A kiddley divey too, wooden shoe?

Our Facebook followers know that things are hoppin' at el Rancho,. some good, some bad.

On Saturday the 8th, we arrived at el Rancho thinking we might have kids. Sadly, we found Red, a young doe bought at Navasota Auction, dead. No apparent trauma, illness or injuries. She was the loudest goat, always looking for attention. On Friday, she had been particularly clingy and, looking back, unloud. We did not do a necropsy, but sent Red to Valhalla on a pyre of yaupon and mesquite. Best I can figure is she ate something, ate too much of something, or just died. With the sale of Stupid, we were now at 16 goats.

On Sunday, the Dans began building a large shelter for the critters, one tall enough for the donkeys. While they drilled and bolted and nailed, I took the goats to the round pen and trimmed feet. It sure is a long row when many of them had feet that had never been trimmed, so I am doing them in stages. In the afternoon, I made a supply run to Bryan and when I returned, the rain was fierce. We left for the house, driving 25 mph most of the way.

On Monday, Danny and I finished roofing the shelter. I noticed Big Momma was aloof and showing some signs of kidding. I went to work for the afternoon and returned closer to dark. I found Big Momma deep in the brush with one kid! They looked fine, so I left her alone for a while. When I returned with towels and feedsacks, a second kid was born and I helped get the goo off his face. It was really getting cold and the ground was saturated from four inches of rain on Sunday. Finally, kid number three slid out and Big Momma and I worked to get them dried off. I finally had to leave and go home, but Big Momma seemed like she was doing a good job.

Tuesday morning about 4:30, I went to check on the kids (it's 30 miles to el rancho). On the way, I spotted Jupiter in the sky, near a sickle moon. When I found the little family in the brush, I noticed that the big buckling had a circle and sickle on his shoulders and back, and, well, he got a name-- Jupiter. The doeling was noticeably smaller and had weak back legs, apparently not uncommon in a multi-birth. She didn't have a strong sucking reflex. I went to work for a while and came back, to find Danny trying to get the doeling to take some colostrum from a bottle. She didn't like the nipples either one of us had, so I tube fed her about 60 ml of warm colostrum and this seemed to perk her right up. We moved the mom and kids to the round pen and prepared the dog house for the kids to lay in .

Magic Goat Hut and goat babies in dog house

On Wednesday morning, I again made the early morning jaunt and found all three kids doing well. Doeling was still shaky on the back legs, but I helped her get up and nurse a couple of times and was thankful I did not have to tube her. I also gave each kid a shot of CD antitoxin and one of Bovi-Sera since I did not know Big Momma's vaccination status and we didn't get hers complete until the 8th. Danny checked later in the day and I also went out at lunch. I weighed the kids by putting them in a cloth grocery sack and a hanging scale. Jupiter came in at 7#, 1 oz; buckling #2 weighed 6#, 2 oz.; and the little doeling barely hit 5# even.


Thursday and Friday, things were much warmer and the kids were starting to hop around. On Saturday after work, Dan built two Magic Goat huts. Each took two sheets of plywood and four 2x4s. They have a slightly sloped roof and about 16 square feet of floor space. Last night we put one in the round pen for Big Momma and one in the Middle Pasture for the goats.

Apparently someone there was miffed and kicked out part of the wall in the larger goat/donkey shelter. Hmmmm. Wonder who?









We ended the week on a high note. The kids each gained two pounds! In five and a half days!

Good Momma.

All the adult goats got their final pneumonia vaccine booster shot today as well.

Fancy got a new toy.

Billy BA's latest love, Fea

And Billy BA is making sure there will be many more baby goats this spring.


Nineteen goats and counting.

Intermezzo

Electric cross fencing

Well we are at a spot where we can take a little breather.

We finished perimeter and cross fencing on the 4041 piece. Dan estimates over 1.1 miles of fence, six gates, one solar charger, 10,000 feet of barbed wire. With the cross fencing up, we can manage the livestock and better control vegetation and worms.

We have utilities: water (clean and cold!), electric, and now AT&T 4G service! Plus a fiberglas septic tank and some field lines.

