Gonna tattoo our goats for the first time, and other things to do this weekend...
Oh boy...
I have never tattooed my goats before. You are supposed to tattoo them for registration, but prior to now, I have just given the registration application to the buyers and tell them that in order to register, they need to tattoo them.
Sometimes they tattoo them themselves, sometimes they just hold on the the papers in case one day they want to register them.
Well, it is time for me to become more professional.
Look at me all tattooing my own goats and stuff!
Luckily for me, I only have to do three.
The other babies this season are going to pet homes and they said they aren't interested in registering.
So, that is on my list of things to do this weekend, with the help of my husband.
I'm pretty sure this job will be easier if I have help.
I am also trying something kinda weird.
Normally people don't use any type of anesthetic for the goats when tattooing, because it's not that big a deal.
Well, I thought maybe it would be nice to numb their ears. Maybe it wouldn't hurt as much and they might hold still better.
Don't really think I'll have free hands to take pictures, but I will probably make a post and tell you all how it went.
Besides chores, though, we like to have fun with the kids! The weekend is a great time for the family to connect.
We have really been enjoying a new game we got for Christmas: Settlers of Catan.
It's actually a very cool game.
We all play it, from age 7 to 36, haha.
The neat thing is that the playing field is fairly level, and no one is winning all the time.
So, even the youngest can win fair and square.
I am looking forward to getting expansion packs in the future, there are a lot of neat ones out there!
They are kind of expensive though... For a board game anyway.
We enjoy playing lots of board games as a family.
Some of our other favorites include:
- Uno
- Rummikub
- Clue
- Magic the Gathering (board game)
- Can't Stop
- Wheel of Fortune (I rock at this one!)
- Cadoo
And the list goes on...
We have a whole cabinet full of games we have acquired.
What games do you and your family enjoy?
What chores do you have planned for this weekend?
At any rate, thanks for reading!! Have a fantastic weekend, no matter how you spend it!
♥
We were actually looking into that game at one point! Might have to take the plunge. I want to learn tattooing as well. Originally for rabbits but goats might be in our future. What kind do you have?
I actually bought the game while it was on clearance for Xmas, (it might still be), and with the cash back from the Walmart 'savings catcher' thing you do, where you enter your receipt online and they give cash back if any of your items were cheaper elsewhere. So it was free for me! (Yay!!) I want to try some of the expansions though, I bet they add a whole new level of fun to the game. :D
We have Nigerian dwarf goats. I have watched a lot of videos about tattooing them, and it doesn't look that difficult! I used some of my goat-selling money to buy a good tattooer finally and we shall see how it goes!
I think I will definitely wait on my hubby to come home from work and help though, the larger of the three is pretty big and strong. I don't know if I could handle holding on to him AND tattooing him at the same time...
I can just imagine all the comical ways it could go wrong. ;)
Nice! We're starting with cheap rabbits for now but will eventually get into pedigreed silver foxes. We are also hoping to do nigerians but probably not until next year. Good luck!
Cool! We only ever had new zealands. I had wanted to get silver foxes at some point, but we ended up quitting the rabbit project since chickens, (for us), were easier. Silver foxes are so pretty!
The ones we will be getting are new zealands! I think I just like the fact that silver foxes are less common for people to have
They are, and being pedigreed, the babies should sell for a good price, great for feed money and such. :D
Im still considering starting up the meat rabbit project again, maybe more efficiently... Would love an alternate meat source, and would love to use them for food for our cats and dogs as well.
We need to figure out when and if we are moving though! If we move, I obviously dont want to start any projects until after the fact!
What was your issue? We plan on doing tractors first and then moving to a colony set up. I prefer to be as hands off as possible
We are like that too! We prefer to do things as naturally as possible, with as little human intervention as possible.
We had them set up in a colony, they had an indoor 'barn' area, and two outdoor runs to alternate between.
They dug a warren in the floor, inside and outside. We were able to keep it from extending outside their area with buried fence, but we were unable to monitor what was going on in the burrows.
The first time they bred, they each had just a couple babies. That went well, they grew and we ate them. The next time they bred, the kits were attacked by fire ants! They were eaten alive and it was literally the stuff of nightmares! We did our best to rid the place of those darn ants but always some would find their way in.
All those kits died. After that I think one doe had a litter successfully. Only about 2-3 kits, I think. After that, they just quit breeding. No one was having babies. They just hopped around pooping and eating and not having babies. We finally decided the chickens were easier, you just throw however many eggs in the incubator you want, and boom! You get meat! We ended up eating our breeder rabbits and turning their room into a butchering room.
One interesting thing about the burrows, the ants dont seem to be able to find the kits down there. The living babies all came from underground burrows. The ants attacked the litters that were born in corners or nest boxes on the ground.
I do want to try the rabbit project again, but I am reluctant to do the normal way, with lots of wire cages. I dont like having animals kept that way. I feel they should be able to graze and dig, but I need to find a way to set up a place for them that works better.
Tattoo time! You have to let me know how that kit works out for you. We'll be needing one come springtime.
Games! We used to play Catan but haven't in a while. Here's a list of our favorites:
Splendor - Almost every couple we have played this with ended up buying it themselves! At least four now.
Pandemic - Fun team game. You play against the board, not each other.
Secret Hitler - Don't let the title fool you, it's not political but an awesome group game, especially if you have a vocal person or two. 5-10 players.
Forbidden Island, Codenames, Ticket to Ride, Machi Koro, 7 Wonders are also mainstays here.
Wow! I am going to have to look up these games! We dont have any of them except Catan and Forbidden Island! Ive heard of a couple, but not all. They sound fun!
Thanks for the list! Off to amazon and ebay, haha!
We’ve always enjoyed playing games with our kids. Card games and dice games mostly. A deck of cards and a hand full of dice and the game possibilities are endless! Our guilty pleasure comes in the form of hours-long marathons of guitar hero. lol My son purchaced Speak Out right before Christmas and we played and laughed several times over the holidays!
We used to play guitar hero! What a fun game!
Ill have to look up Speak out, sounds fun!
My dad always raised goats, but I've never heard of tattooing them until now. That should be quite the project! I grew up playing Rook, Clue, Scrabble, Password, Monopoly, Skunk, Muggins, and Careers. My husband bought me Mall Madness, sort of as a joke, but the girls and I have had fun playing it over the years. Now that my kids are grown, they tend to enjoy newer, complicated card games and table top games that confuse me. But I love Exploding Kittens!
Haha! Exploding Kittens is on the list of games we want to try! We have a collection of gamewright games, which are all pretty fun. Ill have to look up some of the ones you mentioned, some of those I have not heard of!
Yep, tattooing will be fun... My hubby says he will be ready to help me with it this afternoon, so yay! Hoping all goes smoothly. You only need to tattoo them if you are registering them. And even then it only gets checked if you show your goats or something, (we dont). Our goats are for milk, and we dont need that. However, some of our buyers want them registered and tattooed, so we have to accommodate. (You can also ask a little higher price for registered babies.)