Quick Update

I haven’t posted in a while, but I plan to start back up again soon. We’ve been busy lately trying to get all the goats bred. Last year was our first year breeding goats and the spring kidding went ok. We had a loss, but other than that, it was good. However, the goats bred for fall kidding did not take. The plan was for two of our Nigerian Dwarf goats to deliver in November, but neither one of them ended up pregnant. So, now all of our goats are bred for spring kidding. I brought on a new buck this last month and am hoping he can do a good job breeding our other buck’s kids for us. Our original does should be bred by our original buck, but we will see. I have someone coming out next week to ultrasound them and see who is actually pregnant.

Winter has decided to show up here in South Dakota so we spent most of the last week prepping everyone for winter. I believe we’ve got everyone situated right now and they should all be good for the cold temps that are coming. I am, however, starting to research and think about switching out chicken breeds. Some of our chickens, especially our roosters have pretty large combs. Last week our high was seven degrees. That is simply too cold for large combed breeds. I do have a few chickens that are Swedish Flower mixes and they have a little poof on the tops of their heads. I am really curious to see how they do since their comb is small and protected, but all of my roosters are normal single combs. The coop is warm and insulated, we will put heat in it when the temps drop well below zero, but I can’t help them much when they are walking around during the day. I am leaning towards bringing on a few Wyandotte colors and having a fun breeding program going, but I am looking at all winter-hardy breeds. Feel free to let me know if you have favorites. I will add, where we live, it gets well under zero, and we have really bad wind. The wind chill frequently gets into the double-digit negatives. Everything that lives here has to be exceptionally cold-hardy.

Lastly, we are cruising along in our homeschool year. I have a freshman and a 7th grader this year and it’s been a bit of a change. I miss the days of poetry tea time and doing all our subjects together. However, this season of life is amazing as well. I am still very thankful I get to make the choice to homeschool them and it’s working out well.

Until next time, I hope you all have a wonderful day and all your farm animals are staying warm.