News Kids on the Farm

As of today we have eight new kids on the ground and do they look awsome! The great confirmation on these kids comes directly from the outstanding sires we used and the exceptional quality of our dams. The sires we used were PGCH Oak Haven Farm Quinton, PGCH Kabill Farms Zachary and 3x Grand Champion Gunsmoke. Our dams included Possum Hollow Spirit, Cover Girl and Roxanne.

These kids are THE best kids we have had in our 21 years of breeding and showing our herd. Thank you to Andy and Janet Nash and Jason Overmann for letting OHF take these animals home from the convention in June.

Our next crop of kids are coming soon and are out of our new red caramel buck King Farm Kids Eli. We can't wait for these little ones.

We are accepting deposit on our new kids. We would prefer for you to come to the farm to pick out you next champion rather than blindly leaving a deposit. Our bucklings are in demand, so hurry to make an appointment to get your hands on these muscular and confirmationly correct little guys.

Don't forget the Sun Coast Winter Classic Show on Dec 13th at our farm. Get your entries in soon to make sure you are in the showbook.

Also, I will be conducting and presenting at the first every Sarasota County 4H goat school this coming Saturday (Nov 22). It will be at the Sarasota County 4H office at Twin Lakes Park located just east of I-75 on the Veterans Memorial Parkway (formally Clark Road) Hope you can make it.

Fall Means Babies!

We're back! After a long blog layoff, the Oak Haven Farm blog in online again. Busy days at school and around the farm have kept us too occupied to blog. But here we are again, ready to inform, enlighten and educate.

Our fall crop of kids are starting to arrive. In the past three days, three of the new does we purchased up at the National Convention are giving birth. Two of our new Possum Hollow does have each given us a single girl and a single boy birth. Great looking kids to boot. LomaLinda Farms Charitity dropped twin girls yesterday afternoon before I got home from school. Super looking does; a light grey agouti and a grey agouti with a belly band. Carol named her Panda. We tried to breed all of our does right after the convention to kid in the cooler weather in our part of Florida. And it looks like most of our breeding age does will kid in the next couple of weeks. Udders are getting milk and we are planning for less sleep to be there if they kid at night. We have a baby monitor in the barn and the constant hiss makes it difficult to sleep but it is a trade-off for making sure the kids are born without incident and dried for the cooler nights.

We will toot our own horn over our success at the convention. PGCH OHF Quinton was selected the second best buck in the nation at the National Champion Challenge show (1st runner up) and 3x Grand Champion Possum Hollow Gunsmoke won grand in the first show and reserve grand champion in the second show on Sunday. Our young junior does made the cut on the first day of showing and the young red caramel buck we traded a OHF Fever Pitch buckling for won his class both days. Thank you to all the folks who organized this great event and made it go off smoothly and without incident.

A Pygmy goat show is coming back to Sarasota on December 13th, 2008. The Suncoast Winter Classic will be held at our Oak Haven Farm beginning at 10am. 4H and FFA showmanship classes will be held and a master champion youth showman will be crowned. We will also bring back "Goat Poker" for a terrific prize. And don't for get it will be you only chance to dine on Pork Wings! Come and find out what they are and show a goat!

See you at a Pygmy Goat show!!
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School Days

The time is here...back to school. Yes, it's back to work for this goat farmer. Well, it will actually be a bit of rest from all the work around the house, pastures and barn. At least I will be in air conditioning for the better part of the day. The barn sure holds the heat, even with new fans installed. Ah...smiling faces, eyes full of wonder, staring back ....and that's the parents!

Has Hurricane Dean woke you up yet? It may not get to Florida, but it should get you all off you butts to complete you preparedness kits and supplies just in case we do get a big storm. Do you have a weather alert radio? It might be good to get one along with some extra gas cans, water, food and batteries.

Our big sales list is in the works. Some of the newborn babies are listed on the webpage. At weaning we will have some super nice bucks and does. The buckling crop so far is tremendous. Thick muscled, great legs and bone. Their confirmation is the best we seen yet. If you want a ring competitive animal, look no further than here.

We have some PGCH Quinton kids on the ground and they look GREAT! More are on the way toward the end of August through September. Our brood doe portion of our sale will highlight some great bloodlines in easy kidding does. Although they are retired from the ring, their worth as brood does is great. They will make you many nice kids in the years to come.

Have a wonderful day.

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Two weeks left of fun!!

The beginning of school is only two weeks away. That still leaves plenty of time for summer fun. Like...painting a bedroom, moving some pens around, and delivering babies. Well we have had a jammed packed summer so far...a family trip to NYC and Jersey...and two weeks in Cali. Boy oh boy is Sacramento hot! 112 degrees! "But it's a dry heat" Yea right! Hot is hot. We did manage to get to Tahoe for some 5 card and San Fran for sourdough. We also rented bikes and pedaled over the Golden Gate Bridge. That was cool. Really cool....60 degrees in foggy surrounds of the Bay Area. Carol and I even got to go up into the Sierra's for some gold panning with our brother-in-law and our three nephews. AND I did find some gold flakes. Not much to be rich, but enough to appreciate what those prospectors did back in the 1850's.

