter coat. The goats start to look like polar bears again and also our daughter now wears a warm winter coat.

Black billy

In case that our young imported Saanen billy named Driekus would not yet be up to his job we got a young half nubian billy goat. We got him by exchanging one of our billies this spring. Luckily we did since most of our goats got back in heat after being mated by Driekus. It seems that Driekus was indeed to small to be able to do his job properly. This black billy wont stay so he didn't get a name, it then is easier to sell or eat him. We do not mind to eat goat meat but to eat 'Sarah' or 'Bep' would be very difficult.... It is hypocrite but it is how it is.

Goats vs Sheep

Goats have (taken) their freedom again. Since we have got permission to graze the Alfalfa field next to our meadows and they don't run away we are fine with this. Milk production has almost doubled! They walk great distances browse a bit here and there and enjoy being free-goat. Our sheep (and goat lambs) are still confined. They seem to accept this better than the goats. As long as they get their daily new pasture, fresh water and the weather is not to bad - sheep don't complain.

Upgrading - goats 2.0

Our Slovak local dairy goats are very robust, do not need to be fed cereals, have no problem with hot or cold weather and are never sick. On the other side they are off course far less productive than Saanen, British Alpine or Anglo Nubian goats. We would like to improve them a bit on the production side without changing the way we keep them. Therefore a billy goat lamb named Driekus was imported. He seems to have had some problems adapting to the harder Slovak conditions ... he has not yet developed the way he should. However he mated most of our older goats last weeks. We are really hoping this was succesfull.

Indoors

Finally indoors! We are now only milking our goats and we are milking in our milking stable. So no hot sun, cold wind or wet rain disturbing this pleasant moment anymore. We stopped milking our sheep since their daily production dropped below 400 ml (10 September). They are all also pregnant and only a year old - therefore some rest will be good for them.

Thuringer Wald Ziege

We got a new goat (breed) on our farm! We even hope to borrow a billy of this breed since our Driekus is a little bit to young to do his job this autumn.

With love from Holland

A billy goat with an excellent pedigree has joined us. Driekus came all the way from Holland to us. He was a gift of goat breeding camp site geusts! Of course he gets a special treatment - we have the impression that high productive dutch dairy goats are a less hardy then local Slovak goats. We hope he will be soon old enough to sire our ladies!

Animation team

Guests and our animals sharing company..

Milking

Pasture

All sheep and goats now share the same field. Goats have lost their freedom since the Drustvo (cooperative) asked if they could stop browsing their alfalfa field... Together they finish +/- 2500m2 pasture daily so we are moving at high speed over our fields. Goat kids have been weaned and half of the lambs of our sheep as well. Some have already moved to their new owners. They others are running around at our courtyard and ocassionally jump over the fence to make a disaster of our vegetable plot.

The new ones

We have over 30 lambs and kids so we weren't really looking for more animals on our farm. But sheep without a sheepdog ... a frustrating thing! Louisa is now controlling our herd, so sheep be aware!

And we swapped a castrated billy goat against a young lovely boy, to shire our goats this Autumn. We wished the new owner of 'Freek' 'bon appetite' or 'dobre chut' but she wasn't to sure when and if she could eat him...

Goats are enjoying their freedom, another four weeks till the start of the camping season when they will go into a fenced field.

Farm yard

Eight goat kids were born during the last two days and with nice sunny weather the whole group is outside with their mothers on our yard. We have a few days without sheep lambing so the goats can occupy the lamb pens at night.

Black & White

New home

Our third billy goat went to his new owner, we got a young goat with her kid for him in exchange. Quite a deal! He has a big herd of new ladies to take care of. And we are happy that he moved, his aggressive behavior wasn't appreciated especially for a guy of his size with big horns.