Introducing Nibbles

On Saturday, Justina visited White Rail Ranch in Porterville, California to pick out a goat for her 4-H project. She will raise it and show it at the Santa Barbara County Fair. We stayed the night at my mother's house in Bakersfield on Friday. Then on Saturday, Justina and I, along with my mother, drove up the 65 to Porterville. When we arrived, we were greeted by owner, Judy Kaye.

Judy led us over to a pen of about ten wethers, born in November. (A wether is a castrated male goat or lamb.) She had pretty much picked one out for Justina, Ear tag 501, but I looked at all of them anyway. And the one she picked was the best one of the group. Of course, my goat experience isn't worth a hill of beans. For the Santa Barbara Fair, they need to be born after October 1st.

November Wethers

This is Justina's first year showing large livestock at the Fair. Up until this year, she had only shown rabbits and cavies. The wether she got seemed to bond to her instantly. And he was extremely calm which is great for a young person like Justina. She eventually named him Nibbles for the way he liked to nibble on her sweatshirt sleeve.

After we decided on the wether, Judy went to get her mule cart with a trailer to take Justina and Nibbles over to the scale to weigh.
















Justina rode in the trailer on the back of the Mule cart, as Judy showed us around the ranch and took us to the scale. The goat was weighed, wormed, and dusted for lice. She also changed his herd tag for a scrapie tag. On the way home, Justina said she loved the ride because she felt like she was in a parade.

During our ride around the ranch, we got to see Nibbles' dam, Mo Special, and his sire, Jack Knife. He weighed 70 pounds. The minimum weight for the Fair is 75 pounds. One year, Amanda's lamb barely made weight. That was a nerve racking experience and one that I would like to avoid. With being only 5 pounds under the minimum and four months until Fair, there will be no weight worries with this guy. While on the scale, Judy changed out his ear tag for a scrapie tag, wormed him, and dusted him for lice and mites.

Judy Kaye, owner of White Rail Ranch and Justina, my mother in background

As a project leader for sheep, I try to encourage kids to go with a breeder that has the mindset to teach and guide them, not just sell them an animal. All sorts of things can happen with livestock. Years ago, we were an agrarian society. If you had a question, you could trip over experienced livestock people. Now, at least on the Central Coast, not so much. Connecting with someone who not only has that knowledge but want to pass it along is crucial to a positive outcome with that project animal. I really feel like we did that with Judy Kaye at White Rail Ranch. She was very encouraging with Justina. And even by the time we got home to Orcutt, Justina had more confidence in handling him.

























We got home around 5 pm, which worked out perfectly because that is the approximate evening feeding time, we were hoping for. Justina took a brush and brushed off any shavings and mud. Then she put a blanket on him as it was still getting pretty cold here at night. She fed him and then spread out some pine shavings for him in his shelter. It will take him a few days to get settled into his new home.

Nibbles was sad to see Justina go home.

12 of 12 for March 2009

Today is March 12th and that means 12 of 12 time. My 12 started out a little late as I had a hard time getting motivated this morning. I was still wiped out from yesterday's goat pen renovation. But fortunately, tonight, we pretty much finished it. Tomorrow, I will spread the sand in the pen.

So on with our countdown . . .

I took lunch up to Alyssa (left) and Amanada (right) at school this afternoon.


Abby and I went to Farm Supply in Santa Maria. She loves the baby chicks.


While at Farm Supply, I picked up the Five-high galvanized panel to finish the pen.

The rabbits got run around time on the lawn. This is Pink-Eye, the New Zealnad buck. He will be a father times three by the end of April.


I picked up some all-purpose sand at Hell Depot . . . I mean Home Depot . . . to help with the drainage situation in the pen.

Here is that rotten piece of plywood I ripped out and the wire mesh that was coming apart. Most of the wood disintegrated when I pulled it off. And after pulling off the wire mesh, James and I found all sorts of nails sticking out. Believe me, I am grateful that we have place to keep the animals. But I have nicknamed our temporary little 4-H farm "Tetanus Acres".

Abby asked if she could play in the "little house", referring to the shelter we built. I told her that it was going to be the goat's bedroom. So here are Justina and she playing in the goat's room.


Abby wanted to help. So she has claimed this hoe as her own.


James tacked down an old tarp across the plywood roof of the shelter. We get lots of misty mornings and evenings here on the coast. So this will keep water from pooling on the topside of the plywood. And the tarp is old. So if it doesn't survive until next year, then no biggie.

As I mentioned before, the back fence was pretty unstable. James is reinforcing the rails by screwing them into the posts. They were nailed before and now the nails have come out.

Unfortunately, Justina got a late start on her homework this evening. She is working on a math paper. Math is actually one of her strongest subjects.

Keone is a family friend who was a trememndous help in repairing the pen. He came by for a refreshing , ice cold beverage after they finished tonight (and a little Rubik's Cube action).