We have livestock: three donkeys and 18 goats. Yep, we have three more. Fred and Gwen, at Rancho Volsas Basias (Guaranteed to have four legs and a tail or double your money back) near Buffalo, sold me three large does, two are 50% registered Boer. Danny and I picked them up on Saturday while Dan put a rebuilt starter in Old Blue and he fired right up!
(Blue is back on staff!).

The three latest additions to the herd

The new gals are open, so Billy has work to do. Hopefully they will be bred by January. None of the pregnant goats have had babies.

We bought some pipe goat panels and have used the 'round pen' a lot. On our first round of vaccinations, we got all the animals in there and worked them in the big pen.




We haven't had time to build or plan a permanent working area, but the Dans came through with improvising a darn good plan.  They disconnected two panels and spread them apart about three feet. Then, they drove in pipes used for  chain linking and hung a three foot gate. Then they took three panels to make a room  off the little gate. Genuis!

We have a working pen! This created an offshoot 'room' where I could put a goat, lock them in, and take care of them.  Our only real problem is Stupid, one of the most ignorant animals I've ever owned. He's a polled pygmy buck whose ambition in life is to irritate all people and animals as much as possible. He is not long for this herd and we think he finally figured out we don't like him. Anyway, we herded the goats to the round pen and then escorted the donks out. We also escorted Stupid out. What a difference! The goats were all instantly calm, munching on hay, snoozing and ruminating. Very pastoral! In my little room I had a box with vaccines, wormer, ropes, and hoof trimmers. (Did you know a Texmati plastic box makes a great sharps container?).  This confirmed a unanimous decision to take Stupid to Navasota Auction next week. The donks did enjoy chasing him when he got annoying with them...

Danny helped me work the animals. First, we opened the little gate and amazingly, a doe just walked right in! I put a rope halter on her and tied her to the rail, gave her shots, wormer and trimmed her feet. Almost too good to be true! (I don't have a goat stand yet, but Dan said he'll build one later!). We turned her back into the round pen and starting working them one after another. The pygmy does were harder to catch, but overall things went great. Danny was a big help, holding horns and helping drive them in the little room. All of these goats were in dire need of hoof trimming. I didn't get all of them trimmed today, but will chip away at it this month. Plus, some needed a little trimming, followed soon by more because they were too overgrown to trim completely today.

Oh, and we are official. We ear tagged 'Baby' with our official Texas scrapies tag. We are herd #TX 25843

Baby gets tag number one!

So, it's intermezzo, which only means we slow down a bit. Up next is building Danny's house, selling our Brazos County house, and fencing the 4057 property.

Our Fourth Trailer!

As soon as we fenced around the corner at PR 4041 and 4057, I began shopping for a small trailer to use moving goats and donkeys. we already have three flatbed trailers with low sides, but they are no bueno for moving animals. I began my search thinking it wouldn't be too hard to find something at a reasonable price.  I looked at some trailers that probably couldn't get down the driveway, to fancy ones that cost more than my first house. What an assortment! I looked at stock trailers, horse trailers and specialty goat trailers. Single axle, double axle, wood floor, rubber floor, living quarters! Finally, I found what I was looking for and it was just down the road near Frenstat.

The octogenarian owner said the trailer had been sitting in the barn for many years and was seldom used.  After seeing it, I realized she wasn't exaggerating. The paint was barely scratched and everything was still solid. This 1981 Neckover bumperpull is fourteen feet long, and has a combination slide/swing read gate and an interior gate as well.  Built in Troup, Texas, the trailer sports the original stickers and I also got the original proof of sale document. The tail lights will have to be replaced as the connectors and such are outmoded, and I'll probably get rubber floor mats. The only area not in great condition are the hubcaps.  Mrs. Josephine, the seller,  told D3 that a wire brush would "take that rust right off!"  Well, having been in the Marine Corps for nearly five years and afloat, D3 knows a thing or two about getting the rust off and he is not interested!

After parking the trailer at the ranch, Dan and I strung and tied the upper and lower barbed wire along 4041 while Dad had to work during the Aggie football game. On Sunday, we all climbed into the silver truck and headed out to Snook, where we stayed all day, working on the Leggio fenceline. The guys cut down two trees to finish clearing the path along the fence. Boy! That really opened up the view and showed us the work ahead of us. We removed most of the old fence and all of the barbed wire from the corner to the bottom of a swampy area which is currently 'mostly' dry.  About 100 feet.  Built three Hs, drove t-posts and strung up goat wire. We also found a nest of red wasps who took a distinct dislike to Dad. 

