Little Red Roses - A Rainbow Gate Farm Story

Little Red Roses the goat, entered the world on the coldest day of the winter last year, her fate already sealed by her mother's decision to deliver her against a stone wall next to a small hole, through which a bitter cold wind howled its thirty-degree-below-zero fury.

By the time I discovered her some ten minutes after her birth, her ears were frozen all the way to the base of her head. Snatching her up and wrapping her shivering, seven-pound body in a towel, I hurried to the milk-house where I immersed her in a sink of warm water, trying to thaw her ears and warm her. As I lowered her into the sink, I heard an odd clunking sound. I felt along her hind leg and discovered it was frozen solid.

"Oh, no, baby, this isn't good," I told her.

After fifteen minutes of attempting to thaw the frozen limb, I gave up. Once we had her dry and warm, we put her in the heated trailer with the other newborn goat kids. She could walk but dragged the useless limb behind her. I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.Red Roses grew right along with the other young goats, but her left hind leg did not. It shriveled up until it looked like a gnarled old piece of deadwood attached to the otherwise healthy young doe. It was hard to watch her trying to run and play with the others, and I wished a thousand times over I had found her earlier on that morning she was born.

"What are you going to do with her?" my husband asked, ever the practical farmer. "She won't be able to stand in a milking line, even if she does actually manage to breed."

I just grinned and said; "Guess she'll be a pet then."

He shook his head. "I figured that." He smiled as he walked away.

To our surprise, Red Roses did breed, and gave birth to a fine daughter in early February this year. My poor son, Sam, who was home alone when she delivered, saw the baby standing next to Red Roses and thought a coyote had attacked her and chewed off her leg, because of the bloody nature of birth, but that's another story.

Being different from the others didn't seem to bother Red Roses. She received a lot of attention from us as a baby, and became very tame. Oh, excuse me for a moment. Someone is tapping on my shoulder. It's Red Roses! She thinks she could tell her story better than I can. I'm really short of time, so I will let her take over from here.


Hello, my illustrious two-legged readers! This is "Gimpy" here. I know Mom refers to me as "Red Roses", but everyone in the barn calls me Gimpy, and if the shoe fits. . . . Wait, I don't wear shoes, but you get my drift! So anyway, I am Janilou's favorite herd goat. Every time she comes into the barn to drive the other girls to the holding area, I follow her as she walks to the far end of the pen and shoos the slowpokes along. I love to run around her in circles, showing how pleased I am that she worked so hard to save me when I was just a kid.

Then I follow her to the entrance of the holding pen and wait while Janilou closes the sliding door on the rest of the poor suckers, ahem, excuse me, I mean the rest of the does who have to wait their turn to enter the parlor and be milked.

Janilou and I walk right into the parlor together. I run down to the far end where there is a feed manger set up at ground level for special goats like me. She lets another 19 does into the parlor and we all get milked with the special machines Janilou calls "milkers". Ten minutes later we all leave through the exit door and head back to our barn to play and eat hay.

I should explain that Janilou is not my real mother. My real mother has four legs and a fur coat. Janilou has two legs and I have three, so I am stuck somewhere between being a real goat and a real person, but I don't mind a bit. The other day, I overheard Janilou telling the tall one she calls "Paul" that she has over 160 kids in the trailers right now. Personally, I think she is nuts. Who in their right mind wants to take care of 160 babies? Give me three or four any day!

She adopts all of our babies each year, so the older does tell me. We don't mind because it frees us up to spend our time doing important things, like eating hay and grain, playing "Queen of the Manure Pile" and sleeping. Oh, and milking of course! My fellow does and I are giving almost 5000 pounds of milk every four days right now. I like to stand on top of the manure pile and call out a greeting to the milk hauler man who drives his truck down the lane every Wednesday and Sunday to collect the milk. He isn't very friendly, though, because he never bleats back or lifts his hoof in greeting.

Which brings me to my final point. Janilou talks about me being disabled, but the poor thing is in denial herself. You should see Janilou's hooves. Instead of being cloven and nicely shaped, there are five odd-looking things protruding out where the hoof should be. Such a shame.She calls them fingers. I know that because one day she started leaping around doing a funny dance while we were milking and the tall one asked her what was wrong. She held up her hoof and said, "I jammed my finger." As if that's not bad enough, you should hear her try to talk goat. It's all we can do to keep a straight face when she tries to speak our language. Some of the younger goats crack up, but the older does say "hush" and remind them where their grain comes from.

