Barn Awning

        We're always looking for more ways to make our animals more comfortable. All of the renovations we've been working on recently have had that end goal in mind. One great feature about our barn is that the entire south facing side is completely open to the outside. This is ideal in the summer and really allows the air to flow freely through the barn helping keep down mold and mildew, as well as keep our animals cool. However, in inclement weather the open face of the barn can prove more of a problem. We set out to devise a plan to help keep water, snow, and cold out of the barn during rainy and/or wintery weather.

Here's what we came up with!

        Healthy goats and sheep can handle the cold very well, however it's the wind that can cause the most harm to an animal trying to stay nestled for warmth. The tarpaulin is the perfect (and inexpensive) solution. Not only does it keep the wind from whipping through and chilling the livestock to the bone, but it keeps horizontal rain and snow drifts out as well. It was important to make sure the outside wall design was modular so we didn't lose the best aspect of the barn in the warmer months, but durable enough to withstand the mountain winters. A simple pulley system allows the tarps to be rolled up, essentially turning them into huge blinds. We're pleased with the design and the barn stays much warmer now even on the coldest of nights. The water containers are frozen less frequently than before. Feel free to click on the above pictures for a more detailed look at the tarp and pulleys!

Coop Swap!!

We've recently swapped coops!  Here is what our old chicken coop looked like, we used five gallon buckets as the laying nests for convenience and ease of cleaning. The chickens seemed to like them too!

You can see the wall on the back of the coop was painted by Martha, trying to use up some old house paints. I think that the chickens enjoyed the murals, maybe we can do it again in the new space this spring!

However, our flock has grown and we are anticipating it continuing to grow during this summer. So, we've re-worked our horse stalls as part of the overall barn remodel to become the new coop for our laying hens, turkeys, and guinea hen. You can see the direct access that the birds have outside through the small doors in the barn wall. We close these up every night to keep them safe from outside predators.

You can see some different nesting boxes on the walls in this picture. We still used the five gallon buckets for other nesting boxes and those are located along the opposite wall to these boxes.

 The new coop is four times the size of the old one which really gives the birds some more room to move around. We tried to make the transition between coops as low stress as possible, but unfortunately right after the initial swap, our egg production dropped down to a mere few eggs a day.  We were worried about this drop and started trying to figure out how to increase the egg production in other ways. Luckily all that the chickens seemed to need was time. After having two or three weeks to become accustomed to the new space, the eggs are booming! We get about two and a half to three dozen fresh eggs a day!

Here are the chickens enjoying their new space!

Barn Remodel

        We've been busy in 2012! It's only February and there has already been SO MANY things added to our to-do list, gotten underway, already completed, or soon to become project numero uno. One top priority was the barn. It was in desperate need of a good organizing and ultimately a remodel to best suit our and the animal's needs. Unfortunately, I did not have the forethought to take some "before" pictures prior to picking up the hammer and having at it, so enjoy only the "after" shots.

        Moving in the direction of having goats and sheep as our primary herd animals, it was necessary to build pens for them. We also don't want to only accommodate the animals we have currently, but allow for expansion and have a place to put little ones, interim goats b/w the time they are born and the time they find a new home, and any other animals we may need a place for. Accommodating the animal's needs is one thing, but we also need the barn to suit our needs for storage, influx of livestock, ease of feeding and watering, and ultimately easier upkeep and ability to keep the barn clean. We decided to go with a lane design for the barn. Essentially this just means that an aisle is set right down the middle of the barn with animal pens on each side. This way when it's time to clean, we can muck everything into the center lane and then scrape it all out at once as opposed to having to hand shovel and wheel barrow every last bit of manure and used bedding. Our barn was already set up perfectly for this design since it has two big bay doors that open on the west facing side.

Here you can see the lane that goes straight back to the sliding bay doors.
Each pen has two doors into the lane. Each door can be opened into the lane
and secured to create one large pen from the front to the back of the barn
allowing for even more flexibility in the use of the barn!

Eglantine and Rosie happy in their own pens!

Here is the milking pen, which also doubles as our birthing pen
since it has better lighting mounted directly over head.

Two additional pens on the backside of the barn.

Here are the two bays used for tractor implement storage.

Here are two bays being used for hay storage.

A look down the lane from the opposite side of the barn.

We've added gravel to the backside of the barn. Soon this whole area will have a roof
over it for the dual purpose of covering our processing area, and allowing for storing
our tractor out of the elements. For the time being we store the tractor in the
barn by the hay storage.

