Almost done?

Wow! This month seems to be flying by. I can't believe its already the 28 of April! I am now starting to take my horse to lessons, I am practicing for the Topeka symphony, we just got a new great pyreneese puppy, the goats are only on two bottles a day now and my big brother will soon be 17! I can't believe how fast everything is going this year.

Last year the goats seemed like they were never going to be weaned and now they are almost off the bottle all together! My violin last year sounded somewhat like a fire truck and now I am trying out for the symphony. My big brother Elisha is my best friend and he is growing so fast. Its funny how things change so quickly. It makes you want to live every moment to the fullest. I pray God will help me live my whole life for His glory. I think this is the only way I can live my life to the fullest. I look forward to the rest of the year and all of the wonderful things God has planned out for me. :-)

I hope God blesses your farms and lives as well. :-)

Until thew whole world hears,

Beth Joy

SOLD!

Hello Everyone!

This last week has been very busy. We have been planting, selling, teaching, and of course learning! We sold our last two Kinder goaties. They went to a great new home

with a sweet daughter that will love and care for them. We always try to make sure the people that buy our goats are completely prepared so I made sure their daughter had everything she needed to care for the goaties. :-) I think they are going to enjoy their new home very much!

We are still trying to sell five of our Kinders (two bucks and three does). I haven't found a home yet but I am sure some one has got to want a cute loveable Kinder! ;-)

(A sweet friend with her new goaties!)

I hope you all have a blessed day!

Until the whole world hears,

Beth Joy Wood

Letting our goats graze

Hello everyone!
We like to let our goats, sheep and other animals graze freely every day.
Here are some important things to check for before, during and after your animals are grazing.

• Check pasture for poisonous plants. http://goat-link.com/component/option,com_wrapper/Itemid,51/ We leave baking soda in their pens and pastures along with their minerals just in case they eat something bad for them. Normally the baking soda will fix the problem.
  
• Make sure the waters don't have holes and are clean and full. They will not drink the water if it is dirty or has a dead mouse.
  

• Check your goats. Make sure they are not limping, standing alone, or not eating. It is important to know your goats and know what they are normally acting like so when they start to get sick you can fix the problem quickly.

Knowing the basic first aid for your goats is also helpful. I worked with our vet and bought some books about goat first aid and it has helped us a lot! :-)
Here is a link to a website that talks a little bit about it. http://www.napga.org/downloads/firstaid.pdf


I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Until the whole world hears,
Beth Joy Wood

Gardening with the goats

Hello everybody!

Lately we have been doing a lot of gardening. Our sweet Kinder kids of course had to "help"! :-) We have been planting flowers, veggies, and trees in our yard to make it look nicer. Our garden is starting to look just beautiful!

The kids rolled in the chicken wire as we laid it down, ate flowers, veggies, and the fruit trees we planted, and played on anyone who was near them. We had quite a bit of fun with them that day. We all absolutely love being with the kids even if we don't get to much work done. ;-)

Until the whole world hears,

Beth Joy Wood

Feed mix

Hello Everyone!

As with our other feed for the animals, we have enjoyed the benefits of creating our own mix. The goats love to enjoy the fresh food the we cut up for them in the mornings. Such as: Parsley (high in iron), carrots, garlic and Kale. The animals enjoy going for walks and eat from our pastures. We also feed them alfalfa that a friend of ours grows nearby.

We have a mineral mix available at all times for the goats as well as a tray of Kelp.

Our does are getting the same "new momma" herbal mixture and red raspberry leaves that I mentioned last week. They also get their cereal mix which consists of the following:

100lbs oats
100lbs wheat bran
100lbs corn
100lbs shredded beet pulp
100lbs barley
100lbs of sunflowers
100lbs 40%protein
30lbs of molasses
Soy oil or linseed oil

Protein: 14.58
Fat: 2.15
Fiber: 5.10

This is just the recipe I could find right now. Momma is always learning and changing it ever so slightly as we get access to other products or learn more.

I hope you all are enjoying the recipes I have given you all! =)

Until the whole world hears,

Beth Joy

~Vinigar Of The Four Thieves~

Hello everybody!

