Doors and Windows

You may have heard the prophetic statement of encouragement:
     "Where the Lord closes a door, He opens a window"
Well, let me share with you some of the recent "windows" we have been blessed with.

Monday, in the midst of the tragedy of losing Popo and Cooper, our beautiful llama, Kendra, effortlessly delivered her very first cria. Meet Bright Dreams, a beautiful, healthy, friendly little guy.


Tuesday, while out checking the stock, an odd peeping was herd from the barn.
     Where is that peeping coming from?
     Here! Behind the stack of hay bales.
     Oh my goodness.... 
     There's one of the Cuckoo Marans hens with a bunch of chicks!
Unbeknownst to us, one of the Marans hens had quietly taken up residence behind the hay on a pile of eggs.


Thank the Lord for little blessings. :)

Sometimes, You Lose The Battle

Years ago, a wise rancher lady told me "Where you have livestock, you will sometimes have dead stock".  Never so true have those words rung true than on our ranch this week.

Sunday, what should have been a glorious event, turned tragic.  The time had come for Popo, one of our three original llama girls, to have her baby (cria).  Since Popo was an experienced mother with no history of complications, we did not expect the events that unfolded.  

Just as the early morning sky began to take on color, we checked our pastures to make sure all was well.  We noticed Popo laying down in an odd way, so we rushed out to check out the situation, expecting to find her in the process of delivering a baby.  Instead, what we found behind her was a mound of intestines.  Immediately, we called for a vet!

Upon arrival, the vet verified that Popo was in labor but, for some reason, her cervix had failed to dilate.  During the contractions, the baby's foot somehow tore a hole thru the wall of her uterus.  As the contractions continued, Popo's small intestine and bowel pushed thru the hole and out.  Then, her uterus began to push itself out with the baby behind it!  We could see the baby's head outlined thru the walls of the uterus, and could watch the baby breathing while still inside.

Right there in our pasture, the vet was able to make an incision in the uterus to extract the baby, clean the protruding mass, stitch up the tears and incision, and carefully put all her innards back inside.  Once she was "back together", Popo stood and walked a short distance with us.  Popo - always the trooper.  We quickly got Popo into the van with us and headed for the vet's office.  Her baby rode in front with us to get dried off and warmed up.  At the vet's office, Popo was started on an IV to push fluids and medications to stave off infection, and to prompt dilation of her cervix; the placenta was not yet expelled.  The vet warned us that Popo had a hard battle ahead of her if she was going to survive.  

Meanwhile, her beautiful baby boy, Cooper, was battling for his own life.  After such a rough delivery on a cold morning, he was having trouble warming up.  His breathing was labored, and he was struggling to survive.  The vet was able to given him some medication to help him breathe easier, and we kept him warm with hot air from the car heater till his body temperature came up.  Finally, he made a turn for the better!  The vet was able to milk some colostrum from Popo and fed him that from a syringe.  We were all cautiously optimistic.  We all prayed for a good outcome for both Popo and Cooper.

Sunday afternoon, Popo remained at the vet, and we brought little Cooper home.  We carefully fed him some more colostrum we had stored from our dairy goats, and got him situated in a protected pen with another new llama mother, Patience and her 6 day old son, Noah.  After his first breakfast, Cooper took a much needed nap, then began to find his legs.  He learned to stand up and began to move around.  We gave him more colostrum bottles (about 1-1.5 ounces at a time) thru the evening and he was doing well.  We were feeling a bit more positive.

The next morning, Monday, an early call to the vet found Popo to be "holding her own".  Cooper was okay, but acting a bit more lethargic.  He seemed a little reluctant to take a bottle, and sounded just a bit raspy in his breathing.  Throughout the day, his breathing got better, but his lethargy increased.  He no longer wanted to hold his head up, and could barely stand on his own when we helped him up.   His interest in taking a bottle was zero.  We combined Nutri-Drench (a liquid multi-vitamin) with his milk to give him a boost.  Then, at the vet's suggestion, added .5 cc of a Vitamin B complex to his milk for one feeding.  Towards evening, he picked his head and and was a bit more interactive, tho still lethargic.

