We Don t Want to Lose Her

I'll give you a little boost of go-ness. What's up guys? It's Daniel from Arms Family Homestead and we lucked out. We missed out on a crazy storm yesterday. I really, I say we lucked out. I really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really wanted to rain three or four inches so the creek gets up and fish get in the creek and we can go catch some sand bass, have a cook, you know, have a cook out, cook some fish, all the things that didn't happen. But we did miss out on a crazy storm. My wife was outside, you know, shooting videos and it was just rumbling thunder and rolling and clouds were brewing. It looked like we were fixing to get hammered with a storm. We got about two drops of rain but not everyone was so fortunate. My wife's little sister Katie is in college about 30 miles away and her car pretty much got totaled by a hailstorm. I mean check out these pictures. It just destroyed cars everywhere. So yesterday before that storm hit we were scrambling moving vehicles. We put big vehicles in the garage, put vehicles in the shop. We even got our Suburban under the barn here and then nothing happened. Not that I'm complaining but I would like a good downpour, you know, to get the creek rolling, get some fish in the creek. But in other news we had a baby goat born a few days ago to a big spotted doe and her bag is, her udder is huge. It's ridiculous and we've been really trying to keep a close watch on this baby to make sure that it's able to nurse and two days ago DJ was like, I'm not sure it's getting enough milk. So yesterday DJ and I came out and spent an hour down here and finally we just decided let's separate the mom and the baby, put them together and then I wanted to try to get a lot of that milk out of her udder and let that baby nurse on its own and I think, I think we made some progress. It's doing great things. Here, turn around little baby. Turn around. Here, here, come on. Quit shaking your head no at me. Come on. Having to really milk her udder down a lot by hand so that the baby can even nurse because her udder is just so engorged, so large. The baby's struggling to eat because mama's teat's supposed to be up here and it's way down on the ground almost but we are doing everything, everything we can to help get the baby a good meal. You got to get it out of reverse okay. Kind of being wasteful but I just don't want her to get mastitis. See the baby's natural instinct is to hit up here looking for an udder but her teats are down here so this may be the last time spot has a baby but with her only having a single and her udder being utterly engorged the baby is having a hard time finding it so we're having to help. Get up here, get up here, get up here. Open your mouth. Yeah, I mean once she latches on she nurses but she's gonna have to learn to get low. You have to do the limbo to nurse because mom's udders are pretty far down. You know, I mean we could hand milk her and start her on a bottle but I'm trying to avoid that. I don't want to. I don't want to put the baby on the bottle unless we just have to but if we do, if we have to, we will but she's got quite a bit of milk in her belly while we've been doing this and she did go over and latch on to the other one after I had it milked down pretty good. She was laying down. Oh. Laying down nursing. There she goes. She got it. We're just down low girl. Well and I feel like she closes her eyes when she's under there too and I know it's like sense of smell but I'm shaking. She was walking around earlier with her eyes closed. Well this little baby's what three days old now so we know she's nursing some. I just don't think she's nursing enough and I know she got some colostrum from mom because mom's milk's already past the colostrum stage but I've got this here. I'm gonna go ahead and give it to her. It's a multi-species colostrum gel. Just be a really good little boost of energy for her so maybe it'll help keep her going and maybe laying down and nursing. I'll give you a little boost of goness. At bedtime? At bedtime. Oh well. Hey babe. Is that good stuff? So I'm back out this morning and I want to check on mama and baby. See if she needs to be hand milked a little bit more. Her having a single is just going to be really tough for that baby to take in enough milk to really stay ahead of this engorged udder situation but the baby's doing okay and I'm gonna see if it needs a little help nursing this morning or if it's gonna be able to do it on its own. Well I didn't catch it all on video but I did see the baby nursing and mom's doing a good job. She's really trying to encourage the baby to nurse and do everything but it's just not easy when mom's udder or her teeth are not where they're supposed to be. But as long as the baby is getting up and moving and active, she's not lethargic, she's doing good, that means she is getting milk. I mean obviously giving her a little shot of so she's probably doing okay on her own. Well I mean I helped her last night obviously but I may work with them a little bit more just to just to make sure. I did see the baby you know nursing for a few seconds a little bit ago. Let's see let's see if that baby can latch on that means well I don't think she's that hungry. Anyways if I can just see her latch on a couple times that means she's able to nurse and do everything on her own and you can tell