I think I hear Janilou coming back up the stairs, so I'm signing off now. Besides, I need to talk to her about that wolf she has working here. She calls it a "sheep-dog", but we all know it's a wolf in sheep-dog clothing. Besides which, we are goats, not sheep! Poor Jani. She really gets confused at times, but we still love her.

That is what I like the most about living here on Rainbow Gate Farm. We accept everyone for who they are, regardless of what deformities they might have, or how odd they might look or talk. Everyone, that is, except for that no-good, low down, goat-chasing wolf.

E-Coli And Other Bacteria I Hate

Our kidding season started two and a half weeks ago. For the first time in five years, we have been having problems with an e-coli bacterial infection that strikes our newborn baby goats. It rears it's ugly amoebic head by the time the kids are just hours old, and can kill within twelve hours.

Ah, the joys of farming.

Hail to the marvels of modern medicine. With early intervention, we have been able to save seventy five of the eighty little doe kids who have arrived so far.

The veterinary university lab is running tests to find out the exact strain and the best treatment plan.

Back to the barn I go.

A Tough Winter Day

As another winter storm looms on the darkening gray horizon, a gloomy day on Rainbow Gate Farm is almost over.

One of our aged dairy goat does delivered twins this morning, three weeks too early. The twins, both girls, were born dead. They both looked like the goat in the picture. Their sire was a La Mancha - the breed with the tiny gopher ears.

"Grandma", the doe who'd given birth, was lying in a corner of the barn, thrashing and moaning. She is an older goat, about eight years in age. Although the twins were born early, my first suspicion was "Milk Fever."

"Milk Fever" occurs when the pregnant or "fresh" (having just given birth) animal cannot compensate for the large amounts of calcium being demanded by the body to produce the milk. As the blood levels of calcium drop, the animal becomes lethargic and then begins to convulse. If the condition is not treated, death will follow within hours.

Hurrying to the milk house where we keep our animal health drugs, I ran back to her with a bottle of Calcium Carbonate, a needle and syringe.I injected twelve cc's (milliliters) of the calcium underneath her skin and then continued until I reached the maximum dose of fifty cc's.

Within a few minutes, she scrambled to her feet. We offered her warm water and grain. She ate and drank, but she will need further care, to be sure she does not relapse.

It always amazes me to see a goat recover from milk fever. They can be literally dying, and within minutes of receiving the calcium into their body, they are standing up, eating and drinking. It reminds me of how delicate the balance between good health and illness can be.

We will begin milking Grandma in the hope of encouraging her to "come into milk", but she will probably have a shortened lactation time due to her age.We are expecting the other does to begin 'kidding' (delivering their babies) in two to three weeks time.

Our old vet used to say, "If you're gonna have livestock, you're gonna have dead stock." It's a sad fact of farming.Within a few months, our entire farm will be teeming with new life, warm sunshine, and green grass. We will have baby goats, ducklings, chicks, turkey poults, kittens, and foals.

I'll try to keep that in mind as I head back outside through the snow drifts tonight and pray the next time I see baby goats in my barn, they will be standing on wobbly legs next to their mama, trying out their new lungs.

Jingle Bell Goats - An Ice Storm Hits Our Farm

The ice storm sweeping across the entire mid-west United States yesterday, hit Rainbow Gate Farm with a vengeance we rarely see this early in the season. We awoke to the sound of ice hitting the windows like millions of tiny firecrackers exploding on the fourth of July!

Staying warm and dry wasn't exactly an option with three hundred goats, twenty-five horses and over one hundred chickens, ducks and turkeys waiting to be fed and watered, so we bundled up and faced the storm.

Our five-month-old Australian Shepherd pup, Sparky, thought it was Christmas. With his thick coat, he romped across the yard, oblivious to the sting of the driving ice, grabbing mouthfuls of frosty snow from the ground. His bright spirits made it hard not to laugh, although I took care to face away from the direction of the wind.

No more outside frolicking for the goats this year. The wind whipping through their open door sounded like a freight train, bringing nothing but arctic air as it roared through the barn. A few heavy pieces of plywood and some long screws soon took care of that. Sparky made sure all the "girls" stayed on the right side of the door while we closed up the hole. Our horses were standing inside the open end of their building, snow blankets covering their backs. They greeted us with friendly nickers and neighs, knowing our presence meant their breakfast of hay would arrive any moment. The pregnant and waddling goats on the opposite side of the barn likewise sent a chorus of bleats our way.

Some of them hurried to the gate where they would usually go to the holding area to be milked. "Sorry, girls," I told them. With only two months to go until their babies are born, we have "dried-off" the entire herd. Most of the does dried off naturally, but a few of them were still milking about six pounds a day.