Sadly, worse news came in from the vet .... Popo had taken a turn for the worse in the afternoon, and passed away about 5 PM.  Poor little Cooper was now an orphan.  We were gravely concerned that his lethargy was, at least in part, being brought on by his need for his mother's attention.  No human mother can adequately fill that role for a llama baby.  We had hoped that his companion llamas would help restore his spirit, and little Noah was trying his best.  Cooper definitely responded to Noah's attempts to interact, but his responses faded as his lethargy increased.  

As the day came to a close and night deepened, Cooper began to fade.  In the early morning hours on Tuesday, beautiful little Cooper quietly passed away in his sleep.  Cooper went to join his momma, Popo, in the great pasture beyond.

We are truly heartbroken.  It hurts to lose a beloved llama friend ... times two.  There will be better days, and we will keep our happy memories and derive much learning from this experience.  We chose to share this story here so others who follow our blog might find some useful information in its contents, and another llama life might be saved someday.  Life is not without challenges, and they are challenges worth facing.

A special note:  

We are immensely thankful for Dr. Wright and the vet team at Belton Veterinary Clinic who worked so hard to try to save both Popo and Cooper; we could not have asked them to do more.

Enjoying the Day

Ashlee's adorable boys, Dexter and Patrick, just enjoying an afternoon break basking in the sun.

Great Pyrenees Puppies

On April 10, Greta delivered a healthy litter of Great Pyrenees pups. DaKoda is the proud Daddy. The little wriggling balls of white fur are all doing well.

Pictures and more information will be coming in the weeks ahead.

If you are interested in reserving a puppy, please contact us and we will put you on the waiting list.

Three More Buck Kids

On Sunday, March 29, Valentine delivered a single buck kid. Oscar is like a small copy of his Mom and Dad - black with white and grey spots all over. A very handsome little guy!

On Wednesday, April 1, Ashlee delivered a near-matching set of twin buck kids. The main difference in their coloring seems to be that Patrick has Ashlee's frosted ears, and Dexter has Oliver's black ears (with a few white freckles). Ashlee has been a very attentive first time Mom, but she is still figuring out how to let them nurse. With just a little intervention, both boys are doing great.

Nubian Kids - the Fun & the Challenges

We have been generously blessed with 10 healthy Nubian goat kids so far this kidding season. We still have three does due to kid in the coming weeks.

During the cold, rainy days we had late last week, Glory and Surprise each kidded with a single kid.

Glory kidded first with a beautiful, heavily spotted buck kid. Baxter was born just as the storms were starting and the cold winds were blowing hard. Even with our efforts to keep him warm and protected from the driving rain, he had trouble regulating his body temperature effectively. Ultimately, we brought Baxter into the house and got his temperature to normalize. Over the next few days, we combined bottle feeding with regular visits with his mom to nurse. On Saturday, once the weather improved he was reunited with his mom full-time. He is now happy and thriving with the rest of the kids in the pasture.

On Friday, in the midst of another round of cold blowing rain, Surprise kidded with a beautiful little doe kid. We moved Surprise and baby Shasta to a protected area with a warm heat lamp. Once again, we faced problems with a baby not being able to stay warm enough. For about 24 hours, Shasta joined Baxter in the house with regular visits to her mom for nursing. She, too, was reunited with her mom on Saturday.

After kidding with triplets on March 7, Ophillia developed mastitis on one side of her udder. We proceeded to treat with a combination of massage and anti-biotic shots of OxyTetracycline. (More information can be found at Fias Co Farm). After 5 days of anti-biotics, the infection seemed to be better, but we still had some problems with milk flow on the affected side. Following the much appreciated advice provided by Irene Ramsay's website, we follow-up the anti-biotic treatment with several days of "own milk". We are relieved and ecstatic to report that Ophillia is now doing markedly better!

We have already completed the dreaded deed of disbudding all the boys (except Baxter); we will do the girls and the remaining boy this coming weekend. This is, truly, our least favorite job on the ranch.

