New arrivals!

First things first… the arrival of Ursule (4 year old goat), her kid Jacqueline (little black goat – 1 month) and lovely Paquerette (little brown goat – 3 weeks).

Jacqueline and Paquerette have become best friends and like to rest together in their lambbox, to climb on everything climbable including my back, Ursule or the sheep. Paquerette is almost as tame as a little dog and is now and then allowed to follow us around in the garden. She drinks a liter of milk in the morning and in the evening, Jacqueline still drinks with her mother but we’ve started to separate her during the night, which is working well. This way we get about 0,8l every morning from Ursule, although not yet very willingly… No need to say this is not much to make cheese with, but in a few days I should have enough to give it a go (10-15l)! Knowing that a Kg of cheese is usually about 10 liters of milk. In the meantime I am also looking into finding an organic milk farm to buy some more milk, especially now that it’s becoming increasingly clear that Gretchen will not be providing her share this season.

2 weeks ago, while Hannes went for a last check in the barn before turning in for the night, at about 23:30 he discovered a dirty little bundle of woolly skin and limbs being licked clean by Frieda: Xy was born! At about 01:30 we decided that Frieda was not going to have a second lamb after all (I read afterwards that apparently they come at maximum 20min from each other), that Xy was going to get the hang of finding where the milk comes from on his own, that Gretchen was not having a jealousy fit and that Frieda’s placenta would eventually stop dangling from her bumm (it’s supposed to fall out alone… at some point). So all in all, luckily for everyone we were not much needed and Frieda did a great job!