Still waiting for the surveyors to mark off the land next door. Drove down to see if they'd been there and see that LB had someone grade and scalp PR 4057. Alas, no new survey flags, but it won't be long. Then we will begin a new adventure of removing a decrepit trailer house, reconditioning a water well, and staking off places for our new barndominiums.  

News from the Ranch

Well, I see I've been remiss is transmitting news of the ranch in the past two months. During July and August, the Severn clan sweated a lot, building fence, fixing broken fencing equipment, building fence, stretching wire, tying wire, digging post holes, and did I say building fence?

Today, the Dans completed the perimeter fencing of El Rancho, about eight-tenths of a mile. The next step is repairing/replacing the fence we share with Frank Leggio. Right now, the fence is certainly good enough for donkeys or cattle. In fact, I have my eye on a pair of jennys (one white, one light gray) who are about six years old. Hopefully I'll get out to see them on Saturday and see if they will fit in.

So, anyway, in all these weekends of fencing, we've really done a lot of planning and I've got a preliminary livestock rotation plan. Goats, followed by steers, followed by rest. So, we are planning this and looked over the fence and thought, gee!, we could buy more land! So we got a contract on another 14 acres, adjacent to El Rancho, and soon to become part of El Rancho.

Working along the fencelines has also allowed us to get a closer look at the native vegetation. D3 and I saw a plant with big leaves and lots of purple globular fruit. We both figured that anything that looked good was probably poisonous. On Sunday, I snapped a few pictures and looked it up by color and was pleased to find that we have lots and lots of Americana Beautyberry, Callicarpa americana. Deer and other foragers love the berries, the leaves are thought to ward off mosquitos, and they look pretty good, too! I even found recipes for making Beautyberry jelly.

I also noticed that while we still have some small yellow flowers (mostly bitterweed and sleepy daisy), lots of the other flowers are in the purple range, like wild petunia and bindweed. So, I guess if summer is yellow, then fall is purple!

Fencing Underway!

So much has changed in the last two weeks, and so far it's all good (mostly)!

We hired someone to come and clear the fence lines. Fantastic! In a day-and-a-half, he not only chopped down the yaupon and small trees in his way, but his machine also mulched it up. It was like a huge paper shredder with scary teeth at the front. What a great investment in saving time! Also meant no burning of brush piles and returning the organic matter to the soil.

So, this moved us into building fence before it gets to be 110 degrees.

First things first, Dan and I surveyed the fence lines, noting how many posts, corners, H-braces, gates and such we would need. During the week, Dan picked up fencing supplies at the Coop and took them to El Rancho. He off-loaded three dozen 8 inch posts, only about 100 pounds each. (!)  On Saturday, we put the auger on my tractor. It hadn't dug a hole in many years, but after we finally got it connected to the PTO, we were in business. (I also had to replace my redneck drink holder as the last one had gotten torn).

First hole we drilled we hit a hard layer of clay partway down and Dan had to get out the 'idiot stick' and break it up some so the auger could bull through. Then we remembered that we do have a front end loader on the other tractor- uh, duh! A little pressure from above and the auger dug right on through. Building braces was aided with the generator, electric drill, impact wrench, and long screws. They are not moving any time soon!

Unfortunately, somewhere in the digging, the backhoe reached out and wouldn't retract. Ruh ro, Astro. Plenty of hydraulic fluid, but no joy. So, we figured out how to release the pressure and fold the arm up so we could put the tractor on its trailer and haul buns to Bryan before WCTractor closed on Saturday. Spent 45 minutes there trying to offload the 'easy connect' backhoe at the shop. Part of the decoupling process requires you use the stabilization legs on the 'hoe to lift it off the tractor mounts. Ha! It actually worked! Still we left it to have it checked out and took the L2800 (Extra Power) back to El Rancho. Finished up the posts and braces on the northeast line.