In the end, there is nothing like watching all the happy, healthy kids bouncing merrily around in the pasture enjoying the sunshine. Were we totally exhausted from several sleepless nights? Definitely! Is it worth all the work to make sure they are and will stay healthy? Absolutely!

Rain & Drought

Our dry pastures were blessed with about 3" of rain last week!

Over the course of about 3 days, we saw boughts of heavy rainfall combined with brutal, cold winds. Thankfully, the parched ground was able to effectively absorb a good portion of the rainfall to help spur some much needed forage regeneration.

Sadly, the effects of the rainfall are sure to be short-lived. We are already seeing cracks resuming in the dry ground and our wet weather creek has already returned to it's empty state. Area lakes showed only small increases in the lake levels since much of the rain was absorbed. According to the drought monitor system, we remain in "exceptional drought" status.

A new article released 03/13/09 details how the drought, even after the rain, is affecting Texas agriculture:
http://www.agnetwork.com/content.asp?ContentId=298616

Eight Nubian kids ... so far

This past weekend was very busy with the arrival of a total of eight Nubian kids.

Ophillia started off the pack with her triplets.
Then Stoney Creek followed suit later that day with her cute twins.
Sunday morning, Tassie decided it was time to bring her buck kid into the world.
Then early Monday morning, Mikki delivered her adorable twin girls.

*whew!*

Pictures of all the babies have been posted on the Our Babies page of our website.

Glory, Ashlee and Surprise should be kidding in the very near future. Given the way Raggedy Anne is shaping up, it looks like her time maybe fast approaching as well.

In the meantime, we are working with Ophillia to fight a case of post-partum mastitis. Two of Ophillia's triplets are still nursing fine, and we are working with the third to graft him onto another doe to reduce the strain while she works thru this episode. Our deepest thanks to our friends at both Keno! Farm and Four Mile Farm for all the helpful advice and experienced insight in helping to manage this situation!

Nubian Kids - TWO sets in one day!

It has been a busy day on the ranch!


Just a few hours after Ophillia delivered her beautiful set of triplets (two boys and a girl), Stoney Creek delivered a gorgeous set of twins (one boy, one girl).

See more baby pictures on the Our Babies page of our website.

Unfortunately, pictures of Stoney's kids will have to wait until tomorrow - it got dark too quick to get good photos.

Both momma's and all the kids are doing fine!

Drought

The drought in Texas has made news nationwide over the past few months. The severity of the drought continues to increase throughout the state. Here at our ranch, we have only seen about 15" of rain over the past 15 months, putting us into the "exceptional drought" status. (Thanks to Rachel for the drought map link).

Never experienced a drought?
Let us share some of our experiences, aside from the obvious dry air and ground.

Natural forage in the pastures has failed to grow and has died across large areas in the pastures. Now exposed dirt blows freely away in the increasing winds brought by this weather pattern. (We estimate an average of 5"+ of top soil loss so far in our pastures - remember the "dust bowl" years?). All that dirt blowing away exposes a plethora of rocks. (We may not grow grass in the drought, but we sure have a nice crop of rocks!) Area stock tanks and our own creek line has dried up causing wildlife to seek man-made water areas; this wildlife is not always compatible with livestock and people. Predators become bolder and often more aggressive in their hunting (we are very thankful for our Great Pyrenees LGDs). Neighboring water wells providing for livestock and homesteads have dried up, forcing the purchase of water holding tanks and trucked in water (an expensive proposition). Growing vegetables, crops, or even flowers becomes a time-intensive challenge. The danger of fire is extreme; this results in a nagging fear of leaving the ranch unattended for even a few hours and possibly returning to charred remains. Hay prices continue to rise and supply simply cannot support the statewide demand for hay. Feed prices also continue to remain high, and more farmers and ranchers are depending on these feeds to keep their herds going. (Our predominant feed supply manufacturer, Evergreen Mills, decided to shutdown their Texas facilities in February, so now we face the challenge of finding other quality, affordable, and accessible feed suppliers). Oak wilt has hit our area hard since this disease is exacerbated by dry conditions stressing the trees, the last of our stand of old oaks have now "gone to sleep". Without serious rains this Spring, we no longer hold out hope of any of the trees recovering. (Anyone need firewood?) We have also learned that livestock have the natural ability to control fertility and production when the environment does not support their survival. Even with careful management, mineral provision, and supplemental feeding, we have seen a reduction in the number of offspring produced from our herds. In case you are keeping track of the financial side of this, we have seen higher feed & hay costs, with lower production resulting in reduced income. Overall, it's been a rough ride. We continue to pray for rain!

