Assembling Your Kidding Kit

So things are getting really exciting around here!  Daisy is less than 2 weeks away from her due date, and we are getting ready for the big arrival.  You see, this is an extra special event.  Not only do we dearly love sweet Daisy, but her's will be the first ever goat kids born on this farm.  That is special!  That is exciting!  We have so much to do to get ready!

I have been slowly gathering items for our kidding kit.  If you have goats, or any animals that have babies for that matter, it is a very good idea to have some items organized and ready to go at a moments notice.  Birth is unpredictable.  We make an educated guess at a due date, but all pregnancies and all mamababy's (no that was not a typo... the mother and baby are a single unit, of course!) are different.  Be prepared so you can be calm and fully present when the big day comes.

Now with that being said, I would like to explain my approach to the kidding kit.  If you do a search online you will find exhaustive and elaborate lists of items that one "needs" to have in their kidding kits.  Everything from milk replacements, to medications, shots, kid pullers, lube...  Even the more holistic lists I have happened upon have multiple types of supplements, washes, herbs, etc....  That's so not me!  I'm a minimalist and I have complete trust in the birth process.  When I chose to have my second baby at home, I opted to not create a birth plan, or even a back up plan in case of the need to transfer to a hospital.  My mind couldn't go there...  I did, however, prepare extensively to have a wonderful and peaceful home birth.  I put my energy into what I wanted, not what I feared.  So I'm taking a similar approach to preparing for kidding.

There are a few basic areas that you will want to make sure your kit covers.  Those are umbilical cord care, postpartum comfort for mama, cleanup, and a few "just in case" items in the event that you have to assist or a kid is feeling a little weak.  When you read up on kidding it seems like the most common complications in a goat birth are kids coming out in a not so perfect position, or a kid needing a little bit of extra love to "get going" after being born.  I'd like to be prepared for either of those things.

So without further ado, here is my kit:

Ta-da!

For umbilical cord care there is:

•  Goldenseal root powder - This is an excellent antibiotic herb that works very well to dry up the cord stump and guard against harmful bacteria.  Initially and every time I clean their cord in the following days, I will crack open a capsule, mix it with some water in one of the plastic cups, and invert the cup over the cord stump to make sure to evenly coat it.  Alternatively you can use a cotton swap to apply the powder directly to the cord.
• Unflavored dental floss for tying off the cord.
• 2oz plastic cups for mixing up the goldenseal/water solution. (note: I do not like plastic and have been keeping my eye out for appropriately sized and shaped glass containers to do this job.)
• Iodine - I DO NOT plan on using iodine.  It is rather harsh, and if the tissue is healthy it will actually damage the tissue more than it will help it.  HOWEVER, I did want to have it on hand just in case someone develops an irritated belly button or if the "break" is not so pretty.  It's all about weighing the pros and cons!
• Sharp medical scissors for trimming the cord if needed.  Usually the mama takes care of severing the umbilical cord, but you will want to have sharp scissors on hand just in case the cord piece still attached to baby is too long.  You want the cord stump to be about 2 inches long to minimize as much as possible the chance that it will touch the ground or poop.

For mama care (these items aren't pictured as they will be prepared that day):

• Warm cooked oatmeal with molasses and cinnamon. I will probably make this once it seems like she is in labor and put it in a hot food container to maintain it's temperature until she is ready to eat it)
• Hot herbal tea (I'm thinking a mix of raspberry leaf to encourage her uterus to contract back down to it's normal size, nettles to tone and provide iron, cayenne to moderate bleeding, and cinnamon for warmth and flavor).  I'll brew up two liters of this and put it in my Thermos to keep it hot.  Then I will mix it 50/50 with fresh water and a small splash of apple cider vinegar in her water bucket.  
• And the last item in this section isn't really tangible, but still important for mama's health.  First I will say, you should not impose your own repulsions onto your animals at the expense of their happiness and well being!  That's a fancy way of saying, let her eat her placenta if she wants to!  Don't scoop it up immediately and treat it like biohazardous waste.  It's hers.  Let her have it.  If after a little while she has zero interest in it, then by all means, dispose of it.  Keep in mind though that most animals feel compelled to consume their afterbirth.  Many believe that this a survival based behavior that evolved from the fear of predators smelling it.  Other's believe that there are vital nutrients that the mother needs, and hormone balancing compounds that help her adjust to motherhood and lactation.  Either way, let your doe satisfy her needs.  If her mama instincts are telling her to fear predators, then she needs to resolve that.  If she needs the nutrition and hormone balancing then you shouldn't deprive her of that.  Ok... that is all on that : )