Our family has started using the Vinigar of the four thieves. It is quite simple to make and works great for keeping away mites, ticks and flees just to name a few. It does help with flys but I have found for my horses it doesn't help as much. The horses sweat quite a bit more than the goats so I think that is the only reason it doesn't work as well on them. :-)

Once we are done making it we dilute it half strength with water for using on our animals and ourselfs.

Note: Do NOT use internally!

First, take your herbal mixture of Lavender, Peppermint, Rosemary, Sage and Wormwood, There are quite a few different recipes out there but most say to use equal parts and some add a few other herbs like rue, hyssop, and lemon balm. We purchase our herbs from the Bulk Herb Store and in their recipe for the Vinigar of the four thieves they only use the five herbs I have listed. Once mixed well measure out 12 tablespoons and place in your 2 quart jar of Raw apple cider vinigar.

Shake then store in a cool dry place for 2 weeks.

After the 2 weeks is over, drain off all the herbs. Chop 2 Tbs. into the liqiud and put in a pot and steep for 3 days. Do NOT boil. If you cook it to fast it will make your house stink.

Once the 3 days are over strain off the garlic and store in your fridge until you need it.

I hope you all have a blessed day!

Until the whole world hears,

Bethany Joy Wood

Feed Your Goats Naturally- Momma Mixture

Hello Everybody!


I thought I would share with you this week how we feed our goats. We like to feed them with natural foods.


We dry a lot of our own fruits, herbs and veggies. I just love to go out to the garden and pick fresh food and the prepare it for our animals or save it for a later date.


My momma made our own grain recipe and a "Momma mixture" that we give to the goats after they have kidded.


This is the Momma Mixture recipe that we came up with.
Momma Mixture
One part Chamomile flowers
One part Tyme
One part Peppermint
Two part Red Raspberry leaves

You just take each of these ingredients, dry, and mix them together in a coffee can, cocoa can or a glass jar. We normally mix it in a hot cocoa can because then we can put it out in the barn and we don't have to worry about a glass jar braking or anything like that. You can mix this with their grain or feed it to them plain. We give them 1Tbs morning and night (two Tbs daily) for about two weeks before they kid and two weeks after the kid.



If any of you try this out please let me know how it worked for you! :-)

Until the whole world hears,
Beth Joy Wood

Our Herb Cabinet














Last year we gathered nettles, dried them and then fed to our goats. Nettles help the doe produce more milk.















This is a photo of one of our bucks last year, Cookie.

Bottle feeding kids

Hello again everybody!
I so enjoy bottle feeding our Kinder kids!
We once had one kid that was raised on her mother. She is now a sweetie but then she was a little wild.
She would get all the goats worked up and running around the pen just because she felt like it, she would never let us touch her and didn't even come when we had a bottle.
I remind myself of having to go through training her when I had to stay up most of the night to feed the kids. I enjoy feeding our kids much more now that they sleep through the night and drink less milk.





If you havn't bottle fed your kids before here are some basic tips.

• Hold the baby the first few time you try to bottle feed. This way the baby can't move around when you and the baby are first trying this.
• Hold the kid's neck up and as straight as possible.
• Make sure the milk is not all dripping out of its mouth or it won't get good nutrition.

And have LOTS of fun!!! :-)

I hope you have a blessed evening.


Until the whole world hears,
Beth Joy Wood

Fun with the kids

Hello everyone!

Now that the kids are older they are much more playful!
The other day I walked outside and was greeted by a bunch of playful kids. They enjoy jumping on my back while I am out in the garden or when I bend down to pick something up.

One of our ewes had her lambs so Patience (our kinder kid) is trying to become friends with them, much to the ewe's dislike. She just loves to play!

I hope you all enjoy the pictures. =)

Mocha and her sweet lambs. Patience just loves to help with the lambs!

Havin' fun in the sun! :D

Don't mess with little miss Joy ;-)

I hope you all have a blessed weekend!

Until the whole world hears,

Beth Joy Wood

Building pens

(Elisha working on the birthing pens)

Hello everyone!

My papa and brothers Elisha, Josiah, and Zeke all have been working on remodeling our barn.