In a few days we will bring all the goats through the parlor one last time and milk out the does whose bags are tight with milk. This will prevent them from developing mastitis, an painful infection in their udders, which can ruin them for milking forever.

After feeding the dairy barn, we treked across the yard to the "upper" and "lower" barns, where our younger horses, mares and foals, poultry and young goats are housed. The four girls in the photograph greeted me as I walked into their barn. With almost one hundred of them in the building, they stay warm and dry. It is hard to believe these doelings are only nine months old. They were born this spring weighing an average of six to seven pounds. Now they are pregnant with their own babies and will give birth in February and March. You might notice two of the doelings in the picture have almost no ears. No, they didn't freeze off, although it does happen. They are both "La Mancha" doelings, an American breed of dairy goat with a gene that produces tiny little ears. Some people don't like the way they look, but I think they're cute. It's actually an advantage in our climate. No ears to freeze!

The chickens, ducks and turkeys are all running together in one big room for the winter, upstairs above the doelings. The other day I spread a layer of fresh sawdust in their area and it's the first thing I smell when I open the door. One glance at their water tubs tells me it's warm enough for them because the water is not frozen, despite the outside temperature. I fill their water tubs and feeders, collect a couple of blue-green eggs laid by our Araucana hens, and head back down the steps.

In the lower barn a mare nickers from the first stall and is answered by the colt standing in the back stall. Snapping a lead rope onto her halter I take her down the alleyway and reunite her with her baby, the colt who just called out to her. He is being weaned, but we do it over a period of a week or more. We separate them into adjacent stalls, then put them together again at night. After a few more days, we move the mare further down the barn and wait twenty-four hours before putting them back together. This prevents either the mare or foal from becoming too distressed with the weaning process. The foal is nine months old and needs to be halter broken and educated. In the wild, his mother would drive him away in the spring when her new colt was born, but it isn't practical in captivity. Once the separation is complete, we will put the colt in with another colt who is already weaned. Within a few days they will become the best of buddies, and Mom will be forgotten.

Pulling my ski-mask over my face to prevent being assaulted by stinging ice, I head back toward the house. Sparky has been waiting for me and he continues to cavort in the snow and ice as we walk. Then, he stops and looks across the field beyond our home. I follow his gaze to see a huge coyote hurrying along the crest of the hill. The coyote pauses and glances over his shoulder and then across at us. He dashes a few more yards and stops again. Deer hunting season opened up today, and no doubt he's been flushed from his normal territory by hunters searching for deer. That explains both his unusual daytime appearance and his nervous behavior.Grabbing the digital camera, I aim. The camera blinks "Card Full." Scrolling through the images, I delete a couple and raise my camera once more. I get my picture but he has traveled further away and it's not going to be much of a photo.



I make sure Sparky comes into the garage with me when we reach the house. As brave as he is barking at the coyote, he is still a pup. If he follows the coyote into the field and timber, he might not make it back home and I'm not taking any chances.I come back inside and check the computer for the latest weather report. The entire state of Iowa has disappeared under the blue for snow and purple for ice color code of the Doppler radar. We spend the rest of the afternoon under a blanket watching movies. Even though our house is a warm sixty-eight degrees, it takes a bit of thawing after spending time outside in the cold and evening chores will be here too soon.A late afternoon check of the incubator in the back room reveals some suspicious peeping sounds and one egg that's rocking back and forth across the wire floor. Twenty-seven Pekin ducklings are due to hatch tomorrow and it sounds like they're right on target. I turn the light off and plug the candling light in. Shining the light into the eggs, the duckling's beaks can be seen in the top air-sac section of the egg. Breaking through this membranes to start breathing the air within the egg is the first step toward a successful hatch.Stay tuned! The 'Fluffy Yellow Christmas Ducklings' story is coming soon!

Farewell, Foals

We received a phone call earlier this past week asking about one of our foals for sale. The lady said she would be coming to see the filly (female horse baby) pictured here on Saturday.

Here on Rainbow Gate Farm, we do not handle our foals for the first four to six months of their lives. While many people believe in early handling and even imprinting the foals, we think this can interfere with the very important 'horse' lessons a foal must learn about being a part of a horse herd. Most of our mares are very friendly and come up to see us when we walk into their pasture, so the foals, while wary, learn very early that people are not so bad.

During those first few months of life, a mother horse teaches the baby about the horse world's "social ladder" and how to behave around other horses. When a young foal sees an adult horse it doesn't know it will stretch out its neck and open and close its mouth rapidly. This is horse language for "Don't hurt me - I'm just a baby who poses no threat to you." I have seen young horses do this up to the age of two years when they encounter a strange, older horse they do not know.

