Beaman's Fork Farm Blog

Our original plan (with our vet) was to wait until this fall to test Snow for Cushing's Disease because the test would be more accurate. However, despite the diet change, supplements, restricted pasture access and constant monitoring, Snow has continued to have Cushing-type symptom issues, including increased hoof tenderness. (If you're jumping in now and don't know the back story, we found our 30+ yr old miniature horse Snow having a seizure in her stall in July. You can read about it here.) We have been consulting constantly with our vet through the whole ordeal and we made the joint decision that we should go ahead and test her as soon as possible as well as x-ray her hooves to look for the beginnings of any rotation. Of course we have Hurricane Hermine moving in on us, but Dr. White was determined to get this done sooner rather than later so we can start treating her with the medication she needs if she is positive. [caption id="attachment_2071" align="al...

This past Saturday was going like any other -- I had just gotten home from selling soap at the local farmers market, my car full of the stock I brought back with me, I was a hot and sweaty mess, and ready to relax. It had been a busy week and an equally as busy market day and I had been looking forward to putting my aching feet up for a couple of hours of quiet time. I got out of my car and before I went inside the house, I remembered that the horses were in their stalls because severe storms had been threatening to blow through, but the weather was clearing and they could safely go out and stretch their legs for a few hours. I walked down the long aisle way of the barn to the stalls in the back where Pebbles was sticking her head over the gate watching me and quiet rustling noises were coming from Snow's stall. And that's when I saw it. Snow, our miniature mare, was facing the back of her stall, wobbling on her back end, and jerking her head rhythmically up in the air, almost ...

If you haven't seen already, we have a YouTube channel that has been pretty active lately... Don't forget you can subscribe to our YouTube channel and keep up with all of our new stuff and silly farm shenanigans!

Well hello, World! Long time. Yeah, I know. Hush . I would start off by saying that it has been a busy couple of months, but I honestly think that is always the case in some form. If it isn't bad weather, it's preparing for upcoming weather. If it isn't dealing with current animal issues, it's preventing future animal issues. If it isn't me drowning in a list of hundreds of pounds of soap I need to make THIS WEEK, it's cleaning up from making all of that soap last week. It is, as we all say on our farms, what it is. But honestly, no one... and I mean no one... signs up for farm life because they want to be bored. After recovering from the mudfest we had thanks to days upon days of torrential downpours in early October, The Boy and I set off for a rare and much needed mini-vacation away from the farm. Probably more so for my sanity than his, because it had been well over 18 months since I had spent a single night away. He travels some for work. Me, not so much. ...

    We are on day 5 (?) of rain here on the farm. Honestly, I've lost count. But here in eastern NC we've had a very, very wet week, and now a cold front moves in and soaks us even more, and Hurricane Joaquin and his rain will immediately follow in the next couple of days.  That's a lot of water, folks.  We've prepared as much as we could but flooding is just going to happen. And is happening. There's nowhere for all of this rain to go when the ground is already completely saturated.  We've got minor flooding in the barn this morning, which we expected, and we also expect that to get worse. It's pretty much just the back end of the barn but it still makes us be creative in caring for the animals and making sure they are doing well.  The goat buck pen behind the barn is flooding some too so we moved Tick and his current lady friend Sage into the horse trailer to give them a dry place to hang out. They are quite content with a hay buffet in there and not havi...

    This past Spring we invested in a milk machine that has proven to be a great addition to the farm many times over. Our milk production has increased from previous years and my arms just couldn't take the manual labor of hand milking any longer. I was spending my days with aching elbows and my nights tossing and turning because my inflamed muscles were causing my arms to fall asleep far more than I was sleeping.  We've enjoyed the milk machine and didn't even mind the daily cleaning and weekly disassembly for deep cleaning anywhere near as much as we thought we would. (For those interested, the machine we purchased after a lot of research was the Simple Pulse, with the additional 6 gallon tank) However now our milk season is coming to and end and we've dried up all but one goat. She's our highest producer and doesn't seem to fair as well with stopping milking cold turkey like the other, smaller producing does can. Abbie is living milk machine herself and will...

Spring has sprung into full life here on the farm in the form of baby goats everywhere (ten to be exact) who are growing fast and doing great. During the last few weeks we have begun the weaning process of separating them from their mothers at night and reuniting them after the morning milking. [gallery link="none" size="medium" ids="749,750,751"] Some of them will be leaving for new homes in a few weeks, which will quiet things down in the barn a little. They all have different personalities and they are all happy to see me every time I walk into the barn even though they were dam raised, not bottle fed (I'll be elaborating on this subject more in a future post). [embed]https://youtu.be/RkCQvDYFe3w[/embed] Life is also moving along well with the new batch of chicks for this year, who are 8 weeks old now. They are still in a pen separate so that they can grow, but will soon be introduced to the free ranging flock. They are overseen by our very patient ...

It's that time of year... Time for my hopefully well rested arms to get back to work hand milking goats every day. Last night we separated Molly and Abbie from their combined six babies and then milked them this morning. The babies were then reunited with their mamas and will have full access to all of the milk they want from her all day long. At night they will sleep in separate stalls in encourage the babies to start eating solid food (which they've been nibbling at for a week now already). And each morning we will strip the mothers of their night's production of milk and back with the babies they go.   I think the mamas actually like the break from the babies at night, quite honestly. Eventually they will be fully weaned and the boys will be sold to their new homes. And so it begins... Milking equipment and glass bottles and sanitized work areas and fresh milk. I'm ready for yogurt and cheese and ice cream and cereal for breakfast!

It has been a busy few weeks here on the farm, especially on the goat side of things. Late in the evening on March 5, our Alpine/Nubian doe Abbie delivered quads. Yep, that's FOUR.  Full term, all normal size, two girls and two boys. She has always had two so we weren't expecting to walk into the barn that evening and find four balls of wet fur in the stall. Like clowns in a clown car, they were. No wonder mama Abbie was so miserable for the last few days before delivering all of these babies!  She has successfully been feeding them all, unassisted. These babies are 3/4 Nubian, 1/4 Alpine and named Arlo, Alice, Abner and Annabelle. Barely three days later on March 8, one of our Lamancha does Molly had twin girls with impressive paint jobs. Molly has a history of only having one big baby, so we were surprised that she had two.  We named them Matilda and Mabel and they are half Lamancha, half Nubian. Three more days go by and our darling Greta (who was born here two years ago to ...

Like many people with livestock, this time of year is crunch time for hay supplies. Our goats wasted more hay this winter than we had planned for (a problem that we have since fixed, and will continue to improve upon this summer) so our hay supply has been running short. Our regular local grower is sold out, like most places, but I was able to get a lead on ten bales from another source so I set out early this morning and claimed it. This definitely takes a stress off of me and should get us through until spring. Now I can take a deep breath and turn my attention back to the anticipation of goats kidding soon. We pasture bred all of the does this year so we don't have exact due dates, just estimates, but we are pretty sure Abbie (pictured) and Molly are ramping up to kid soon. Abbie is definitely ready to go soon so we are keeping a sharp eye on her right now. I think Greta and Sage both have a little ways to go.