Starlight

   

        For the passed several months, we have been graced with the presence of Starlight! Star (for short) is a beautiful championship pedigreed Lincoln Longwool English Ram decsending from 5 generations of champions. He was about 8 months old when he arrived to our farm all the way from Ithaca, NY. Our friend Malou Stark purchased Starlight at the Maryland Fiber Festival in May and they immediately bonded. After purchase, Malou drove to NY to pick him up farther upstate along the Canadian border in a small town called Brennan where he was brown. We've brought Star to our flock to breed with our ewes! If all goes well, we will be expecting lambs in the spring!

 

      Starlight's only visiting our farm for a short time, so if you haven't had a chance to meet him yet, come on up for a visit! I know you'll find him to be the most pleasant ram you've ever met.

This Is Ground Control to Major Tom

Hello blog followers!

As many of you may have expected, the holidays on top of our regular work schedule have been swallowing us whole. Thanksgiving is always a blast at the farm because not only do we celebrate on Thursday, but we also have Thanksgiving Pt. II! The barn was in dire need of a re-vamping with the influx of animals in need of storage. I'm glad to say we have finished most of that project up. We've been able to get Christmas trees, decorate for the season, throw a holiday party, host lot's of visitors, AND rent a ram to breed our ewes. Needless to say, the blog will not be neglected for the next few weeks.

There's so much to tell you about! Stay tuned!

-Brendan and the whole Cair Paravel Family!

Follow Us!

  Cair Paravel now has a twitter! Follow us @CairParavelFarm!

Consider it the addendum to the blog, the more day-to-day, the fun filled fact machine of the farm, the picture gateway, the...well, you get the idea. We'll also post news, available products and prices, as well as requests for help with certain projects. Become a bigger part of our farm with Twitter!

@CairParavelFarm

Autumn Has Arrived

Last Friday was the official first day of fall. Ah, the double edge sword of autumn. Personally, fall is my favorite season. The leaves start changing, the days become crisp and refreshing, pumpkins are ready for harvest, and the pace of the farm slows down quite considerably. We're very excited to be able to focus much more time to our construction projects. As most of you know we have a second yurt, upper garage, and turn-of-the-century log house to build. Keep looking for updates here on our blog as well as a call for volunteers for anyone who is wanting to get their hands dirty and pitch in to the farm.

Autumn is gorgeous on the mountain and I plan to include you all in the splendor!

HAPPY FALL TO COME!

The Miracle of Powerwashing

Here are some great examples of how much a good power-washing makes dirty things come back to life!

The machine.

The difference.

The before.

And the after.

Meet Our Sheep!

Say hello to the new addition to our herd! (Right to left) Mikey, Noel, and Flora have come to us via a local farm.

Funny story: These sheep are proof that the world is in fact a small one. Whitt and Martha had a fairly substantial mob many years ago, however when raising four girls became the main priority the flock was considerably downsized. Now, years later, it turns out that these three sheep are descendants of the original flock that was parceled out! Their parents and grandparents used to live here! How wild is that?

We'll be using these sheep for their wool. Martha spins the wool and has a couple different sized looms for weaving rugs, blankets, things of that nature. We will also use the lambs for meat.

Stay tuned for updates on these guys! They have had a very warm welcoming so far!

Aslan seems pleased after the first "meet'n greet."

Kikki & Her Kids: Part II

As the contractions came closer together, Kikki started to work a lot harder to cope with the pain. She would lie down and contort her body raising her head up high and moaning, then drop her head and close her eyes and try to power through it. The number one thing to remember when assisting a goat giving birth is that even animals need to be comforted!

After a heavy wave of contractions, Kikki walked over to me
as if she were trying to ask, "What the heck is going on!?"


"Really!! What's happening!?"

A little scratch to let her know we were there for her.

Despite Kikki's best efforts to fool us into thinking she's never given birth before, we know better than that. This is her third time giving birth, and both times before she had triplets! Triplets is less common, but a great thing! After a couple minutes of down time from the contractions, the last wave comes and lands Kikki on here side. At this time Whitt has taken over the comforting and our first signs of the first born can be seen.

This is the goat version of lamaze.

Here's a great clip of Kikki moments before the first kid is born!
Keep an eye on her hind quarters. You can see a "bubble" at one point.
The "bubble" is actually the amniotic sac which, of course, contains the amniotic fluid.
That is the go ahead sign that the kid is ready and well on it's way out!

With the first kid moments away, I handed the camera over and got ready to catch! Kikki is ready for these kids to be out and into the world.

The first kid is born! Whitt and I assist in pulling the baby up to
Kikki's head so she can start cleaning him of right away.