Gimme Shelter

This afternoon, James, Justina, and I worked on her goat pen. And we also got some help from a family friend, Keone. The first order of business was to fix the gate. The post the gate had been hung from was leaning, which made opening the gate difficult. James went in from the fencing and drilled some screws through to the post. And viola! The gate now swings freely, which made getting in and out of there easier. He also removed part of some aluminum siding that was used as a shelter by the previous occupant. This was not going to be enough, and I had concerns about Justina gashing her head on the sharp corners and edges. So James removed it. This also opened up some room to work.



The next order of business was actually the most important task we had to get done this evening, and that was to address the drainage issue and built a shelter. For disease prevention and good hoof care, the pen should have good drainage. This pen unfortunately does not. It has been two weeks since we have had any significant rain, and one half of the pen is still goopy and slimy. Fortunately, the other half which is on the gate end of the pen is higher and not as bad. We decided to built the shelter over the bad drainage area.

This area was our biggest concern. You can see the
water where it is still pooling.

We lined up some old pallets across the bad end of the pen. Then we took a sheet of plywood and laid it on the pallets. This worked out so nicely because the area in question happened to be 4 feet by 8 feet. What do you know? A sheet of plywood measures 4 feet by 8 feet! Justina ripped apart a pallet for spare wood pieces. We used those and some 2-by-4's to build the frame for the shelter. And on top of that we nailed a plywood sheet to it.

Pallet flooring, the latest in goat home decor!

One last thing we did was screwed part of an old pallet to the back wall. One of our feed buckets has hooks on it. So she will be able to hang the feeder onto the pallet. The whole thing took us about 2 hours. And we finished right as the sun set. The shelter will be finished tomorrow when we stretch an old tarp across the top and down the back side of the fence to close it in. But the number one goal tonight was to get the flooring and roof of the shelter finished. Mission accomplished!

The pallet on the back wall is where Justina can hang the feeding dish.

Tomorrow, we will finish up the tarp and use some galvanized steel mesh panels to build up the back wall and reinforce the side wall. A couple of the rails are completely rotted through and the wire mesh is coming apart from the fencing. It is also a little on the short side and needs to be taller. Next to the gate, there is a plywood panel that is completely rotted. If I wanted to, I could easily kick my foot through it. We have some leftover plywood panels from various projects here at the house. So we will replace that as well. That will be the corner that the water bucket will be, secured by a bungee cord. Lastly, since the edge of the shelter's floor is right where the ground starts to slope downward, I will pour out a 50-pound bag of concrete sand along the edge to help with the drainage situation.


Justina did a great job helping. She hammered down any sharp nails that were sticking out, pried apart an old pallet for James and Keone to use the spare pieces of wood, and nailed down the plywood flooring onto the pallets. And the refreshing thing is that she wanted to help. There was no moaning and groaning if she was asked to do something. She was eager to take an active role is getting ready for her 4-H animal. She has a natural work ethic at 9 years old. How cool is that!

Justina was quite the worker bee this afternoon!

Today's Scavenger Hunt

This Saturday, Justina will be getting her goat for the Fair. And that means we need to get ready for it. The pen it will be kept in needs some work. There are drainage issues and there is currently no shelter. And the walls need to be strengthened and built higher. (A goat can clear a 4 foot fence with ease and they are amazing climbers. So today, I went on a little shopping trip combined with a scavenger hunt. I got a galvanized mesh panel, some plywood, two-by-fours, and some pallets. I got the pallets from businesses that were throwing them out. So tomorrow afternoon, when James gets off work, we will go down to the pen and work on it. A friend of his will also be helping us out.

Unfortunately, we cannot keep the goat or lamb in our backyard due to an obnoxious neighbor who found a loophole in our deed. Last year, they turned us in one week before Fair, not because of flies, smell, or anything like that, but because it just irked them to see the animals in our back yard. (We are not the only neighbors they pick on.) The county code for our particular neighborhood states that we need to have at least 10,000 square foot to keep one hooved animal for a junior livestock Fair project (e.g. 4-H, FFA, Junior Grange). Our deed says that we have .22 acre (that's twenty-two hundredths of an acre), which calculates out to be 9,583.2 square feet. That means we are 416.8 square feet short to keep the one animal here. A friend of mine in real estate has pulled our parcel map and the measurements are not stated on there. And our mortgage paperwork says that it is "10,000 square feet or .22 acre."

So at some point we need to get a survey of our lot to determine the actual square footage. The county inspector even suggested that we have it done because the acreage on the deed may be an assessor's figure. And we should, not just because of the 4-H animal project situation, but because we really should have a definitive measurement of the lot and know our actual square footage, especially given the adversarial situation with the people next door. (I would use the word neighbors but I don't want to turn it into a four-letter word.) But that will cost several hundred dollars and will just have to wait.