Shalali Infante and Pint-Size Farm, located in New Mexico, breeds miniature jerseys, Nigerian dwarf goats, and American Guinea Hogs shipping animals all over the U.S.

Production:
Janie: 22.5 pounds
Annie: 14.4
Sally Jo: 21.1
Eggs: 29

Today was supposed have more accomplished earlier in the day than it was; I got most of my goals done.

Milking was delayed by those darned goats. Eclair wouldn’t let me work! She wanted me to hold her the entire time. I finally had to put my foot and that goat down and get to work. They are HOPPING and SKIPPING and JUMPING. It’s too much to handle. There are THREE of them doing it. Their eyes seem pretty normal now.

Yum-Yum is doing well. He got his 4th injection of penicillin today. The incision seems to be healing well. I will take out the stitches on Saturday morning. I do not look forward to that. We are still spraying it down with betadine diluted and using the wound spray. Tomorrow I’m going to start using saline solution to irrigate it.

After milking, a friend came over to look at different halter styles because they just got their first cow, a 6-month-old Jersey heifer. YEAH!!!!! That is so exciting. I wasn’t quite done with the milking clean up chores, so she joined in. She used to apprentice with me, so she pretty much knew what to do.

I called a semen dealer to see if I could purchase some semen from him to have on hand in case I get calls and need to inseminate someone’s cow. He only comes to ABQ once a month and he was here today. What luck. I got 6 straws, two different bulls. He said he could give my name out as an AI tech if he was asked for someone in this area. Hopefully I’m really starting to make some contacts. I can order stuff and he’ll bring it the next time he is in town. I want to have a few different breeds of beef semen in the tank too.

I washed butter and drank delicious buttermilk. A shareholder and family showed up then, and they took 3 of the 4.5 quarts of buttermilk and drank that for their lunch. The kids really enjoyed it after jumping on the trampoline in the heat of the day. Dante took them to see the baby goaties. Of course they really enjoyed that. Dante said later that the goats got, “All luved up by those kids.” So, we had kids loving on kids.

After the butter washing is when the Select Sires (semen company) rep arrived. I spent about an hour talking cows with him.

There was 8.75 gallons of milk that needed skimming, so I tackled that after he left. I was able to skim 10 pints of cream for shareholders and made about 6 gallons of clabber and had about 1.25 gallons of cream for butter.

Turn around and it’s milking time, turn around and its other chore time, turn around and your going out of the door (to milk again).

David arrived in time to milk with us. AGAIN, those goats slowed everything down. Eclair wouldn’t let me put her down. I had to water holding her. I had to coil up the hose holding her. Do you have any idea how hard it is to coil up a hose with one hand? She obviously doesn’t!

After milking, dinner was left over beans, chicharrones, red chile, and corn bread. Yummy!

Then it was time to bottle kombucha. I started hitting a wall, I think from being on my feet all day and waking up at 2:30 AM for about an hour.

I’m done in.

G’night.

MONDAY, APRIL 26, 2010
Production:
Janie: 22.0
Annie: 14.9
Sally: Jo: 20.0
Eggs: 19

Okay this is abbreviated, ’cause it was yesterday and I don’t have full memories anymore (I’m TIRED).

We milked. The goats made us late. Dante had art class. Saturday night, I realized I forgot my brand at the auction house. So while Dante was in art class, I went to get it and talk to someone in management. I talked to the owner of the auction house. He apologized for the way the castration was done. He did not make excuses for the boys. He said he would talk to them and give them a refresher course. When I told him they had been flinging testicles from previous castrations at each other as we were walking up, he was truly appalled, as he should have been. We then talked for awhile, and he offered to teach me how to do castrations. When he found out I was an AI tech, he wanted business cards so he could refer people to me. I felt good about our conversation. So, hopefully those boys will get a talking to. I also found out that it is possible to be licensed as a Pregnancy Palpation Technician in New Mexico from him. I e-mailed the professor at NMSU that I took the AI exam from, and he confirmed this. He won’t have any cows to perform the test on until September, so I’ll have to wait, but at least I know I can do that as well. Yeah!

We had pinto beans, red chile, chicharrones, cheese, and cornbread for dinner.

I fell asleep around 8:45. I was very tired.

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