So what will happen when it eventually does rain?

All those dry patches in our pasture leave the exposed top soil open to simply washing away when the first hard, heavy rain that hits. (Oh goodie, more rocks are sure to emerge). Heavy rains on sun-hardened ground will generally result in heavy runoff; localized flooding is not unusual. Just like roaches, the most durable plants to survive the drought will be weeds - some of them sure to be toxic (like nightshade). Toxic weeds and livestock are not a great combination. Until the rain starts and the pastures start to grow again, there is no way to know how much of the pastures will recover, and how much will need to be restarted with seeds or sprigs. Our hay providers will spend the coming years restoring the health and production of their hay fields; this is likely to mean lower than needed production and increased costs of hay. For awhile, the need to supplemental feed will remain. Producers, state-wide, will spend years rebuilding their herds back to the production levels needed. Sadly, some producers will simply shut-down.

What do we do?

First, we pray that the Lord will continue to watch over us and provide for our neighbors and all those struggling. Beyond that, we simply continue to use our available resources wisely and provide the best care we can for our land and our animals. We are thankful that we are a small ranch and can, for the foreseeable future, will be able to manage.

Want to know more about how the drought is affecting Texas farmers and ranchers?
Please take the time to read this article:
Farmers worry as parts of Texas are driest in US

Nubian Dairy Goat Kids - Coming Soon!

Today is Ophillia's due date!
Poor girl - she is obviously tired of being so pregnant.

Her udder is very full!
We are anxiously awaiting her kids to make their grand debut.

We have a total of eight Nubian does due in the coming weeks.

Stoney Creek and Glory are not far behind Ophillia!

Stay tuned for Nubian kids, coming soon!

Starting the Garden

This past weekend, we got started on our garden for this year. We use these cool growing boxes called an EarthBox for some of our vegetables. Because of the way these boxes allow the soil to wick water from the contained reservoir, the vegetables can thrive in small spaces.

So far, we have started broccoli, strawberries, and two kinds of lettuce. Soon, we plan to plant several kinds of squash, beans, melons, tomatoes, and maybe corn.

Off They Go

On Saturday, our last three calves from the 2008 season left the ranch to go to their new home in New Mexico. We are thrilled that they will have a loving home with McNeese family!

A Night of Storms

Like much of Texas and Oklahoma, our area was hit by fierce storms last night. As the storm neared and the weather radio began to issue warnings, we headed outside to make sure everything and everyone was secured. The storm came on in a fury!

As we walked out the door, a sudden increase in wind nearly pulled us off the porch. We raced to the kidding pen to move Seven Up and baby Lady Hawk into the safety of our livestock trailer. Just as we got them relocated, along with their food and water, the wind and driving rain hit full force.

The winds, reportedly gusting near 60 mph, collapsed the cover on the chicken pen - right on top of the roosting chickens! We were able to hold up the fallen cover long enough to get all the chickens off the perch so they could get to safety. Then, as the hail started, we were able to catch and safely relocate all the chickens into the hen house.

We are happy to report all of our animals are fine this morning. At dawn, we worked quickly to reconstruct the covers on both the large chicken coop and on the kidding pen. Seven Up and Lady Hawk are now happily basking in the sun in the kidding pen. The chickens are once again roaming the ranch like nothing much happened. All is well. Thank the Lord!

First Kid of 2009

Just as the sun was going down and the full moon was rising, one of our young Nubian does, Seven Up, decided to deliver us our first kid of the year. Her baby is a beautiful, spotted doe with long frosted ears and the sweetest little face! In tribute to her father, White Hawk (of Four Mile Farm), we have named this little girl "Lady Hawk".

