In today’s chapter, we discuss the Urim and the Thummim, the ‘girdle’, how the Priest’s prepared to be in God’s presence, and how we should prepare ourselves to meet our Maker.
Listen here:
Parasites are a very common problem in goats. Overloads of them can cause lots of issues, including diarrhea, lethargy, anemia, and even death.
The most important mineral in keeping worms/parasites at bay is Copper. Keeping their Copper levels correct is VERY important.
Check often under their eyelids, and what you want to see is a dark red/hot pink color. See the ‘anemia’ guide below, for an example.
The darker the coloring under the eyelids (you can also check the insides of their lips), the better their Copper level is. They are also less likely to have an overload of worms. (This is not the same thing you look at to see if they have coccidia; they can have coccidia and not be anemic).
If your goat is not pooping ‘pebbles’, this is another signs their copper levels/worm load is out of balance.
You need to have the minerals free choice, especially, (in this instance) Copper sulfate. This way they can take what they need to prevent issues. Some give Copper Bolus’; we have not found them to be effective enough.
What can I do if my goat is having an issue now?
If they are looking pale under their eyelids, and are lethargic, their Copper levels are low. It is likely the worms have overloaded their system, and are taking a lot of blood. Begin with isolating the affected goat.
You want to get to work with them as soon as possible. Worms can be life threatening; we lost a goat kid to worms a few years ago. We did not realize what was going on yet at the time.
We always offer molasses; if they are really bad off, they may not want to eat it, but they need it to help with their iron levels. In this case, we give B Vitamin shots to stimulate the appetite.
We mix molasses, along with kelp in the grain ration on a regular basis, as well.
As a natural ‘drench’ we give:
2 1/4 tsp. Vitamin C
2 1/4 tsp. of dolomite (calcium/magnesium)
1/4 tsp. of copper sulfate
1/4 tsp cinnamon
We split this half in the morning and half in the evening, and put it into an empty, dry mouth. We also do this when/if eyelids start looking pale.
Usually, this alone clears it up, unless the animals have not been receiving Copper regularly. Keep records of when and which goats need repeated doses, and how often you have any worm issues. As your goats mineral levels get higher, you should see the instances decrease.
Keep Kelp free choice; it has lots of minerals to help balance their systems.
In the South/Southwest, Barber Pole worms can kill in hours. They are nothing to play around with. If you give the above drench, and it does not work quickly, we give a chemical drench right away; they are a very quick killer. This is usually the only worm that we have had to give a chemical drench for, once we learned about, and started giving, the minerals.
Commercial chemical de-wormers drive down the Copper that is in the animals system. So, if you give one, be sure to replace what they have lost, and have the Copper sulfate free choice for them to get what they need.
Keeping mineral levels up, and checking eyelids, is the best prevention.
For this recipe, we are making a gallon of yogurt. If you want more or less, you can adjust it by doubling, halving the recipe, etc.
You can use cow or goat milk for this recipe. If you use goats milk, it will not be as thick, and will be more of a drinkable type of yogurt, like the consistency of kefir.
You start by taking your milk out of the fridge, and letting it sit on the counter until it reaches room temperature. If it is just a little bit cooler than that, it is fine. Or, if your milk is just fresh, you do not have to let it sit because it will already be the right temperature.
Put your gallon jar of milk into a double boiler, or pour it into a stainless steel pot. Put it on your burner and turn it on. Take the lid off your glass gallon jar, and put a thermometer in with the milk. This way you can keep an eye on it as the temperature rises. DO NOT LEAVE IT…..the temperature rises quickly!
Once it reaches 180℉, take your glass gallon jar out of the pot or double boiler. Place it on the counter, leaving in the thermometer, and keeping an eye on it until it drops back down to 110℉.
When the temperature arrives at 110℉, it is time to add in your yogurt starter. If you already have some yogurt on hand, (store-bought is okay) add in a cup and a half of that. Otherwise, you can buy yogurt starter packets, either at your local health food store, or online. We like the ones from New England Cheese Company. Add one packet per gallon. Stir well, whichever method you use.
After you have added your starter, put the lid back on your jar. Place your jar, wrapped in a towel, in a cooler, and latch the lid. Leave overnight, or for 8-12 hours.
Take out, and refrigerate….then enjoy! It will keep for about 5-7 days. After that, is usually gets a little sour.
Make sure you save some of your yogurt, so you can use your own starter, next time!
Start by washing your apples. Once that is done, cut into quarters; skins, seeds and all.
Put these quarters into a large stockpot. If your apples are really dry, you need to add about a gallon of water to a very large stockpot full. If your apples are very juicy, you need little to no water. You will have to gauge it by the juiciness of your apples, so that they do not burn.
Put your stockpot on the stove, start, and stir often; about every few minutes.
After the apples are cooked down, while it is still hot, run all your hot, mushy apples through your food mill. The result will be applesauce!