by the the size reduction. I mean they're still huge but they're nowhere near as engorged as they were and there is a defined teat to grab a hold of to latch on at the bottom of that udder. It's just baby's instincts tell them to stick their head up to nurse and she can't do that. Oh here we go here we go here we go here we go baby get your nose out of her butt looky there that's what we want to see you guys that right there is a really good sign. Now I may still over the next few days continue to uh to hand milk her out just a little bit not necessarily to give to the baby because I don't want to put a goat on a bottle if I don't have to. I mean we will if that if it comes down to it but if she can nurse on her own that'll help keep mom from getting mastitis you know getting engorged and all that stuff but I may continue to uh to milk some of that out just a little bit over the next few days just to help you know keep that thing being too big for the baby to nurse I guess basically. So that is very encouraging to see I like to see that baby nursing and not having to pull her off of her mama milk the mama out all the time put her on a bottle that's not that's not what I want to do unless we have to. Now I will say this we do have a a niece a little girl that's uh asking for a baby goat and a bottle baby can be a lot of fun if you have the time to mess with them but obviously the natural process what we want to do keep the babies off the bottle keep them on mama it's just much better healthier livestock for sure. Sure you can raise them on a bottle Skip was raised on a bottle she's been just fine. Lambert was a bottle baby and you can still tell she's several years old and has never really filled out she has babies she's healthy but she's never really been just you know a number one grade top-notch looking goat she is very lovable though but in other news so we're up to five baby goats right now and like I said earlier in the videos I don't have near the goat herd I used to have used to when it was kidding season we would drop 20 25 30 babies on the ground this year we've trimmed way back but it's interesting to me that our babies are so spread out because I waited a little longer in the year to breed my does and so we turned copper in and then within a couple days Isaac magically become a young man and got through a fence with his giant horns I have no idea how he got across the fence so we had two bucks in with the does for a couple months and really usually once the does start coming into cycle coming into heat they all get bred pretty quick and then you have babies hitting the ground like multiple times a day this year they're really spread out and I think it's probably because I waited till later in the breeding season and those does weren't just on the same cycle they were kind of spread out anyways enough of that I can ramble on about goats all day but two sets of twins and one single so far so that was our first mama this year and she had this set of twins and the funny thing is is they all look alike this year yeah we've got several black babies that all have that white spot and then as you can see two brown babies this one's pretty much identical to that single that spot has over there that she's struggling with so those are the first two that were born they're doing well as you can see it's really greening up around here spring is spring is doing its thing for sure Larry quit chasing the babies okay Steve we hear you and I think the other set of twins are sleeping under this dog house it's their favorite thing to do all these baby goats every year look at here yeah I haven't shown these DJ showed them on her video but these were born just uh three maybe four days ago now but notice the uh white skunk spot on their head Lambert when are you gonna have baby hmm all right listen I'm gonna put this back down careful I know you're standing up careful get ready for it here it comes okay y'all go back to napping hey Larry you've been you've been calling up any wild turkeys well you're the one doing the most gobbling right now y'all called up any wild hens yeah you did okay I'll show them yeah I know I got video I'll show them hang on no I'm not I mean I'm kind of joking but it's really true the other day Houston and I were moving stuff back and forth from my shop to the new merch building and we pulled up in the driveway to load up the Suburban because it was supposed to rain so we're loading everything in the Suburban and Houston goes dad there's a turkey at the back of the donkey pen well we just thought it was the brown turkey that's always running around here that you know was aggravating the barn building and we got to looking and noticed there were multiple turkeys like six or seven and I can't say for sure that Larry and his prodigy son here are the ones that called him in but they were less than a hundred yards from this spot just coming up the fence line along the creek bank and uh it's encouraging to see more wild turkeys on our property Farrah be quiet Charlie no they're all just small small young birds probably hens and some little jakes and stuff but there's quite a few to get something and I said I thought I thought it was just the brown turkey from over there was just walking by the fence because she always gets stuck behind it and I kept on looking closer but there was more that looked just like her