Keep an eye on the "Our Babies" page of our website for more pictures and updates on new kids sure to be arriving soon.

Latest News on Farm Fresh Eggs!

Mother Earth News, a long revered publication on natural and green living, has released results from a new study on the value of pasture raised eggs (versus commercially produced).

A short article well worth reading!

More Great News About Free-Range Eggs

Farm fresh eggs! Get your nutrient-rich, free-range eggs here! :)

Ducklings!

A somewhat unexpected hatch of tiny ducklings greeted us this morning with a round of enthusiastic peeping! Six little, yellow Indian Runner ducklings scattered, tumbled, jumped and peeped as they ran along behind their Momma, who strolled along quacking quite authoritatively.

After proudly showing off her new hatchlings, Momma Duck quickly took her brood back to the nest for some more warm bonding time.

Stay warm little ducklings!

The New Brood

Just before Thanksgiving 2008, we added 50 new Red Sexlinks pullets to our flock. While they are maturing, they are living in a protected "brooder pen". Now that they are about 8 weeks old, they are just about fully feathered and started to test their wings a bit. It will still be a number of weeks before they are large enough to be able to join the big flock.

Gone Home

Our handsome little miniature Scottish Highland bull calf, GWR Niall, left Saturday to go to his new home in Louisiana.


Niall has been an exceptionally friendly little boy since he was born, and it was hard to see him leave. On the other hand, we are VERY happy to know that he has such a wonderful new home with Ed and Lynda.

Upgrading the Hen House

At the end of December, we were able to buy some "real" hen nesting boxes for our chicken coop. These new boxes offer many more nesting cavities than the homemade ones we were using! The hens have taken to these upgraded accommodations without so much as a blink.


To go along with the new nest boxes, we built the flock a brand new "mega perch" to roost on. This structure is large enough to handle not only the current laying hens, but also the 50 new upcoming chicks when they are ready to join the large flock.


This new roost is protected from wind by new clear partition walls on the outer pen, and an overhead tarp. While the chickens roam the ranch during the day, they voluntarily come back to their enclosed pen to lay eggs and at the night to enjoy their rest in safety.

Llama Kisses!

Meet "Moony", or more formally, GWR Moonlight Dreams.


Moony was born here on the ranch in early November. From the start, he had this great, interactive personality - just like his mother, Dancy. In fact, he is pretty much the spitting image of her! Definitely a cutie.

Ah, there is nothing like getting sweet little fuzzy-faced llama kisses! :)

Plans for 2009

We have just a few goals for the ranch in the new year - and they are some pretty major ones!

First, we are working to setup our dairy barn to be fully compliant with Texas requirements for a "Grade A Raw for Retail" dairy license. When we succeed in this venture, we will be able to legally sell our goat milk for human consumption! We are currently working on determining final layout for the dairy barn and milk processing area, and getting the necessary funding for this lofty venture! This also means getting new milking stands and an automatic milking machine. We are very excited about this project! :)

Next, we are planning on creating a new line of handmade products to be offered from the ranch. Our products will include various goat milk soaps and bath items. We also hope to offer handmade goat coats, llama fiber filled pet beds, and other related items. For our own use, we are looking forward to learning to make various cheeses, kefir, and maybe even butter from our goat milk.

We are also preparing to plant a garden for the Spring and hope to have an abundance of garden produce this coming Summer. The ideas of what to plant are already spinning around in our heads and we are scoping out various types of seeds we are interested in trying out. We added some new fruit trees to the ranch this past Winter, so we have that produce to look forward to as well (eventually). We have planted peaches, plums, pears, and blackberries so far, and are planning to plant some orange trees in the next month or so. We are still looking for pecan trees.... maybe those will get added next Fall.