There is a distinct pecking order among horses in a herd. Even though our stallion (male horse capable of breeding) runs with the mares, he is not the boss. A mare is always at the top of the pecking order. The head mare always decides who eats first when hay or grain is given out and she leads the herd through the day when they graze out in the pasture. The stallion may be allowed to eat beside her if she likes him, but quite often his position will be at number three or four.

Foals are often an exception in a group of horses who know each other well. Younger mares without foals will even "babysit" the youngsters, allowing them to eat with them, while the mother is eating elsewhere or if she is taken out to be ridden on a trail ride. The foals will spend less and less time by their mother's sides as they grow, returning only to nurse and if they become frightened.

Once the foals reach the age of four to six months they can be weaned from their dams. If a mare is maintaining her condition very well, we might leave the foal with her until it is seven months old.

With a pending sale, however, the weaning and handling process must begin. We promise our foals will be halter-broken and know how to lead by the time they leave the farm at purchase.

On Wednesday night, we weaned "Lucky," the filly in the photo, and left her until Friday morning, to get used to the idea of being without her mother. She soon realized her source of food was coming from us, and would nicker when we entered the barn, but touching her was out of the question. She didn't trust us. You could almost see her wondering, Are they going to eat me now? I'm ready to run away!

On Friday morning, I entered her stall with a lasso, being careful to leave the door unlatched behind me as an emergency exit if I needed one. The filly moved as far away from me as she could. Tossing the rope over her back, I let it slip to the floor several times. At first she flinched but soon realized the rope was not hurting her, and she ignored it as it flew past her head.

I threw the rope so the lasso end fell over her head and pulled it just tight enough so she knew I was now in contact with her. She ran around a couple of times and then stopped. I walked up to her and she moved away. Talking to her in a gentle tone, I continued walking up and reaching out my hand until she finally stood long enough for me to make contact with her head. As soon as my hand touched her, I stepped back five paces. End of lesson. I stood looking at the ground for a moment before glancing at her once more.

She watched me intently, and you could almost hear her thinking, Hmm, I wish she would go away. I run around and she follows me. I let her touch me and she leaves me alone. Letting her touch me is a good thing to do because then she leaves me alone.

We repeated this scenario several times. Touch her, walk away. By the third time, she hung her head and licked her lips. This is a key sign to a horse trainer that the horse just calmed down and relaxed. The next time I walked up to her, I stroked her neck and under her chin, lingering for about ten or fifteen seconds before walking away again.

She stared at me, and I imagined her thinking, Well, she hasn't eaten me yet. That actually feels kind of good when she scratches underneath my chin. Maybe that's why Mama liked these people creatures.

Within fifteen minutes of entering her stall, I was able to place a halter on that filly. I then left her alone for a few hours to absorb her lessons.

When I lived in Australia I was blessed to know the great horseman, Tom "Robbie" Roberts, author of the "Horse Control" books. In 1982, Robbie was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia, for his service to equestrian sport. A veteran of both World Wars, he took on difficult and dangerous horses and turned them into well-mannered, riding horses. He taught me a great deal about "gentling horses" and I still use his methods today. I remember him telling me over and over again, "A lesson is anything you teach a horse, good or bad." It is up to us to be sure every "lesson" a horse receives is a good one.

When I returned to the filly, she allowed me to walk up to her. I patted her and then snapped a lead-rope to her halter and taught her to give to the pressure and follow me wherever I went. I spent another fifteen minutes or so with her, and then put her away in her stall for the night, confident she would be ready to meet her new owner the next day.

On Saturday morning I received a phone call from the lady coming to see "Lucky," our filly. She mentioned having seen a buckskin foal on our website and indicated she was interested in purchasing that colt too.

Out the door we flew to catch the mare and foal in question. We weaned the foal, and I began to work with him right away. Using the same methods as for the filly, I had the second foal leading by the time the people arrived.

Tom "Robbie" Roberts always said if you teach a horse the right way, you give them a very good chance of having a good home for life. Although he was referring to a horse raised and then 'broke-in' or gentled for riding, I know the same holds true with foals started the right way too.

I always ask people to keep in touch and e-mail photos of the foals as they grow. Most people love to share but sometimes we never hear from them again.

As evening fell, I watched their trailer loaded with two foals, travel up our driveway, and drive away. I wondered if we would ever hear from them again and I think of Robbie's words, and smile, knowing I gave them a good head start on a happy life.