On our northwest side, we are rebuilding and improving an existing barbed-wire fence. Many of the 'posts' are actually old railroad ties, some are cedar staves, some t-posts and some 3 inch posts. Everything will be goat wire topped with barbed wire once we're done. This property line is crossed by the large lake next door, just a finger of water on our side. So, we decided to start at the water and do that piece of the fence first. Looking at the 'four corner' property line, you can tell how old the fence is by it's fragility and how the tree (which is one of the supports) grew around the barbed-wire. The corner post was one of those railroad ties , but it was broke off at the surface when we pushed it. The auger had a helluva time trying to drill through what was left of the wood and again Dan used the idiot stick to muscle out little pieces. Then I would drill, Dan would dig, I would drill.... finally we got it done. Made an executive decision to never replace a railroad tie unless it was exactly at a corner! In Somerville, there has been a railroad tie manufacturing plant since 1897, and we have tons of railroad lines in the Brazos Valley. I wonder if ties came from rebuilding tracks or were rejects from the plant. Now, for whatever reason, railroads don't give away old ties-- probably an EPA reg.

We set all posts and braces on that line and got wired up. Front end loader again helped out with the t-posts, pushing them in most of the way so that Dan had only to bang once or twice with the t-post driver. We pulled the wire with a come-along and a home-made field fence holder (they retail for over $70 and Dan made this from materials at-hand). Then staples and t-post clips to secure to wire. We ran a strand of barbed wire along the ground to keep hogs and coyotes out and our critters in.

The new fence is a huge improvement. I think our neighbor will be pleased!

Fencing the small run was a great warm-up on the bigger parts. Work smarter, not harder. I am happy to have our his and her Kubotas, power hand tools and a nifty generator. Our next task will be installing the wire on the northeast line.

It's Fence-able

Quick note that summer officially got to Texas about a week ago-- yellow flowers predominating (I'll blog about that soon) and the thermometer pushing 100 degrees were pretty strong clues. However,  there's been a lot of El Rancho progress this week, so I decided to get to that first!


Progress!  That's what I like! What a busy, productive ten days. The last weekend of April, Dan and I went to El Rancho and worked pulling and stacking brush. Very tedious trying to clear along our property line because we can't drag the brush down the road. These maneuvers involved tight turns and limited space for two tractors.

So, we talked about finding a brush crusher smasher mulcher to come and do the work for us. I figured there had to be someone nearby, so I threw out a request for a rec on TexAgs on Monday, talked to Todd on Tuesday, met him after work on Wednesday, and he showed up to do the work on Friday! I am so delighted with the work. What would have taken us several weekends (months and months!) to do is taking him a day and a half. In addition to clearing all four fence lines, he will chomp a path across the middle for a major cross fence. "Brush bustin' " pictures are on the El Rancho facebook page,

Speaking of fencing, the Board at Producers Coop met on April 30 and they decided I was in! I got the letter on Thursday. This means that I am now a partial owner of the Coop and will share in the profit based on how much I spent that year. What a deal! Plus, they have some great workshops and a wonderful feed mill. We had already decided to buy a few thousand dollars of fencing material there, so now it will be even cheaper!


On Friday at lunch, I went out to El Rancho to see how the brush chomping was going. While I was there, my neighbor, Frank Leggio, drove by and stopped to chat. He'd just gotten my letter asking about tying into and improving the fence line we share. Knock yourself out, girl, he says, then goes on to say we might think about tying into his lake so we would have water too! I'm so fortunate to have a great neighbor. And, speaking of neighbors, when we were out showing Todd the scope of work, our other neighbor's mom stopped by and we chatted about her son's new offshore job. Found out he'll be here next weekend, so we'll get a chance to discuss common projects (he has a barndo in progress right now).  My third neighbor, Rodney, also stopped and let us know he has sold his 20 acre place and filled us in on the new neighbors who will be living there. Fingers crossed that they will be great too!

On Saturday afternoon and most of Sunday, we burned brush piles, walked the fence lines and made a shopping list for fencing materials. Dan got to meet Mr. Leggio and I discovered that he is a retired Arson Investigator from Houston and we have a common acquaintance from his HFD days! How's that for a small world! We are going to start on the Leggio side first as it will be the most challenging (taking fence down, inserting some new posts, pulling goat wire, and keeping his cows in!).

All this work has sped up our goat acquisition calendar. Learned today that it's a good practice to not move bred does to a new place and to not breed does until they've been at the place for two or three months. Allows them to adjust to the new forage and browse, as well as the new worms. So, if I can get some does by September, we can be all set for spring kids! Closer to fence, one t-post at a time...