A quick step back to help remind Kikki of her duty and let the new bond take effect.
It's incredible how Kikki knows just what to do.


Now it's time to tie off the umbilical chord and dip the chord into iodine
to help sanitize as well as aid in the shrinking and drying out of the chord.


The first kid is a little buck! There's just enough time to take a quick family
photo before the second kid is born.

Goats are typically born in pairs. The sex of the kids is never definite, but ideally two does are what goat farmers look for. The tricky part about a buck is that he is limited to which goat he is able to breed with within the herd. (i.e.- Cannot breed with his mother, or sister.) Typically only one unrelated male goat is necessary to act as herd sire. That is why typically male goats are rented by large scale goateries for the time needed to breed with all of the does. With a doe, their milk is very useful and pretty much trumps any other use the buck may have. It's a sign of a healthy goat to give birth to twins, and helps build up the herd a lot faster. A doe who only bears one kid more than once are generally undesirable for most goat farmers. Kikki has proven to be a great doe! We were able to get the second kid on video! Be warned: it's a bit graphic, so if you're susceptible to becoming squeamish -- maybe this video below isn't for you.

You can see in the video that I had a hard time cleaning the kids mouth and nostrils.
It's head became trapped inside the amniotic sac when I popped it and the kid was having
a hard time taking it's first breaths. Convinced the kid was extremely fragile I was terrified
first of hurting it, and second not being able to clean the kid off well enough causing it
to asphyxiate.The amniotic sac is extremely slippery! Thank goodness Ashley was there. She's
a nurse and was able to clean off the kid and allow it to get its first breaths easily.


Here's Kikki meeting her little doe for the first time!



The two beautiful kids resting with Momma after
a long day for all three of them!

Now...

...................for a name........Hm...

Kikki & Her Kids: Part I

Kikki has done it! She's given birth to two incredible kids! One little buck and one doe! The twins are a great new addition to our herd. Given that the birthing process is such an ordeal, I'll be splitting the whole event into a few different blog posts so you can really get a good idea of what it was like to be there. There's just no way to put it all in one entry!

Kikki was in labor for nine hours and fifteen minutes before the kids arrived. That meant a LOT of waiting around. As mentioned in a prior post, her due date was on the 4th. So beginning the 3rd we put her in our birthing pen and began a regular routine of checking up on Kikki every two to three hours looking for signs of labor. This went on for three days and eight hours. Needless to say, we were all quite relieved when Martha reported the morning of the sixth that Kikki had begun having contractions. Whitt and I were out running errands when we got the call, so we finished up as quickly as possible and raced home to the barn...

...and ended up waiting.......







..and waiting...










...........................................................and waiting.

This being my first experience with goat birthing (or any birthing, for that matter) I did a lot of research. I learned:

- What to look for when a kid is about to be born
- What orientation the kid should be in when exiting the womb
- How to recognize when to assist the birthing
- How to assist if necessary
- What to look out for when the kid is born regarding defects or health problems
- How to tie off the umbilical chord
- How to use iodine to help eliminate the chance for infection while aiding in the shrinking and drying out of the chord, and so on.

I even watched videos of births, the longest of which was 5 min 33sec long. I was prepared for everything BUT the "anxiously waiting" part. I could tell that Whitt and Martha were just as anxious as I was. We all ended up doing barn chores and taking turns with who watched Kikki. After all, if we were going to spend that much time down there, we may as well clean up!

Whitt and Martha tag-teamed trimming the hoofs on our goats of the NON-pregnant variety.

Whitt taking care of Egglentine's hoofs.

The Damon looking on wondering, "I hope I'm not next."

Martha telling The Damon, "Yes, you are next!"

Kikki looking on.

Then I decided it was time to hang out with the goslings and baby chics.

Cute how they follow each other everywhere.

These little guys are coming along well!

..and Kikki still isn't quite ready.

At this point I noticed one of the barn swallows being particularly bothered by our presence. It kept swooping passed chirping loudly in an attempt to protect it's nest. There were previously four fledglings inhabiting the nest, but have since been gone flying around our fields forging on berries and insects. It was getting closer to there bed time, so I'm sure it wasn't ideal for us to be around Kikki in labor directly under their nest.

We're happy to see swallows in our barn. They help with
insect control and are a great sign of a healthy barn.

In the middle of my photo-op, The Damon catches
my attention by showing a lot more interest in Kikki.

And Kikki is really feeling it now! The contractions are really coming closer
together as she pulls her head back in pain. The kids are at last tangibly closer!


To Be Continued...