For the "just in case" scenario:

• Elbow length gloves, for... you know.
• Olive oil - I knew that I did not want to use a petroleum based lubricant on my does, so I chose olive oil.  You can use most any type of natural oil though.
• "Flutter valve" nipples - Just in case a kid can't nurse right off the bat for whatever reason.  I have zero intention of bottle feeding babies, and if I do have to at any time I will give the baby goat it's mama's milk and colostrum.  All of our animals CAE negative, and so I have zero worries here.
• Cayenne Pepper tincture - This is an EXCELLENT supplement to have on hand for a number of first aid situations.  It is very effective at controlling bleeding, and works wonders at giving a little boost to a weak kid.  Cayenne is very warming and is loaded with B vitamins.  I love the tincture from Fir Meadow, LLC because it is in an apple cider vinegar base, and is of a very high quality.  Fir Meadow is an excellent source for herbs.

Cleanup Supplies:

• The straw bales in the photo are part of the kit too!  Some websites I have read suggest using things like puppy piddle pads or old feed bags to set new kids on immediately after they are born.  This immediately makes me think about a horse "breaking" technique I read about once.  Basically, the horse trainer rubs a piece of crinkly paper all over the young horse.  The sound and feeling greatly disturbs most horses, and they are considered "broke" when they are able to handle it.  Apparently this gets them to be easier to handle and used to being touched.  I guess just touching them often doesn't work the same or quick enough?  Anyways, I'll admit that I know very little about horses aside from the basic care and nutrition, but I'm choosing simply to have lots of extra dry straw on hand to replace any wet or soiled straw with.  This seems more comfortable to me for the babies and for mama who will be trying to clean and bond with her babies.   
• Cotton towels - Once mama is done cleaning her babies, and depending on what time of day it is, I may need to finish drying them off to make sure they don't get could.  

And there you have it folks!  A minimalist approach to kidding kits!  My hope, as always, is to inspire the belief in others that less is more.  Please, do not go spend hundreds of dollars on things that are unlikely to be used and will just expire or collect dust at the bottom of your supply cabinet.  If your animals are healthy and robust, then the risk of complication is low.  If I do encounter an emergency situation where assistance is needed, I believe that my kit covers that well without going over the top.

Good luck and blessings for the kidding season to you all!

Hay Feeder Make Over to Reduce Waste

I've said this before, and I'll say it again.  Goat's are picky eaters!  I swear!  No one ever believes me when I say this...

"Oh, but I thought goat's will eat anything?"
"Ya right, a goat tried to eat my shirt at the petting zoo."
"Oh really?  Then why did my goat rip apart that tarp, shred up my barn records, and then swallow my shoe lace?"

Ok, I get it.  Goat's chew on A LOT of stuff, but they aren't actually ingesting 99% of it.  I promise you!  Goat's are very oral.  Just like a baby likes to touch and grab everything with their hands and then shove it in their mouth and lick it, a goat explores their world by grabbing things with their lips, tasting it, and then 99% of the time, spitting it out.  They are also very determined... When they see something they DO want to eat, they will pretty much rip apart whatever is in the way.  Say for example a tarp that is covering a bale of hay... Or perhaps they have been presented with a flake of alfalfa but they just want to eat the leaves... Unfortunately, this behavior has given the impression that they will eat anything, and it also creates a lot of destruction and waste.  To further illustrate my point I have created a little inner monologue that might occur in a goat's brain at feeding time...

