The Goat Keeper's Toolbelt

Be sure to download the FREE Goat Keeper's Toolbelt guide that I illustrated for Manna Pro! It lists handy items to have on hand if you keep goats. Link below!

Goat Keeper's Toolbelt

Breaking Down the Goat Diet

Feeding goats can be tricky. Most people think that goats have an iron clad stomach and this simply isn't true.

Check out my latest post over at Manna Pro for a complete breakdown on goat nutrition, what to feed and how much. Click below!

Breaking Down the Goat Diet

Dealing With Goat Scours

Check out my new post over at Manna Pro for tips on treating and preventing scours in your goat herd. Click below.

Dealing With Goat Scours

Springtime at Iron Oak Farm

Everything is starting to blossom in the warmer weather.

Purple Phlox

Dandelion gone to seed

The whole yard smells of sweet honeysuckle. This is the pink variety.

And here is the white variety of Honey Suckle.

Lilacs

The turkeys, chickens, geese, guineas and ducks enjoying the new run. We still have the other half to build.

We had a successful hatch of Buff Orpington chicks. 5 out of 7 eggs.

I can't believe how big these guys have grown! Khaki Campbell ducks

Little Man-Abrahm is also getting big. He's enjoying cuddles on the porch after his bottle while Oliver licks his face clean of milk.

Meet Abrahm

Introducing the newest member of the Iron Oak Family... Meet Abrahm, our new Nubian herd sire. He is one of the most beautiful goats I've ever seen. His markings are gorgeous and I'm so excited to breed him with our girls. We narrowed our herd last year and sold many of our goats so that we can concentrate on just Nubians and Angoras. I'm really happy with the four dairy does that we have now.

I'd like a buck that we can keep as our all time guy, but our girls keep giving us such beautiful kids that we end up keeping them. Then our resident buck is related to everyone.

I like the idea of keeping our own buck because I'm not a fan of introducing new goats to our herd each spring, as you would when you "rent" a buck to come inseminate your girls. Especially a buck that travels to many farms providing stud service. I worry about introducing new diseases with this practice.

As for his name, he came to us named "Chicken" because he has a chicken shaped white spot on his side, which I thought was cute. But I thought this name might get confusing when I write about our goats so we changed it to Abrahm. We already had a kid named Abrahm, but we sold him when he was tiny. We still liked the name so we went with it again.

Right now we are bottle feeding him. It took him a couple tries to get the hang of things but now he is searching out the bottle and finding the nipple with very little help.

We brought him home on Sunday and the temperatures were freezing. He doesn't have a mamma to keep him warm, so he's spent the last couple days in the house, in a crate. I think today he will make his transition to the barn.

Nubian Goat Kids 2015 Abigail's Penelope

Our doe Abigail gave us one of the most beautiful goat kids we're ever had last year. This is a video of Penelope.

Penelope is getting to be a big girl herself, and we have plans to breed her this fall.

Nubian Goat Kids 2015 Gretta's Anna, Abrahm and Hamish Video

If you've been following the blog for a while you may have noticed that I've been posting a video every Tuesday. Many of these videos are from past years because our old computer wouldn't let me edit videos from my Nikon camera. The files were too large. But now that we have the new computer, I am able to edit those videos and share them here. This video is from last spring introducing Gretta's Anna, Abrahm and Hamish. These three went to a wonderful family close by and I'm so glad that I have these videos to look back and remember all the kids we've had over the years.

Flavored Honey Goat Butter KBB Post

Learn this simple recipe that serves as a base for lots of delicious flavor combinations!

Flavored Honey Goat Butter KBB Post

Manna Pro Facebook Giveaway!

Manna Pro is celebrating their new Apple Goat Treats by giving away a bag to one lucky Iron Oak Farm reader!

To enter, visit the Iron Oak Farm Facebook Page, like our page and share the Manna Pro Giveaway Post. That's it! You're entered! I will choose the winner on March 28th so check back for the announcement.

Manna Pro was nice enough to send me a bag of their treats for our goats to taste test. See their reactions in the video below!

Also don't forget to enter the Manna Pro Baby Your Babies Photo Contest where they're giving away $2500 in prizes! 

Virtual Farm Tour

This was our week.

Trying for sweet potato starts to plant in the garden.

Oliver's arch enemy.

Toulouse Goose

We got 9 quarts (plus a pint) of maple syrup this year. (We gave away some before I took this photo)

Tulip and Daffodil bulbs emerging in the warmer weather.

Stored Winter Squash from last year. Perfectly edible.

The sap boiling into syrup

Working with the little girls on leash training.

Some of my birthday presents!!!

Nice job ladies!

Red Tailed Hawk flying over the hay field.

Some of our ducks enjoying the mud puddles in the yard.

Our Pilgrim Goose enjoying the first blades of green emerging grass.

Hoof Care for Goats Manna Pro

Proper and frequent hoof trims are an important key to healthy, happy goats. Learn about hoof care from the inside out in my latest Manna Pro Post. (And there's a "how to" video.) Click below.

Hoof Care for Goats

Photo Friday

It's been a busy week for us. We built a new manger for the goats with a shelf to catch fallen hay. Once hay hits the ground they won't eat it. We also reinforced the structure in every way we could so it will last. It holds a whole bale of hay, and then some so it's convenient and doesn't have to be filled everyday. A bale lasts the goats a few days. Now that we've seen this one in action, we're going to build two more for the fiber goats and the boys. 

Stacey came over the other day and we made a batch of soap. Lemon Balm, Lavender and Tea Tree. It is so creamy and luxurious!

We also dehydrated a bunch of garlic to make seasoning blends. I had pulled our seed garlic last fall and planted a new variety. The basket of garlic cloves was sitting in the backroom, so we decided to put it to good use.

We found that a great way to "shell" a lot of garlic at once is to rub the cloves between two Silpat sheets. It works similarly to those rubber garlic rollers but on a larger scale.

Zach got me a mushroom farm for Valentines Day. I'll show progress as it comes along.

And the girls are laying again! It's so nice to have a supply of fresh eggs coming in from the coop!