We are glad to be home again and watching our does begin to usher in our summer kidding season. So far so good. Four kiddings and lots of nice looking kids out of PGCH Quinton and 3- time Grand Champion Fever Pitch. The doe kids are winning the kid race by one over the bucklings born so far. We have about 10 more does to kid before the end of the summer. Our Quinton kids will be born later in August.

Andy Nash announced that he will not be running again for NPGA Director. Too bad, he is a great director; a sane voice with a lot of common sense. Andy is a great guy. If you ever get to a show and he is there, just walk up and introduce yourself. And if you can, hang around the barn at night, sip a cool slush puppy with him and listen to one of his stories.

Remember to make sure to take a rest from your fun summer and get your hurricane and storm kit ready. "The storms, they will come."

Keep the faith.

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Hurricane Preparedness Part 2

Well, I hope you have at least made a start to plan for when a hurricane comes to town. Don't overdue you prep for your animals at the expense of your personal and family plans in the event of an evacuation. You need to get your "stuff" in order so you can get out if you need to. If you have taken the basic steps to keep your animals safe, you need now to focus on YOU and YOUR FAMILY. Your animals can be replaced, not you family members. I personally would not stay around to "protect" my animals in the event of an evacuation. I would get out of Dodge!

Here is another good tips in the event of a hurricane. Do not lock the animals in the barn in the event of a hurricane or tropical storm. Always have a way they can safely get out of the barn in case the barn gives way or blows away. The animals will do ok in the rain and wet. During Hurricane Charlie only one or two head of cattle did not make it through the storm. I would safely say the none of use have a hurricane proof barn. So make sure if you keep them in, because we all know goats do not like the rain, make sure they have a safe escape route or two in the event the barn does sail off. If you have horses, halter them with your phone or address in the event the fences blow down. I saw a few horses during Charlie that were spray painted with the owners phone numbers. Never try to keep a horse inside during a hurricane.

Cool heads and rational decisions will help you during an impending tropical storm or hurricane.

Be Smart

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Hurricanes and Corn

With the Florida hurricane season only a few days old, it is time to review some of the things you can do to get your barn and animals ready...just in case. It is predicted that at least three names storms will hit our state this season. So let's start our list:

1. Make copies of all you goat paperwork; registrations and all other important paperwork relating to you goats. Put you files on a CD or DVD data storage disk and off your computer. Put all that information in a waterproof container and in your "must take" waterproof rubbermaid container in case you have to evacuate.
2. Take identifying pictures of all your animals; goats, dogs, etc. Put them on disk and print the photos out to put in the same container as above.
3. Make sure you have all your animals identified; tatoos and microchips are the best. This will help you find you animals if you have to leave without them. BTW the pet friendly shelters will not take goats.
4. Water...the most important thing for our animals. When the power goes out, will you be able to get water? Now is the time to store as many containers as possible that will hold water. Clean out that big horse water trough and make sure it can hold water. The goats cannot reach it to drink out of it, but you can scoop it out into a smaller trough using a bucket.
5. Don't think about stockpiling feed. Let the feed store keep it for you. Hopefully their store will suvive a good blow. If you old barn blows away so will your feed. In the least it will get soaked and be usuable.
6. Make it a habit now to throw away the junk around your barn and house. They become deadly projectiles during a hurricane. Old pieces of fence or pieces of wood you were saving for that project you will never get to will bite you in the butt later if you don't take care if it now.

Well that should get you started. More on hurricane preparedness in my next post.

Corn...the basis for all our feed is going through the roof. Who is paying less than ten dollars for a bag of goat feed out there? I guess no one is. That the ethanol proponents for this mess. It is driving up the price of corn. If you do your homework you will find that corn based ethanol is not the answer to our fuel problems. Corn based ethanol is difficult to store and transport and we cannot produce enough corn for the automobile needs of the United States and feed our livestock. We just don't have the farmland to plant enough corn at the expense of other food
crops. Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) is the world's largest producer of corn based sweetners and corn products. It has been a decent stock trade if you got in early with the ethanol craze, but that has been the only good thing about this almost universal cry for ethanol. I say, do some research on your own on ethanol production and you will start to get alot madder about our current feed prices.

Well...time to sit and watch the rain clouds slide over the house... 60% tonight...the grass is growing again!

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Sum...sum...summertime!

With less than two weeks left in the school year, we are planning our summer activities. It's nice to be in education with the summers off. This year we have an additional two weeks due to a new state law governing starting dates for school districts. Kind of nice for some additional days.

We are watching our pregnant does get bigger and bigger from week to week. July and August will be busy for us with the prospect for a load of bouncing kids. After our kidding and weaning this summer, we will be liquidating about 75% of our herd. If you are looking strong and healthy brood does and herd sires, consider coming to the farm and reserving your buck or doe; and even reserve a kid. Now may be your best opportunity to get a terrific deal on an animal to improve you herd and make a splash in the showring. We will be putting out public flyer of our available animals in August, but if you would like to get on our private emailing list, please drop use a note and we will get you all the information on our herd first! Take advantage of our 19 years of experience. We will "deal" and starter herd packages will be available.

Finally, it is officially rain dance time. Wow, we need recover some pasture and in a hurry!


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