"Oooooo, alfalfa!  Yum, Yum, Yum, Yum!  Gimmee, gimmee, gimmee, gimmee!  Munch, munch, munch... Oooo wait a sec... That alfalfa leaf was way tastier than that alfalfa stem...  I'll just eat all of those first, and then I'll eat the stems later."  (This is where the goat proceeds to rip apart the flake of hay, discarding the stems and eating only the leaves.  They fill their belly and go about their daily business of grazing and meandering the pasture.)  "Ok, I think I'm ready for some more hay.  Oh wait, I already ate all the leaves, and now all the stems are on the ground.  I couldn't possibly eat something that has been on the, *gasp* GROUND!  No way, not even if my farmer walks over here, picks it up, and puts it back in my feeder will I even consider touching that foul ground hay!  She's just going to have to bring me an entirely new flake, and I'm going to sit here and yell at her until she does."

And that, my friends, it how it goes down... every day.  With hay prices in the $18-$21 per bale range in our area, I had to find a solution, and fast!  Hay waste is a big problem that many goat owners face.  I know one goat owner that doesn't ever put bedding down in his barn stalls because he knows that within one or two days the floors will be covered in wasted hay anyways.  Just look at all the waste in the feeding area's of our pasture!

<<<<  Not OK!

Not OK!  >>>>

So the other day, me and the hubs visited a ranch sale, and happened upon that big awesome hay feeder you see in that first picture there.  It's a large feeder designed for horses, and it is supposed to be mounted to another piece with a huge tray for catching waste, and long legs that raise it up to the horse's heights.  Thankfully the people at the sale were selling the two pieces separately so we only bought the rack piece.  We considered buying both but we would have had to cut the legs down to goat height, and we decided that having the waste catching tray was actually a bad idea because our goat's seem to always want to put their front feet up on things.  Since our pasture is rather steep, I could just see this thing toppling over on a goat.

So are you curious how much we paid for it?  $20!!!  So awesome, considering this single piece can rarely be found for less than a couple hundred dollars.  So the way we got just this piece of the feeder to work was by mounting some 2x6 wood pieces to the bottom to give it some stable feet to stand on. 

You can also see in the above picture that I made one other little modification to reduce hay waste.  Like I said above, this feeder was designed for large livestock, and so the rack bars have large spaces between them for a horse to fit it's nose through.  A goat certainly doesn't need that much space, and in fact will take full advantage of that room to pull hay out of the feeder and throw it on the ground (much like they were doing with the old hay feeder...).  So all I did was measure out a piece of some remnant no climb fencing that we had lying around that would fit on the inside of the feeder, and then used zip ties to secure it in place.  

The feeder has been out in the pasture for a couple days like this, and it's been working great!  The openings on the wire fencing are only 2"x4" and so there has been very little waste as the goat's can only pull out small bites at a time.  They really love to use the new feeder as a back-scratcher too.  Win, win!

So I hope that this little project of mine inspires you to seek solutions to your problems with frugality and creativity.  It is so unnecessary to buy everything brand new, and in fact so many people who are new to the homesteading lifestyle fall into the consumerist trap.  Be patient, go to ranch and garage sales OFTEN, scour online listings, and take a hard core look at something even if it's not 100% exactly what you need.  Often times there are quick fixes and/or modifications that can be made to make it perfect.  Don't get in over your head with any DIY project though!  Here are a few common sense tips when buying second hand farm equipment:

1.  Avoid serious rust like the plague, unless the item is 100% free and you are OK with having to replace it in the near future.  

2.  Always avoid worn edges that have become sharp or pointy even if the item is free.  You definitely do not want one of your kids, yourself or an animal getting hung up on that.  If you are a goat keeper you want to especially be mindful of anything that may potentially cause harm to an udder.

3.  Consider how and where you will mount the item (if it's that sort of thing) and make sure it is compatible with the type of fencing or walls you have.

4.  Be willing to haggle with people and/or ofter items for bartering!  Often times sellers price their items expecting to make deals with people.

Hope that's useful!  Enjoy!

Amendments for Your Forest Soil

This is going to be a short post... I honestly don't know much about how commercial potting soil is made.  I do however know that forest soil, like we harvested the other week, has so much rich organic matter and beneficial microorganisms that it doesn't need much, if anything, added to it.  So, I am going to approach this topic the same way I approach most things here on the farm: with frugality!  The things that I added to my forest soil were chosen because they were cheap and/or I already had some. 

