Here is our First newsletter. We hope to post a new one every month or every other month. We have a front and back.
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Yesterday we went up to Zielingers Woolen Mill and we dropped off 11 pounds of romney to be made into roving and 11 pounds of alpaca to be made into roving. We will be getting the roving in a few months. I can't wait to see how it turns out. Our trip wouldn't have been complete without a wonderful chicken dinner at the Bavarian inn.
We took TD to the library and he did very well he just stood there and let the kids love all over him. At the end he decided he didn't like his hat. They were giving him big hugs and giving him kisses. He went up and down the stairs very well.
We went to the 4-H goat clinic to learn more about goats and the new stuff on worming. We found answers to our problem with the goats. Like we said we had barber pole worms in our goats and they said to make a secondary problem we then had a elevated amount of coccidiosis. We were told to not worm every few months but to continue to do fecal exams for the worms and worm them when needed. We saved Temporary when he started to go down. To go on top of all the worms we also had Thiamine deficiency from all the wormers we used. We have started them on the Thiamine whenever we use wormer. We are also going to feed the goats manna pro goat treats for copper because of our mixed herd. We also made sure we had hay feeders for all the pens and now we have grain dishes in every pen so there is no feed on the ground. I think we have our problems under control and will have better luck for now.
We got a new alpaca today. Her name is Fantasia. We traded Rosie the Nygora goat for her. Fantasia is ARI registered and is hopefully bred. She is friendly and is a multi color. She didn't want to come out of the van after we picked her up. She is now living with TD and will be moving with the others soon. She is scared of goats and sheep but will settle in soon.  A few of the members of our herd didn't make it. This last summer we put in a new pasture but with all the grazing we also got a new threat. We lost our first goat Chevelle in August she was really weak and sick. We tried everything we could with her but didn't save her. The second one to go down and that didn't make it was Gingersnap she had the same symptoms as Chevelle and died several days after showing those signs. After she died we searched around and found out that we could run a fecal on the goats at home. We ran one and found elevated levels of barber pole worms. They deplete the nutrients the goats have and kill them. The third one that went down was Red he died a few days ago and was very sudden and didn't show any signs we just found him that night dead. After he died Penny and Corrigan went down and we hit both with all the wormers we could but Penny was pregnant so we called the vet in. The vet said that they had Vitamin B deficiency she gave us some medicine and gave Penny several shots but neither of them made it. We just lost Valin this afternoon it was very hard as he died in Allison's arms. We now know what was going threw our herd. You know it is a never ending battle for the animal raiser to go against worms. We just hope it gets better. We tried throwing the book at these goats and it makes you want to sell all of the goats. But as my mom said we can either learn from the bad things that happen or we can give up and sell them all.
Fiber Expo went well. Not as many customers on Saturday as on Sunday. We bought a internet card and then found that it didn't work very well out at the fair grounds. We did get it to run so we could use square for credit cards. Had lots of fun and met some people. All in all not a bad weekend.
We will be at Fiber Expo this weekend. It is in Saline, MI at the fair grounds. We are very excited and can't wait. We have lots of fiber and carded batts for sale. We have handspun yarn and finished items. Come out and see our booth and our items.
We have started breeding the critters. Violet the silver Romney and blackberry the Romney Corridale are both bred to Mutant the CVM for Feb 1st babies. Franchisca and Pennie the CVM ewes are bred to Mutant the CVM ram for March 7th babies. Milkdud the Boer Alpine doe is bred to Temporary the Boer Oberhasli buck for Feb 1st babies. Dolly my top Alpine milker is bred to Temporary the Boer Oberhasli buck for March 5th babies. Rosie the Nigora doe is bred to Corigan the angora buck for March 7th babies. All the dates I have posted are the earliest the could have them they are all in with the bucks/ram for the month and we have more to breed any day now. If you are interested you can reserve a baby goat or lamb now. We cannot guaranty availability but will definitely add you to our list.
We also have the two alpaca girls that are bred to a black Suri male and will be having there babies around 8-8-13 through 8-15-13. The Crias will be able to be taken to new homes in February of 2013. We have our new CVM/Romedale sheep. They are very beautiful animals.
Corrigan Our new young angora buck. Corrigan is a red piebald angora buck. He has super soft mohair. His locks are really tight and formed. He is friendly and will make a nice breeding buck.
Temporary Temporary is a Boer Oberhasli buck we will be breeding our does to this fall. He has a wonderful personality for a buck. He is a beautiful color. We hope to have some gorgeous babies out of him in the spring. 
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Sheri & Allison Bellairs & Samantha HopersbergerWe are the writers and care takers of the animals. We love to tell stories about the critters and fiber creating. We will be posting about all the animals and fiber creating. Archives
May 2023
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