and I was like there's we only we only have one that's brown like that here let me get off this stump so I knew that there was something up and I was like yeah I think there's some turkeys got closer and there was like seven turkeys yep and the house is right there yeah they're right behind the house for sure let's uh while we're here let's walk down there we found a bunch of mushrooms in the past along the creek right here let's look real quick and then we got to hurry up and get back over to the merch building so we don't get in trouble we we just come to the house to grab a few things and well car's still running yeah they're still just hanging out down there aren't they right on the fence down there in that area where I burned in between the fence on the creek and then all past that fence is is burned area you can see even right here this is all freshly burned huh charlie you're just looking for a finger to bite aren't you now I know a lot of people disagree with all the trapping and stuff that we did over the last couple months and I can't say that trapping predators is the only reason those turkeys are here but two things we've really been focusing on or the controlled burns the burn area of burning timber there she is right there I hear I see her now uh burning off timber areas creating you know more habitat better habitat and removing predators now we didn't see any turkeys hardly at all the last all the way back through deer season and since we've done the burns since we've started pulling the predator population down a little bit we're starting to see more and more turkeys that one group we saw a few days ago dj and I there were four what houston and I saw as you guys just saw they're not very old they're young probably last year's hatch uh no no big toms that we can really hunt this year in that group maybe a couple hens that might draw in some toms you know some of these guys the wild version uh but there were like seven or eight and they were scratching along right where we burned which it was just a small area between the fence and the creek but they were scratching through that burned out area foraging looking for food and it's very very encouraging to see more and more turkeys both here and on the mill creek property that tells me that what we're doing is helping in a sense helping heal the land helping improve the land and making better habitat now back to you two ladies when are you girls gonna have a baby I see she's starting to uh get a little bit of milk in her udder she's looking uncomfortable if you can't tell as she walks so uh some of you ladies can you know understand what that last trimester feels like when you're getting close to having a baby she's kind of got that third trimester look if you're talking about human scale and I don't know about you you got a big old belly but you haven't been producing any milk so you're running behind so things with the goats are going great everything seems to be going good for the spring uh I was going to go back a little bit yesterday was Saturday we did our merch launch with our live video and everything uh pecan pieces sold out in just no time we didn't have a ton of those but we do still have a lot of pecans we started with 4 000 pounds and I think in the first well it hadn't even been 24 hours yet but we've sold 17 ish 1800 maybe pounds of pecans so pecans are selling fast but we should by the time you guys see this which will be the day I'm filming I'm gonna edit this and get it out to you guys as quick as possible uh we should still have pecans in stock plus hats and t-shirts and mugs and all the things that dj has going on and while we're on the topic of yesterday two more things yesterday was the last round of the 2024 crossfit open 24.3 was a very brutal morning very hard intense workout but we did it so here it is so our family well dj and i especially and then houston even competed in the crossfit open this year emily just came and counted reps for houston and that was about it she didn't do it but anyways we survived uh made it through alive our second crossfit open larry i know that doesn't mean a lot to you but it means a lot to me yeah all right dj here we go last week of the crossfit open 24.3 let's go home look i brought the van we can just leave we can leave right now listen we can leave right now i'll cook you lunch in the van breakfast whatever it takes i am not looking forward to this workout it's so this is a killer it's like chest to bar pull-ups and thrusters for five sets and then you get a one minute break and then you gotta do pull-ups and heavier thrusters and nobody's finishing the workout unless you're like a top elite athlete i have not been nervous the last two weeks i'm nervous today yeah i'm not looking forward to it this one's gonna be i got a few minutes brutal killer i'm gonna go home let's go let's go and here we go 10 seconds we can hop in the van and take a nap now i'm gonna need one today you can't nope no time you have to work today actually now so we're here we're week three now everybody wants to know did you win there's no winners in this workout there's only losers yes did not win dj actually finished the workout but had to scale it a little bit more technically i scored higher but she finished the workout i didn't i finished at 13 32 but i couldn't do some of the i won my last workout so i'm i'm just he's got