Saturday, February 10, 2018

Rearranging Goats


These three girls are always underfoot whenever we go out to the pasture.  They are so adorable and friendly.  I know raising goats as pets can make them into pests, but I sure prefer kids raised with handling over ones that are raised basically feral.  Last weekend we spent three hours doing annual vaccines, deworming those who needed it and trimming everyone's hooves.  Having friendly goats makes those chores so much easier.

Anyway this post is about some rearranging of living situations with some of the goats.  The does all stayed where they were, but we moved the bucks around.  I'm going to let the pictures break up the text.  Please forgive the blurry cell phone pictures.  I'm saving up for a new camera (can't stand not having one), but it will be a while.

Andesine is so cute, chewing on hubby's glove.


First off we moved Jasper into the pen with Dottie and Big Mamma.  We're working with our vet to try out a couple of options to see if we can get them pregnant.

 Big Mamma put on a big show at first, but they settled in quickly.

 Dottie got all bucky as usual, sticking her tongue out, blubbering and being a pest.

 Jasper, the real buck, sticks his tongue out too.
Sorry the goats are so gross, it's rainy and muddy.

 He flirted with Big Mamma a bit, but mostly they were calm.


Dottie on the other hand challenged him multiple times.  They fought a bit, but it wasn't serious, dangerous fighting.  Just establishing their place in the pecking order.  Jasper, weighing twice as much as Dottie, obviously is top dog hehe.

Then we let Daniel out and introduced him to the wethers Champ and Taz (Jasper's sons).


He was more interested in attention from us than the boys. Sorry for the blur.... really wish this one turned out better because I love it. The tear in his ear is years old from where his scrapies ear tag got infected before we owned him.

 Champ just waited outside the feed room, hoping for a snack.


We used a bucket of feed to lure Daniel to the buck pen because it's across the property and he was leery about leaving the Myotonic girls.  I was being lazy and didn't want to find my collar and leash even though Daniel is leash trained.


Once he was settled in with the boys and eating, he was fine.  They didn't fight at all really.  Daniel is not interested in them at all.  He called out for his girls for a long time, but he will settle into the new situation soon.


We fed everyone else breakfast and I snapped the above picture of Coral eating food from hubby's hand.  She has gotten so much calmer around us!! It's hard to believe she's the wild goat we brought home that went over a four foot fence and forced us to chase her around twenty acres of forest on a four wheeler before we could catch her!!!  She's come such a long way and I'm so proud of her.

Then we turned Zephyr and her kids out with Georgia so they could have room to play, stretch their legs and zoom around.  That's why we had to move Daniel, because he could get Zephyr pregnant again even though she's nursing kids.  That would be way too hard on her physically.  She needs to focus on her kids and then wean them before she gets pregnant again.

Here are a couple of videos of the kids playing.  They are SO adorable!



Here are a couple of blurry pictures of the kids.


 I have to borrow my mom's camera and get some better pictures of them.  They are so cute!

Sorry I've been quiet again.  Things have been crazy.  This year has not started off very well (the two things I'm most thankful for is Chrome surviving his colic and the healthy kids), but I'm not going into a bunch of detail.  All of the animals are fine.  Hubby and I are sick, but it's nothing dangerous.  Our fridge went out and all of the food in our fridge and freezer is ruined.  It is going to take TEN DAYS before they can repair it.  Then a tree fell on our goat pen gate....


It didn't cause a ton of damage though so I'm grateful for that.  Anyway, I'll leave it there.  I hope the goats brighten your day as much as they do mine.  I love all of these furry little brats!!

2 comments:

  1. Andesine is close to my heart since I came up with the name. I don't know if you followed my broken fridge drama, but if they can't fix it the first time, just buy some old fridge that you can afford so that you will have something. I was trying to get our warranty to repair our fridge, and had to keep waiting a week or two for each appointment, and they had to attempt to repair it at least five or six times before they would call our old fridge a lemon and just replace it. The warranty ended up giving us a full refund when all but one of their repairmen quit, and he was going on vacation for a month. It was quite the fiasco. Anyway, I hope things get better for you.

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    1. Thank you for naming her by the way. I don't know if I ever said that. I love her name. She is a total sweetheart.

      We have a mini fridge and a separate deep freeze. My parents had a spare one we're using too. It's just annoying that none of them are inside the house except for the mini fridge. I'm very grateful that we have those options though. I missed the part about your fridge saga. Sounds like a nightmare!! I really hope he's able to fix it on this next visit and that it doesn't take multiple drawn out visits. The part that bothers me is that I thought these fancy fridges had high temp alarms, but I guess not. If that doesn't exist someone needs to invent one!! We lost hundreds of dollars worth of groceries that the warranty doesn't cover!

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