Autumn's Wicked Lullaby

Each morning now, my old friend, Jack Frost, nips my cheeks as I step outside just before the sunrise butters the horizon. Hugging my sweatshirt, I hurry to the barn, where the goats greet me with a chorus of bleats and snorts. After filling seven buckets half-way with grain, enough for each group of twenty-one goats, I stop to feed the kittens meowing in the entryway of the parlor.

Next stop, the milk-house, to run hot water into the steel sink where the milking units lie waiting. After pouring in a dose of sanitizer, I flip the switch for the milker pump, and let it run through the pipelines and back into the sink. It needs ten minutes to kill any bacteria in the line, so I leave it running and walk outside to the holding area.

From here, the view is superb. The rolling hills are weeping leaves in the brisk wind, leaving rivers of autumn tones across the pasture. Several of our horses graze the remnants of green grass, so abundant just a few short weeks ago. If you have to shovel manure, you might as well do it with a view, and grabbing the manure scraper, I soon have the cement yard clean of mud and goat droppings.

Once that job is complete, it's time to shut the pump off and drain the sanitizing solution out of the line. I carry each milking unit out to the parlor, and plug it into the pipeline. First the tubing where the milk will flow, and then the air-hose for vacuum.

Sparky, my Australian Shepherd, waits at my feet, eyes sparkling, tongue lolling in an ever-present grin. He loves his job. "Come on, boy," I say. We enter the barn, and slide the door to the holding area open. As I open the gate, Sparky starts barking and the goats run through the door. Sparky dashes to the back of the pen, rounding up any stragglers.

When the last goat is through the door, he sits and waits, daring them to try and come back in the barn. They know better these days, and I slide the door shut without incident. Sparky looks across the barn at the goats who remain on the other side in the "Dry Pen" and whines.

"It's okay, boy," I say. "They aren't milking right now." Of our 250 adult does, half are no longer milking and are what we call "dry". They are pregnant and will be giving birth by late December. As their pregnancy progresses, their body signals a "slow down" on the milk production and they give less and less each day. When this happens, we mark these does with green ink, and milk them once a day for about a week. This gives their bodies another signal to cease making milk. Then we put them in the dry pen so they can focus on growing the new life inside of them and prepare for the next milking season.

Putting the radio on to my favorite station, Life 101.9, I let a group of goats into the parlor, and switch on the pump. It only takes an hour and all the does are milked. I carry all the milking units back into the milk-house and place them in the sink.

After washing off any mud, they are hooked back up to be washed with hot water and a special pipeline detergent. Finally a solution of milk-stone-remover and acid rinse is run through the lines and they are drained until tonight.I hose down the parlor deck where the goats stood, and head upstairs to the top of the barn where we store the sweet-smelling alfalfa hay.

After forking down two huge piles through feeding holes in the floor, I run back downstairs and spread it up and down the mangers in the dairy barn. Soon, every goat is lined up eating hay.

Then it's off to the smaller barns where over one-hundred-and-forty yearling female goats called doelings are waiting for their breakfast of hay and grain. These young does will give birth in early 2009 and join the milking herd, bumping our total number of milking does to almost four hundred next year. Most of our does will give birth to twins, with the occasional set of triplets and some singles.

Math never has been my strongest subject, but I believe this means we are expecting somewhere in the vicinity of seven or eight hundred baby goats this year, all to be born between late December, 2008 and April, 2009. Our weather man warned us this morning to expect snow flurries this Monday.

Last year, snow fell by Thanksgiving and never left until April. We keep our baby goats (kids) in two old trailer houses. They have to be cleaned out and bedded-up with fresh sawdust, which will give our three teenagers something really exciting to do this weekend.

Even though we have electric heaters and automatic feeders in the kid trailers, the biggest challenge is collecting the babies before they freeze at birth. Here in the Midwest, United States of America, our temperatures can stay below zero for weeks on end through the winter months. Add mountains of ice and regular snow storms, and I wonder once again why I ever chose to live in Iowa.

It's time to start boarding up windows and hauling the old tarp out of storage to cover up the open end of the barn. Winterizing is essential if we want livestock, not deadstock. While most does are excellent mothers and try to lick their babies dry, some plop their offspring onto the straw and walk away without so much as a backward glance.

On the coldest days, I have about five minutes to reach the soaking-wet newborns and run them back to the milk-house to be dried off and fed their mother's colostrum. If I don't get to them fast enough, their ears freeze and fall off about a week later.

It's simple enough until twenty does all decide to give birth to twins and triplets in the space of one hour. Having licked their babies dry, they walk across to someone else's kids and claim them, too. I will bring one round of babies in and go out to find fifteen more waiting for me.

The boy babies (bucklings) out of the top milk producing does and each female baby goat (doelings) are given a Velcro collar with their date of birth, future identification number and parents' names written on it with a permanent marker. The Velcro collar can be adjusted as they grow.

Once they reach eight weeks, they receive an ear tattoo with the same number.While I'm enjoying the beautiful scenery and the slow-down pace around the farm, Autumn's gentle lullaby is deceptive. Her days are mild and the scenery is superb, but we all know her husband is a foul-tempered beast and I hear his voice howling in the distance.

Let him come. We'll be ready.

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.

Milk Inspector

Two words that fill the heart of any dairy farmer with fear and trepidation are "Milk Inspector."

All dairy farms in the United States are inspected on a bi-annual basis by a milk inspector who works for the State in which the farm is located. They check for cleanliness, condition of buildings and milking equipment, and the general health and living conditions of the livestock.

The inspector has a sheet he or she uses to mark down any problems found. If there is a health risk or terrible conditions, they can shut down your operation on the spot - no more selling milk until you correct the problems and are re-inspected for a fee.

Today was our day. We passed with flying colors, much to my delight!

We sell our milk under a Grade B licence because our goat's milk is all goes to be made into cheese. Grade A is for fluid milk production.


The wind is whipping through our November midwest today. I felt like Mary Poppins sans umbrella out there trying to carry hay around this morning to feed everyone.

The horses and goats are growing the thickest winter coats I've seen in years. I'm hoping they won't need them, but Mother Nature sure is preparing for the worst.