The following post is an archive of our GoFundMe campaign which began in 2020.
Hello everyone,
Now this Valentine’s and Family Day long weekend is pretty much drawing to a close and I just like to wish you and all your loved ones plenty of strength, happiness and good health, and I hope very much that all of us will be able to celebrate family, friendship and love safely together again once the circumstances (as well as this rather unusual weather) improve. Family and friendship are very important values, I think they are literally our rocks! And for us at the farm that totally includes our animals, we all together make up our big farm family. Our animals have deep family bonds as well as the desire to form strong friendships to whoever they are fond of and feel comfortable with. We always like to observe with great interest who likes to hang out together, who likes to cuddle, who scratches a friend’s back, who will share with whom and who will stand up for their friend, kid or sibling. They are all very social creatures no matter if they live in a herd, flock, raft or family. And to our great pleasure they also build relationships with us, their humans. It is a real privilege to spend so much time with them, to get to know them, learn their likes and dislikes and being greeted like their friend when they see us.
With this ongoing cold, snowy and wet weather and many of us hopefully somewhere inside to stay warm, I thought it’s really time to share some news from the animals and work on the the farm. The daily care for the animals pretty much goes on as normal, the low temperatures, then the snow and after that everything thawing in to slush just really makes farm work harder. Just imagine the ground and sometimes even the sawdust being frozen, everything being icy and the way up to the poo truck rather treacherous. And once it all starts thawing everything turns muddy and slippery at the same time. Of course during the coldest times their drinking water is frozen, the taps turned off and we are hauling warm water – which at least the animals are really fond of – from the house out to the barns. I’m sure it feels great getting a warm drink, very much like a hot cup of tea to warm up. The animals don’t like the cold temperature very much either, most of them are rather a bit sensitive to the weather and really prefer it warm. But they all have dense warm winter coats or a thick feathering and they like to cuddle up inside their barns to warm each other and dream of warmer days to come. And luckily for all of us the cold weather usually doesn’t last long in and around Victoria and so hopefully very soon everything will get easier again.
Just before this cold weather hit, we’ve managed to complete several big care tasks for the animals. Our farrier came by and took care of Peanut Butter’s, Opal’s and Taffy’s hooves. This is a treatment they require on a regular basis to prevent any kind of unbalanced or unhealthy growth of the hoof and to correct any potential problems early. Since they are on a regular schedule with our farrier they usually just need some trimming and grinding of the extra growth to help them all stand on smooth and healthy feet. And they are really good ladies and take their pedicure like real pros – even posing for some lovely pictures afterwards.
Then our entire goat herd – young and old – was due for a hoof trim as well. We trim their hooves every two to three months. Especially in this wet season with the very soft ground it’s important to trim off excess growth and to keep the hooves neat and short in order to clean out any dirt and prevent hoof rot. We can take care of this task ourselves since the goats know us very well and are used to the procedure, and we were able to manage it for all of them pretty swiftly.
And then last week we had scheduled a farm call with our veterinarian to give all the goats a health checkup. We were just working this appointment with a small team, all safely masked up and the goats were all very well behaved. I’m delighted to say they all passed this check up with flying colours. We are just happy and proud farmers when our animals are strong, happy and healthy!
Last but not least I really like to thank you all for continuing to support the animals and the farm and follow our story and life with the animals. I’m always happy to share more about the animals and the farm so if you feel like it just leave us a comment or message and let me know if you like to hear about any particular animal.
Stay warm and stay safe,
Claudia