To fill one canner with quart jars:
28 cups applesauce (or 7 quart jars)
4 cups sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
Put into oven or roaster pan, and cook at 350F and cook it down for 5-9 hours. You want it to be thick so that when you stir it with a spoon, it has the consistency of jelly. You will have to watch your particular batch to see how long that takes.
Prepping for canning
Fill your canner half way with water, and turn on. Put your empty jars in your oven on ‘warm’. If your oven doesn’t have a ‘warm’ setting, just put it on the lowest setting it has.
When everything is hot/warm, you are ready for the next step.
Fill your hot jars with the hot applesauce, leaving an inch of head space in the top of your jar. Put a butter knife down the insides of your jar (between the glass and the sauce) to let out any air bubbles in the jar/sauce. Wipe your rims clean with a rag or paper towel to remove any sauce. If you don’t do this, it can prevent your lids from sealing tightly to your jar.
Put on your pre-warmed lids and screw on your rings tightly. Put your jars into your warm water in your canner, with a jar lifter, pictured below.
After all the jars are in the canner, you want your water to be one inch above the jars for water bathing. Turn on high. When the water starts to boil, set your timer for 20 minutes for quart jars or 15 minutes for pint jars. Turn stove to medium heat. When timer goes off, turn heat off, and let canner sit for 5 minutes. Then, carefully take out your jars with a jar lifter and set them on a towel on your countertop to cool. If your bands are loose, do not tighten them.
Cool for 12 hours. Check seals and store.
The reason you want to check the seals is to make sure they are all secure before you store them.
You check the seals by tapping the jar lids with one finger. As you tap them, listen for a jar that sounds different than the rest of them. It will usually make a hollow sound.
If you find a jar that hasn’t sealed, put it in the fridge and use it soon. If you are planning more canning, you can try to can it again. Make sure there are no nicks in the top of jar and a good lid on it.
In today’s chapter, we will talk about the anointing oil of the Priests, do a study of the Hebrew words for oil and anointing, and how it all points to the Messiah.
Listen here:
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Starting Your Slips
In mid-winter take your best sweet potato and put it in a quart canning jar filled with water. (DO NOT CUT YOUR POTATO!)
Don’t have a sweet potato you grew? That’s okay, just get a couple from the store.
Set your canning jar in the window sill. Change the water every few days, or when the water begins to stink.
After about 3 weeks, your sweet potato will start to sprout. Once your sprouts/slips are 3”-4” tall and leafed out, snip off the slips and put them in a pint jar of water.
Once they are in the jar of water, they will start growing their own roots.
If the slip or root growing process seems to be taking awhile, adding some compost to the water helps to speed up the growth.
Once your slips have grown roots that are 2-4”, they are ready to transplant.
We have found that it works best to plant them in a pot of dirt that is VERY wet.
This prevents them from going into shock, by just going straight from the jar of water, into the garden.
You want to keep them in your pot of wet dirt for at least 5-7 days, longer is okay.
If it is still cold outside, keep this pot indoors in a window sill as well.
Planting Sweet Potatoes Outside
You want to plant your slips outside after your last frost date. With your hoe, make small hills about 1′ around and 1′ high.
With your hoe handle, make a 4” deep hole in the center of your hill. Take your slips (we like to do 3-4 per hill), spread out the roots and cover with dirt. Then top your hill with compost.
Watering
Water WELL everyday until plants are established. This is VERY IMPORTANT!
Once established water a couple times a week (unless it rains, of course).
Pests
There are many garden pests who will attack your potato vines. These include sweet potato weevils, sweet potato beetles, wireworms, flea beetles, and blister beetles.
If any pests attack your sweet potato plant, spray Neem oil (organic spray) 1-2x per week, or more depending on how bad the bugs are and how much damage they are causing.
If it is blister beetles that are eating your sweet potato plants, remove them WITH GLOVES (THEY DO GIVE BLISTERS) into soapy water. You will have to be on top of it checking daily, or several times daily, until they are gone. Otherwise they WILL destroy your plants.
Feeding the Plant
If your sweet potato leaves are looking a little yellow, or just not growing well, you need to feed the plant. You need to add compost around the hill and plant. It is also a good idea to put hay or mulch around the hills in the dry season, to keep the moisture in.
When to Harvest
Harvesting is an exciting time, and a time to be thankful to God for what He has blessed us with. Ecc. 3:13 says, “Every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God.”
Before your first frost date (it is alright if the plants get frosted on, just make sure they don’t get frosted on repeatedly.)
Take a potato fork and dig up the hills, being careful not to dig the fork into the potatoes themselves.
Carefully brush off any dirt with a soft bristled brush, making sure you do not remove or scratch the skins.
Storing
Store them in a cool, dark place to let them cure for about two weeks. You can begin using them after this time; but they longer they cure, the sweeter they will be!
Preserving
If your sweet potatoes are not keeping well, for whatever reason, you will need to can them.
Prov. 12:27 says, “the substance of a diligent man is precious.” We don’t want what is ‘precious’ to us to go to waste!
