Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Happy Eleventh Birthday Jackal!


I just wanted to let everyone know Jackal is eleven today.  He had a great day and was totally spoiled with extra treats.  Happy birthday boy!!!

As an aside, I LOVE my camera.  I'm slowly starting to figure it out.  You can see the improvement in the above photo over the one I took the first day.  I'll put it below for comparison.


I took 1043 pictures the other day of the goats!! That's how much I'm loving this camera.  The sad thing is I just don't have time to sort through them, water mark them and post them for you to enjoy.  *sad face*  I will eventually, but it won't be soon.  At least I get to enjoy my pets and the camera itself, so I'm not going to let it get me down or stress me out.  I'm sure you guys will enjoy them whenever I get around to posting them.  :)

Sunday, January 6, 2019

More Pictures


I LOVE the photo above of Jackal.  It shows the potential this camera has when I get my you know what together.  :D  Below are a few more pictures of the goats that don't have kids that I took yesterday.  The lighting is wrong with most of these and they were the early shots so I was still figuring out how to use the lens.  Please excuse how dirty they are.  We have had SO much rain and mud the last month, it has been unreal.

 Adorable Bubbles (Coral's daughter from her last kidding).


My filthy Amethyst.  She is looking so good lately, but I'm 99% sure she didn't get pregnant.  :(


I LOVE these shots of Sapphire (Zephyr's daughter from the last kidding).  She is getting SO big and chunky.  The morning light really brings out her gorgeous chocolate color.


Last, but not least, Blossom (Coral's daughter from last kidding and Bubble's twin sister), standing on a cinder block to get out of the mud.  I can't wait for it to dry up some.  We desperately need some sunshine.

That's all for now.  I'm sure I'll be taking lots more photos for you and I hope I have time to share them fairly regularly.

Saturday, January 5, 2019

Our newest kids!

 These pictures were taken as we let the does and their kids out of the barn for the first time since they all gave birth.  The oldest kids are about two weeks old (Coral's).  In case you missed the previous post these pictures were taken with my new to me Canon EOS 20D.  This was my first time shooting with it outside (did some test shots inside) in years (I practiced with it years ago before my friend gave it to me), so I have a lot to learn and I need a lot of practice.  I cheated and used the auto mode, but this is my first time using a 50mm lens (in years) so the focus is off on some of them.  I plan on practicing the manual mode on landscapes, but for hard to photograph goats I'll just use the auto mode for now.  I hope you enjoy the photos and meeting our new kids.


We let Garnet and LeeAnn out first with their kids.  Garnet, as usual, was being super photogenic and derpy LeeAnn decided to sniff the wall.  Thanks girl.


The two in front are LeeAnn's twin girls and the two in the back are Garnet's twin boys.  LeeAnn's are adorable little mini mes.  They are so cute!  They look just like their mom except they have white spots.

 Here is one of LeeAnn's daughters.  Here you can see her white belly spot.

 Here is LeeAnn's other daughter and you can see her white star on her face.

 One of Garnet's bucklings kicking up his heels.

 Amethyst was being a pest fighting for dominance with all of the does.

 Garnet's buckling again.  I wish it wasn't blurry.

 Garnet being photogenic again.


Garnet's buckling.  I just realized I didn't get any pictures of the other one because he was constantly running around and playing.  Oops, I'll do better next time.


Garnet stops to pose in the middle of a fight with Amethyst lol.  She is so pretty.  Her markings look so awesome in the morning sunlight.


This made me want to cry.  Garnet's buckling ran right into the middle of the electric fence and got separated from his mom.  Hubby eventually caught him (he was terrified so he didn't want to be caught) and put him back with Garnet.  He will not go anywhere near the fence now.  I hate that they have to get hurt to learn about the fences, but it's a necessary evil. 

 Garnet calling for her son when he went through the electric fence.

 So gorgeous.  I couldn't stop taking pictures of her.


Next up, we let Tanzanite out.  She had twins by Daniel (purebred Myotonic buck), a buckling (left) and a doeling (right).  This was her first time kidding and I'm so proud of her.  She did it all by herself with no assistance.  For those who don't know Tanzanite is Topaz's first daughter.  We bred her to Daniel because he throws smaller kids than Jasper which is easier on first timers.  They are SO cute!!!  Both are black and white and 50% Myotonic.

 Adorable little boy.

 Girl on the left, boy on the right.  I love the little doeling's black spot on her back.