Elisha is in charge of making sure everything gets done right while my papa is at work. Elisha is the ranch foreman and I am the ranch manager. Elisha and I really enjoy working together and thinking of better ways to manage the ranch. Josiah takes Elisha's place of overseeing all the jobs when Elisha is gone working with papa on something else.

The first thing the boys built this year were the birthing pens for the does. They made a special place above the birthing pens for all the alfalfa to be stored. They really did a awesome job!

This is a picture of the boys hard work!

Meet the kids!

These are our Kids for the Spring 2010 year. They are lots of fun and work of course. We bottle feed all of them.
Reeses had her three lovely kids first. Kit Kat was next to kid. She had two sweet doelings. After Kit kat, Taffy kidded. Taffy had two beautiful bucklings. Last but not least is Della. Della had one darling doeling!

I hope you all enjoy the pictures!















































































For the love of goats,
Miss Beth Joy Wood

First to kid!

Hi Everyone! =)

Every year I wait somewhat impatiently for our Kinders to kid. =)

This year our first goat to kid was Reeses. She had two sweet little bucklings and one lovely doeling.
The first born from Reeses was a beautiful tan buckling with black, white, brown and even a little bit of red in his coat! He was born backwards but Reeses had him before I could help her. He is quite a lively little fellow. He just loves to jump off the walls in his pen! :-) His name is Patches. He has already found his new home and will be going there in a few months.

The second was a lovely black little girl with white frosted ears and muzzle. This little girl was just a sweetie pie! She loved getting all the attention and is now getting lots of it in her new home. =)

The third was a surprise to us all! We all went in the house about 40 minutes after Reeses had her second kid thinking she was done. Elisha went outside 2 hours later and found a beautiful black buckling with a white crown drinking off his mother. Elisha quickly brought the little buckling into the house to get warm. Once he was warm and fed he was just a little ball of fun! =) He enjoys playing with his brother and other furry little friends around the barn yard.
We are calling him Surprise until he finds a new forever home. :-)

Reeses also found a new home with her little baby girl and two other little kids from this year's kidding season. :-)

I hope you all enjoyed reading about our goat Reeses and her kids.

For the love of goats,
Beth Joy Wood

April Greetings!

Hi!

My name is Bethany however, everyone calls me Beth or Beth-Joy! I thought for my frst post I would just tell you all a little bit about me, my family and our farm, Covenant Ranch.

I am one out of eleven children. I have seven brothers and three sisters. The oldest in my family is 21 and the youngest is yet to be born. :-) I am fifteen in June. My little sister, Sarah-Grace, and I both share our birthday. I have a horse named Miracle. I enjoy helping my brothers and sisters with their animals. Besides our lovely little herd of Kinder goats, we have two milks cows, two meat cows, one busy beehive, one Arabian horse, one Quarter horse, our sweet little herd of hair sheep, an assortment of chickens, chicks, ducks, and one goose that thinks she is the queen of the barn. We also have a very fluffy little puppy and two cats!

Sarah-Grace, Elisha (one of my older brothers), Timothy (one of my younger brothers) and I all take care of the goats together. Elisha and Sarah do most of the milking, Timothy does a lot of the feeding, with Elisha's help, and Sarah and I take care of the kids. I am also in charge of selling the milk to our customers who come to our farm, giving farm tours and keeping track of all the paperwork and farm activity.

These are some pictures of our farm.

Our property flooded so the boys all went fishing with pitch forks. They caught three fish. =)

This is our bee hive. Timothy takes care of all the bee hives for our family. He is only 10 but he loves bees!

This is my youngest brother Matthew. He is very athletic. Matthew, Elisha, Bekah (my oldest sister), and I all go running together. Matthew and I ran in the Dover race last year. =)

This is our Jersey milk cow. She really loves my little brother Josiah. Josiah takes care of all the cows.

These are our chickens. They love to sit on our front pourch!

This is Liberty, one of our Kinder Kids that was born in the Spring of 2009. Matthew nick-named her Libby. She is one of our sweetest does's. She was bred just last month. I can't wait to see the kids that she gives us.

I'm excited to share with you all the activity at my house this month. I hope you all enjoyed the pictures!

For the love of goats,

Miss Beth Joy Wood