Nigella & Bertie are parents......

Not long born! 

I sometimes forget that not everyone follows us on Facebook so after having supper with friends last night this post is for them and anyone else who is not on Facebook. 

Five days old and rather happy!

Two weeks today our lovely gilt Nigella gave birth.  She showed no signs the day before that she was going into labour. She had looked huge for ages and we had an approximate due date for a week later, but well laid plans never really pan out!  

While doing the morning milking Michael appeared at the door with camera on shoulder so I knew it was either immanent or had happened.  Once milking was done we headed down to the barn and Nigella was laying down with lots of little piglets attached and feeding.  It was a little disappointing not to have been there with her, especially after having been there for our goats, but from what we had read pigs can either give birth really fast or it could be an hour between each piglet. 

Nigella had a total of 10 piglets but we did lose one, we think she must have trodden on it or either laid on it while birthing. But for her first litter she did a great job.

Nigella has been a great mum so far and her piglets are getting bigger by the day.  I think the only thing we where taken aback about was how small they are especially in comparison to mum.  They have learnt to move quickly and get out of Nigella's way when she gets up and moves around or when she is getting ready to nurse.  She likes to dig all the straw up and get into a comfy position then does a lot of grunting and all the piglets come running and latch onto the "milk bar".

They are fun to watch especially in comparison to the baby goats as the piglets like to nest and they burrow deep into a mound of straw. We have to be really careful when heading into their pen to feed Nigella as you don't always see them.

We did have our first break away yesterday morning.  Our barn is in a gully and while we where bringing the horses up from their paddock we noticed a little bit of movement at the entrance.  We initially thought it was our other pigs heading out to their paddock for a mid morning root up but there where too many heads!  Nigella was a little frantic by the time we had got down but it did not take too long to herd them back in with her.  We have created a separate area for them as our barn is an open barn so all the pigs are able to sleep and nest together in the evenings when they come back in from rooting everything up!  In a couple of weeks Nigella and her piglets will be in their own paddock and the piglets will be learning to respect the electric fence which will be entertaining. I can imagine we will be hearing lots of little squeals! 

This won't be our last litter this year as Ina is due in August and Delia all being well will be due in September.  

Ooh Henry............

I am really not a gadget person at all! But when I headed out over two weeks ago for the first day of milking our goats and an hour later came back in with scratches, blood and bruises and very little milk in my pale, I knew there had to be something out there that would make milking a stubborn goat easier.

Eva our first freshener is a dream milker, but we have had her since she was 8 weeks old and after she kidded she then spent twice a day up on the milk stand getting used to me handling her before I even started milking and she really has been a dream to milk.

The lovely Elly Belly we have only had for a year and a half, she is five now and has kidded before but has never been milked so we always knew it would be a challenge! We did not think it was going to be quite as bad as it was.
I remembered seeing a video of a lady milking her goats using a hand milker so I knew it was out there I just needed to search the Internet to find it.  I actually found two!

The first model was huge and it would not have  fit under our goats so I carried on looking and found the Henry Milker.  The order was placed and two weeks later it arrived.  I have continued to milk Eva each morning over the last two weeks and have also been working with Elly.  It has been a lot of patience on my part and she is a little better and I even started to get about 10 squirts of milk from her before she started kicking. When the milker arrived on Monday lunch time it really had arrived on the right day as we had not put the kids back in with the Mums after morning milking and Elly really did need to be milked.  So after all the unpacking putting the few pieces together and reading the instructions off we went to the goat house with some grain to bribe a goat onto the stand. We did have some kicking I am not going to say it was picture prefect but it was just really nice to be able to milk her finally.  

We are now at day three and yes she still kicks a little, but once the milker is up and running she actually does stop kicking.  We are getting 3/4 of a litre of milk from her twice a day so a big woo hoo to the Henry Milker.  Once the flow starts and as long as she has grain in her bucket she is a rather happy goat. It does make her jump when you first release the valve to start the flow of milk but she settles in seconds and away we go.    I was not sure I was going to use it on Eva but I did give it a go and she is more than happy to be milked this way. It is really nice to have both girls milked in under 15 minutes.
I promise I am not on commission for writing this! The milker is great and well worth the investment.
If anyone is thinking of buying a milker click on the link above.