Finally, we are planning to work with a new trainer to get our horses trained to ride (finally!). Two of our herd should be going to start their training this month, with two others going later in the Spring. We will also be rehoming two of our six horses; it looks like Sonny and Rita will have good homes with two different trainers. With our horses getting trained, this means that we will need to brush up on our riding skills too! We are sure looking forward to being able to spend some time together quietly riding along on horseback ... talk about a dream fulfilled. :)

In addition to these new ventures, we will continue all the work with our livestock, offer llama shearing services in the Spring, and Teresa is continuing to grow her website development work with our other business, Images with Flair. If you need a website created, or want someone to help with your site's management, please drop Teresa an email.

Please wish us luck in these new ventures and in the year ahead!

2008 - A Year In Review

Last year held many blessings, and many challenges for us. Overall, 2008 was really a good year!

Several new beginnings happened here, starting with the addition of our flock of chickens. We started with a few dozen hens last January, and added several more chickens to our flock throughout the year. Just for fun, three roosters joined our flock this summer - two Cuckoo Maran brothers named "Luke" and "Duke", and one handsome Blue Maran boy named "Nike". In November, we boldly added 50 new Red Sexlink chicks to our flock; we look forward to them starting to lay eggs this coming April. As of December 31, 2008, our little flock had grown to 86 chickens!

In the Summer of 2008, we were adopted by a white dove we named "Dovey". One day, while helping a neighbor next door, a white dove flew up to us. He was obviously a flight-raised bird that had lost his way and was seeking help from us (white doves do not survive well in the wild). When we were not able to locate his originating home, we took Dovey in as part of our family. Dovey has now been gallantly outfitted with a large walk-in flight in our backyard and a new "family" of over 20 other doves to keep him company. We truly enjoy these beautiful birds and their soothing sounds.

As the year progressed, we were joined by three more Nubian dairy goats from our friends at Four Mile Farm - Ashlee, Glory, and Seven Up. With the addition of Glory who was already "in milk", we started milking (by hand) regularly in late summer and were able to store up enough milk to keep us happy thru the winter. In December, we bought three more Nubian girls from our new friends at Fat Bottom Farm - Raggedy Anne, Solstice, and Frosty. We are blessed to have a beautiful herd of Nubian goats which now includes 12 does and 3 bucks. We are expecting kids from 10 of our does in the Spring!

Speaking of kids - yes, we had babies in 2008. We had 8 goat kids, 3 llama crias, and 4 Scottish Highland calves in addition to several small hatches of ducklings during the Summer. We were also blessed to have multiple litters of Great Pyrenees puppies - including a miraculous litter from our matriarch guardian dog, Trina. We met a lot of really great people who chose to give our kids, cria and pups homes! We have made some wonderful new friends this year. :)

The past year was not without challenges! We had the range of "normal" issues facing most ranches with fence and equipment repairs, rising feed and hay prices, and various livestock concerns.

One of our most noteworthy memories was when our trusty old ranch truck, Big Red, took its final drive in May. While we were en route to pick up our bull, Casper, from the collection center in Taylor, Big Red (with trailer in tow) gave up the ghost and blew a head gasket. We were truly lucky that Big Red's demise occurred right in front of a Ford dealership. Thanks to the generosity of the dealership, we were able to borrow a truck to get our trailer home and to go on to complete our ranch business that weekend. Even better, they ended up having just the right used truck sitting on the back lot just waiting for us! We are now the very happy owners of "The Great White Titan", a 2000 Ford F-250 Triton with much needed 4-wheel drive!

Once again, we faced a very dry year with our area remaining in severe drought. There was little to no grass in the pasture, no water in the creek, hay prices on the rise, and dirt from our very dry pastures blowing away in the hot breezes. At the end of the year, our records showed a total rainfall on our ranch of approximately 7 inches; that is less than half of what the neighboring Austin-area got and markedly below the average for this area. We continue to pray for some timely rainfall in the new year. We remain very thankful for our faithful hay providers!

There is obviously much remaining unsaid about the many events of 2008. It is time to look forward now to the new year ahead! We have so much to be truly thankful for, and we look forward to the opportunities and challenges the new year is destined to bring.

Happy New Year - 2009

Wishing you all a joyous and blessed new year!

As part of our resolutions for the new year, we will be working hard to keep this blog updated more frequently. Please check in regularly for the latest news from Galloping Winds Ranch.