First I'd just like to remind you what my beautiful forest soil looked like:

This is so very important to have fresh in your mind, because I don't want you going out and comparing what I'm writing here to some other blog post or article that describes creating potting soil from scratch.  WE ARE NOT STARTING FROM SCRATCH!!!  Just look at that stuff!  Forest soil collected in the way I described (see link above), is full of already composted organic matter and green waste, and is just LOADED with the microorganisms that commercial soil amendment companies attempt to synthesize.  If you chose to start your seeds the way I am doing this year, please know that you do not have to add anything to it.  You just might want to, to make it just a smidgen better, and to make sure that all the nutrients your veggies need are in there. 

I chose to add two additional ingredients.  Just two.  That is it.  And I would say that my amendments account for less than 15% of the entire mixture.  I added worm castings (vermicompost) which I got on sale at a local garden supply store, and kelp meal that I already had on hand. If you find that your forest soil is rather dense, sticky, and/or doesn't have many little pebbles, (indicative of high clay content) then you may want to add a small amount of sand to loosen it up, and help with drainage.  Use your best judgement and experience to come up with a mix that has a nice texture. 

Here is how I put it all together: 

I first found a large container.  You don't want to have to mix a new batch every time you sit down to start seeds.  I used an old 13 gallon trash can, and I hosed it out before I started.  Next, I added 6-8 inches of my forest soil, about 1 inch of the worm castings, and then a very generous sprinkling of the kelp meal.  Now it's time for the fun part!  Last, I dug my hands in and mixed it all up very well.  I continued in layers like this until my container was full. 

And there you have it!  Rich, nutrient dense and frugal seed starting soil!  Enjoy!

P.S.  Have you checked us out on Facebook yet?  We've got lot's of fun posts going up over there every day, and invite you to join us on this fun homesteading adventure!

Harvesting Forest Soil for Starting Seeds

I had a very interesting conversation today.  In involved commercial compost and potting soil, and human bio-waste.  That's all I'm going to say about that...

If you are like me, with a gigantic pile of unfinished compost at sowing time, you have been calling around to local garden centers and landscape supply outlets to ask about organic compost and seed starting mediums.  By now, it seems like most people are aware of the very misleading "organic" labeling on most bagged soil amendments.  For example, Miracle Grow brand "organic"potting soil has the synthetic fertilizer, ammonium phosphate, in it.  Right on the back of the bag, in the world's smallest font, it says that it is not to be used by certified organic growers.  Then to top it off, I had the aforementioned conversation.  Needless to say, I no longer had an interest in any type of commercially produced compost or potting soil.  You must even beware the compost created on site by landscape supply centers.  These composts are typically only made of green waste, then they just sprinkle on some compost activator and call it good.  Sounds harmless right?  Well, in most cases the green waste is dumped there by landscapers and tree trimmers, so you are at risk of introducing toxic pesticides and herbicides into your garden.  So what are you to do, when it seems like there are no options?  Look to nature.  She always provides!

When you walk around the forest, no doubt the ground looks like this:

I mostly have oak woodland around here, so you see lots of oak leaves and twigs.   The forest floor in a pine forest may look a little different than this photo, but that doesn't matter.  It is what's underneath that top layer of leaves (or pine needles) that you want.  When you scrape off that top layer of whole or only partially broken down leaves, you should find this:

 

Isn't that soil beautiful!  I found this black, rich soil only 6 inches down or so, right around the base of a large old oak tree.  I chose to harvest soil from around the base of a tree because there was a natural clearing where no plants where growing.  Often times the natural mulch around the trunks is too thick for delicate forest grasses to grow through.  When you hold this soil in your hands it is light, fluffy, and smells of the Earth.  It is teaming with beneficial microbes and nutrients.  Since it is from nature, and nature is a genius, it is sprinkled with lot's of little rocks which is great for aeration (read: one less thing you have to add to it!).  It is so ALIVE!!!  What could be more perfect for starting your seeds?   I took only what I needed!

 

When I was done, I thanked the forest for this bountiful, rich gift, and for saving me money!  I also took the time to cover my tracks and replace the top layer of leaves I had pulled back.  The forest soil is a precious resource to new plants and the animals that feed on them, and that top layer is there to protect it.

In my next blog post, I will show how I used this forest soil to start my seeds, and some things you can add to further enrich it and give your plants a great start!

UPDATE:  The post about turning your forest soil into a good seed starting medium is up on the blog!