Canning
You begin this process by washing the potatoes well. Cut them into bigger chunks, (you can peel now, or after the boil) put them into water and bring to a boil. Let them boil for about 10 minutes, then remove from heat. Do not strain the water out of the potatoes; you are going to use it in a moment.
Take the potatoes out of the water with a slotted spoon. If you did not peel them beforehand, you can slip them off now. Fill the jars with the peeled potato chunks.
Ladle the water you boiled them in over the potato chunks, leaving 1” head space between the water and lid. Put your lids and rings on the jars tightly.
Place your jars in the canner with hot water, and slide the lid into ‘lock’ position. Once steam starts to come out of the vent pipe, set your timer for 10 minutes.
When your timer goes off, and your ten minutes in up, put the weight on, and let the pressure build up to 10psi.
If you used pint jars, keep at 10psi for an hour and 5 minutes.
If you used quart jars, keep at 10psi for an hour and a half.
When the time is up, let cool as the pressure comes out. When all the pressure is out (your psi is back to zero) Remove your jars from the canner. DO NOT re-tighten bands if they came loose.
Allow to continue cooling for about 12 hours or so.
Check your seals (use any if they didn’t seal, soon) and store.
DON’T FORGET! Save some of your potatoes to start your slips in mid winter! Then you’ll never have to buy slips from a greenhouse again! 🙂
You can heat them up straight from the jar, mash, and put cinnamon and butter on them, or you can add them to soup.
Have you ever had Sweet Potato Pie? If you like Pumpkin Pie, Sweet Potato Pie is just as good. Some in our family would say EVEN BETTER!
Here is our family’s favorite recipe:
Causes of Mastitis:
Stress
Injury
Unsanitary milking conditions
Unsanitary pens
Not milking a doe before kidding, and letting the udder fill and get hard.
Drying doe off too quickly
Symptoms include:
-Hot painful udder
-Hard udder
-Clots in milk
-Occasionally blood in milk (this makes the milk turn pink)
Mastitis Treatment:
Hot STRONG Mullien Tea
-2 quarts of water
-5 large Mullien leaves (½ cup dried)
Add your water and Mullien to your tea kettle or pot.
Bring to a boil. Let steep for 20 minutes.
Apple Cider Vinegar drench:
-1 cup Apple Cider Vinegar
-2 TBSP Epsom Salt
-Fresh Lemon Juice from one lemon
Add the above to a long necked bottle, and fill the rest of the way with water.
This can be reused as well. Shake well before each use.
Essential Oil Blend:
-1/2 cup melted coconut oil
-1 TBSP peppermint oil
-1/2 tsp tea tree oil
-1/2 tsp eucalyptus oil
Heat your coconut oil, once warm remove form heat.
Add essential oils to your warmed coconut oil. Don’t add the essential oils to the coconut oil before you heat it up, it will burn your eyes.
Instructions:
Bring out your hot Mullien tea, a bowl, and rags (make your tea as hot as you can stand).
Pour tea in bowl, over top of rags. Squeeze out rags and place on udder, massaging while holding the rag on the effected area. Do this until your tea is warm.
You can reheat and reuse this a few times, just make sure you put it somewhere that nobody will try to drink it.
Milk out as much as you can. After your done milking, drench the teats.
After drenching massage the warmed oil blend on the whole udder.
(Don’t bring out your oil blend until your ready for it, other wise it will cool before you use it.)
Mastitis Prevention
Keep pens clean with fresh bedding.
Wash udder and teats especially paying attention to clean the orifice.
Milk out doe before kidding if udder starts to get tight.
Have Dolomite available at all times
When drying off does, pay close attention to bag tightness
Ringworm is a common fungal disease in goats. It is a fungus, not a worm, and mostly appears during prolonged periods of wet weather. As with many other skin conditions, keeping the loafing and sleeping areas clean and dry will help reduce the occurrence of ringworm.
Ringworm can be located almost anywhere on the goat’s body. Left untreated, it gets bigger and bigger.
Warning: Ringworm is contagious both to other goats and livestock, and even to humans.
In the case of ringworm, we treat twice daily.
Treatment: WEAR STERILE RUBBER GLOVES WHEN TREATING RINGWORM!
We begin by (again, wearing gloves) picking the ringworm ‘scabs.’ After the scabs have been ‘picked,’ dry any puss that comes out with a paper towel. Spray with WD-40 on any area showing ringworm signs. Allow to rest with this until evening.
Evening Treatment: Apply straight tea tree oil on any area showing ringworm signs, then spray with iodine. Dust with sulfur, and give 1 tsp sulfur internally. We also at this time give 1 tsp of copper sulfate, along with a Tbsp of dolomite internally.
We continue this treatment until all areas dry up; we then let it scab over. Most of the time, this comes about 8 days after treatment. It will normally take about 3 weeks for the hair to grow back in the affected areas.
Today, along with reading the chapter, we will talk about some old paths, like spinning wool and making clothing; properly caring for our animals like God intended, among other things.
Listen here:
Do You Know My Father? 