A White Thanksgiving on Rainbow Gate Farm

This morning as I head out for chores, I'll don snow boots, hat, gloves and a thick coat! It's a crisp 17 degrees out there with the wind chill and only 27 degrees if you are lucky enough to be out of the wind. Here on Rainbow Gate Farm, we are celebrating Thanksgiving Day with a blanket of snow covering everything in sight. No dreaming neccessary!

The flurries began yesterday and quickly turned into a steady snowfall. My journey to see a movie last night, with my two children, turned into an ordeal worthy of a 'Survivor' episode. Okay, that's a slight exaggeration but the forty-five minute drive took two-and-a-half hours each way. The snow surprised us halfway there. In retrospect, I should have turned around, but the nice radio weatherman assured us only flurries would be falling. He forgot to mention there would be four inches of them.

I slowed to thirty-miles-per-hour and watched car after car speed around our vehicle and vanish into the white cloud of wind-driven snow surrounding us. Being a dutiful parent, I turned boredom into a "How-Not-To-Drive-In-A-Snowstorm" lesson for my seventeen-year-old son, Sam. If he doubted his mother's wisdom at first, it didn't take long before he became a believer. We started passing flashing lights, police cars, tow-trucks and at least ten cars, trucks and SUV's in the ditches along the road.

We enjoyed the movie, Enchanted, and made it home safe. Now, there's something to be thankful for.

Here on our farm, I transfered fifteen half-grown chicks from their grower-cage up to the main poultry barn yesterday afternoon. Until then, they'd been under a heat lamp so I hope they are doing okay. With over 100 other chickens, ducks and turkeys up in our poultry's wintering room, the temperature does stay a little warmer. Chicks are born with a downy, soft covering and it is crucial they stay in a warm environment until they grow their adult feathers, which protect them from cold temperatures.

Thirty Pekin Duck eggs are developing in the incubator. Those ducklings will be needing that heated growing cage a few days after they hatch. We keep them in a cardboard box inside for a few days to be sure everyone is eating and drinking. I "candle" the eggs in the incubator every week to check on the development stage of the embryo. Using a small, white light in a tube, I hold the wide end of the egg up to the light in a darkened room. Like magic, you can see the growing chick or duckling inside. Bad eggs are removed so they don't explode. Depending on the stage of development at the time of candling, you might see a beating heart, a beak, a head or a foot!

The last time I checked the duck eggs, one embryo plastered his tiny webbed foot against the side of the shell when I shone the light into his egg. The foot was the size of the nail on my pinky finger and I laughed at his protest against my intrusion into his private world.

We have over ten different varieties of rare-breed chickens, two breeds of ducks and Narragansett turkeys. Last year, I could not keep up with the demand for chicks and hatching eggs. I've increased our numbers of breeding stock this summer and fall. If you would like to see them on our website, just type in http://www.rainbowgatefarm.com/ on your browser and go to the Poultry page. We have chickens who lay blue, green, brown, white and tinted (off-white) eggs.

Well, I'm off to do chores in the snow. Brrr! The goats are waiting to be milked. We are milking less than 100 does now, as the others have dried-up in preparation for the pending birth of those five-hundred goat kids we are expecting in February and March. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Jack Frost made an early appearance this morning to our mid-west farming operation. He greeted me by nipping at my bare hands as I hurried across to the barn to feed hay and check the livestock. Our radio weather man announced we could expect snow flurries this afternoon. Just in time for Thanksgiving.

We are weaning foals this week. Most of them are already five to six months old. One paint filly is heading off to Indiana this weekend, so we need to work with her over the next few days. Right now she is nervous of us but over the next few days she will learn how to lead, and tie up, pick up her feet when asked and stand still to let us brush her. We use a gentle approach to training but firm enough to teach the foal manners also. A newly weaned foal will treat human handlers like another horse from their herd. At some time in their training they act out, perhaps trying to kick or nip at their human. A sharp smack and a loud "No!" is usually all it takes for the foal to think Whew! I don't think I will try that again.

Even though we have six turkeys sitting in the freezer, we've decided to go out for Thanksgiving lunch tomorrow. It is our first Thanksgiving without my mother-in-law and nobody feels like much of a celebration.

The goats are falling on milk pounds. Their bodies are preparing for the new kids they are carrying, due in January and February of 2008.

Which reminds me, I have a lot of cleaning to do! Both our "kid buildings" need to be cleaned out by hand and restocked with fresh sawdust. Pens must be dismantled for cleaning and then rebuilt. It will be worth it, when those gorgeous babies start to arrive and I can transport them to clean, dry and warm buildings in which to grow and play. We are expecting over 500 goat kids this year, so it's never been so important to be prepared.