Tanzanite met Garnet's son for the first time (they were in different parts of the barn and couldn't see each other).

 Pretty Tanzy.

 She's another one with a gorgeous, photogenic face.


Next we let Coral out.  I didn't get many pictures of her kids because she took off with them out into the pasture.  She is always a little skittish when she has kids.  She will quickly calm back down.


Her kids got confused and didn't follow her out of the barn so she was staring back for them, waiting on hubby to catch them and bring them out to her.


Coral's twins.  Buckling on the left and doeling on the right.  They are huge for two week old kids.  The doeling is going to look just like Bubbles.  This was the only picture I got because she took them off into the pasture.  I'll get more for you another day.  There was so much going on at this point (dominance fights between the does) that I kind of stopped taking pictures.

 Pretty Coral.

Next up was Topaz.  If you follow me on Instagram you'll know that she had triplets.  I was so surprised and excited!  If you remember Garnet had triplets last year, so I kind of thought she would again.  I never expected that Topaz would.  Here is a cell phone picture of them right after birth.


She had two girls and one boy.  I'm very sad and upset to say that one doeling (at the top of the photo) in a freak accident broke her neck and died.  I've never had that happen and I'm still very upset about it.  So that's why she isn't in any of the following photos.

 Topaz's kids, boy on the left and girl on the right.

Going in for a quick meal.  

For those who might not know Topaz is Tanzy's mom as I mentioned earlier.

This is blurry, but their expressions are SO cute!!!!

I didn't get many pictures at this point because we had to monitor the does' fighting and then I was just having so much fun watching them.  I did whip the camera back out for the following pictures.


Zep was fascinated with Tanzy's kids!  I honestly don't know why.  Maybe because they are black and white or because they are spotted?  It was weird, but so cute.  You can see the girl jumping in the air and practically bouncing off his nose.


Fascinated donkey and brave kids who have no idea how scary he could be.  We watched him closely to be sure he was going to accept the kids and he was fine with them.

I also realized I completely forgot to get pictures of Georgia and Zephyr's kids... oops!!  The Myotonics are in a different pen (because if they lock up and fall under the horse or donkey's feet it could be dangerous) and I just forgot to go over there.  They both had single bucklings.  I was expecting twins, but I guess I'm not surprised.  It isn't unusual for older does to have singles and they are eight and nine years old now.  Georgia had a solid black buckling and Zephyr's buckling actually looks a lot like Tanzy's kids.  I'll find some crappy cell phone pictures to add below.

 Georgia and her little black buckling.


Bad pictures, but here is Zephyr's adorable little buckling.  He has blue eyes like her.  I'm sad that my only purebred Myotonics in this kidding are both bucklings because we can't keep a million bucks.  *pout*  Oh well, I will enjoy the heck out of them until they sell.  :)

So that's all for now.  It was perfect timing to get this camera ready to go because practicing on baby goats is so much fun hehe.  I'll try to post more pictures soon.  I have some pictures of the other goats (the ones without kids) that I might post tomorrow.

Friday, January 4, 2019

New Camera


I have been so insanely busy I haven't had time to update you guys.  For right now we are done kidding out goats so hopefully things will settle down soon.  I wanted to share my good news very quickly and then this weekend hopefully I can introduce you to all of our new kids.  One of my best friends upgraded her camera and she gave me her old Canon EOS 20D with a 55mm lens.  I've had it a while, but I only recently finally bought all of the stuff I needed to make it operational (battery, cards, etc.).  I am SO excited to be able to start taking photos again!

This is my very first DSLR camera, so there's going to be a huge learning curve.  I've practiced with this camera before (when she was still using it) and I've done some studying, but it's going to take a ton of practice to get any good at using this.  For right now I'm cheating and using the auto setting just so I can get some baby goat pictures for you guys.  I'm not used to using a lens, so the focus is hit or miss, but you'll see once I get them edited and posted.  You guys are used to blurry photos anyway because the focus was messed up on the camera I've been using for a while.  I am very, very excited to finally have my very own DSLR camera!!!!  You guys might start seeing a bunch of landscape photos while I practice shooting in manual mode for a while. :)  I have to go, but I'll definitely try to get the kids pictures up this weekend.

Edited to add a test shot with the new camera.


I LOVE it!  I'm so excited to start using this camera.  Don't get your expectations too high on the goat pictures.  Jackal sits very still and is well trained.  Getting goats to stand still is almost impossible lol.