it this afternoon yeah yeah now i gotta take the van to the shop i gotta get a few things fixed on the shop so we're gonna go drop that off and then over to the merch building because dj's got a we got a launch watch out lunch lunch lunch lunch right and then when we got home houston wanted to go do a little morel mushroom hunting because we found a few several days ago at mill creek so he's like chomping at the bit dad let's go find some mushrooms so houston and i headed off into the woods and check out what we found all right y'all houston and i came to check one of our favorite little morel mushroom hot spots i had to make a trip back to the buggy to walk back over to the buggy to get a bag so you know what that means right i mean if we gotta have the bag we must have found something to put in the bag and i think we hit hit a small uh mother load of morel mushrooms down here on the creek bank houston found the first one again that's what happens with these mushrooms man you find one and next thing you know they just start appearing out of nowhere watch you got one right there one right there right there oh yep there's one kelsey just about stepped on all of them kelsey just ran across about seven or eight yeah so kelsey take it easy on our mushrooms well that's a nice one too oh that's a good one i'll take that right there look at that the tastiest little fungus in the woods it's you know it was supposed to be raining right now like today we were predicted for heavy thunderstorms possible tornadoes we actually had a tornado watch today flash flood watch and uh the ground is not even wet we barely even got a sprinkle here but we decided to come look for mushrooms and right here i can see earl's got them look one two three four five right here in front of earl are you looking for mushrooms earl are you just looking back up earl back up oh get back you're breaking our mushrooms earl well they're still they're still here get back get back get back get back dogs get back houston come pick the dang mushroom so i can't fight the dogs off forever oh there's another one earl don't step on it whose idea was it to bring the old mushroom hunting sometimes you got to look past the wild onions to get the mushrooms and if we would have gotten any measurable amount of rain out of that storm that skirted by us yesterday we would have probably found a lot more mushrooms over the next couple days it takes a good rain to get those things to pop up and really have any numbers but so hopefully we'll get a shower or two over the next week and find a lot of morel mushrooms but we did cook them a little bit different than we've ever really done in the past i've done it a few times i've saw we sauteed these morel mushrooms because we were cooking steaks and uh they were amazing i loved them kids not quite as much they honestly prefer them fried i mean who wouldn't you batter them egg flour fry oh they're so amazing but sauteing them and eating them with a steak was really good too so since houston and i looked out and found a few morel mushrooms today and we decided we were going to have steaks for supper uh courtesy of uh mr ralph those are some ralph t-bones right there and a couple ribeyes from good chop this is a couple pieces of uh deer back strap and some brats that dusty gave me from across timbers bison we're having a variety of meats but like i said we found some morel mushrooms today typically we just fry these things up batter them and fry them since we're having steaks why not put some mushrooms on the steak i'm gonna saute these guys up you want to saute the mushroom on your steak tonight because i wanted to saute them and put them on a steak man smell a vision right you guys can smell that can't you let's see old ralph t-bones looking good not sure about the bison brats never had them before but we're gonna try them for the first time that's the difference in it and uh having your own steaks cut and what you can get at the store typically you're not gonna get near as a thicker cut of steak we have ours cut when we butcher a beef at like an inch and a quarter because we like big old thick steaks right yes all right morel mushrooms are nice and sauteed up i think that'll go good on the steak i put a little garlic in there a little onion powder all right let's go so overall things are great things are good goats are healthy donkeys are healthy kelsey's taking a leak in the background of the video crossfit's going good feeling good feeling strong motivated keep going i remember said something said the other day do something hard today oh crossfit is doing something hard today that's for sure do something hard anyways everything's good today oh sun's even starting to pop out today is officially spring break and i'm sure houston has tons of plans for us for fishing trips and who knows what all else we'll get into okie homestead conference is coming up we're just a week out from that so uh houston and i are going to get to make the trip up there and spend a couple days with everybody at the okie homestead conference so uh hope to see you guys there if you're in the area yeah it's gonna be a good day good week let's go guys do something today to make somebody smile because you never know it just might change the world so guys thanks for watching i hope you enjoyed it you guys have a great day and as always we'll see you on the next video