Disclaimers first. The brown stuff on the goats' faces is molasses. The red (and blue) on their bodies is paint from the marking harness. There is no blood on any of the animals. Also no animals were hurt during the showdown. Hehe.
Now I'll explain a bit on some of the pictures, but I'm going to mostly let them speak for themselves because there are a bunch of them so it's going to be a long post and it's late and I'm tired.
Breeding season is over so Jasper moved with his sons Champ and Taz to the front pasture away from the does.
Jasper is so huge!
So the main point of this post is that we turned Dottie, LeeAnn and Big Mama out into the big pasture with the other does, the horses and the donkey. It was quite a showdown!
LeeAnn reared up at Amethyst, but sweet Ammy was easily intimidated and ran away.
Dottie was the dominant doe in her herd and Coral was the dominant doe in her herd.... so when they met the showdown started. Dottie surprised me by acting like a buck. She made the weird goblin noises, stuck her tongue out, kicked her leg up, did the flehmen, rubbed her horns against trees... all of it. Basically the only thing she didn't do was mount anyone. Hubby said it's normal for dominant does to show buck behaviors. I think subconsciously I knew that, but I had never seen it. It was very weird. I have videos, but I don't have time to edit them. Hopefully someday I'll be able to share them, because it was pretty fun to watch them battling it out.
Coral on the left rearing up, Dottie on the right.
Dottie rearing up.
They sounded like bighorn sheep ramming into each other when they head butted. I hadn't realized how much bigger Coral was. I wish Dottie wasn't so dirty from the molasses tub. Normally she's just as white as Coral....
Here's Dottie turning her head to the side and sticking her tongue out like a buck.
Big Mama on the left was very impressive. She reared up on her back feet, turned one way and then turned the other way, trying to bluff Garnet.
Turned both directions while on her hind feet the whole time.
Could you imagine her throwing her almost two hundred pounds (she's lost weight on her diet yay!) into headbutting you??
She and Topaz had a brief skirmish as well. Topaz didn't stand a chance as small as she is.
Topaz's expression says it all hehe. She didn't put up a fight after this.
Coral and Dottie on the other hand put SO much force behind the impact!
When Big Mama would headbutt anyone she hit so hard her hind feet would come off the ground just like deer and big horn sheep do. It was crazy!! How do they not have major headaches?
It was cool seeing almost all of our does together (the Myotonics are still separate).
Everyone else had very short skirmishes, but Dottie and Coral fought for a loooong time!
Amethyst came to me for reassurance while her mom fought in the background.
The problem was that Dottie's crew started ganging up on Coral! That's when I got scared...
Big Mama fought dirty, slamming into Coral's shoulder while she was headbutting Dottie.
Hubby finally had to hold Big Mamma and eventually LeeAnn too.
Big Mama is looking good. I wish I could give her a bath lol.
It's funny how the others just watched while the dominant does fought.
Eventually Coral and Dottie sorted out who the new herd boss was going to be..... and Coral gracefully walked away. Dottie won the long battle and is now the boss of the entire herd. Coral is keeping her place as second in command though. Now that Dottie is done fighting, LeeAnn and Big Mama are too intimidated without back up to threaten Coral. It was a long fight that tired them both out, but everything was settled quicker than I thought it would be. Now they do everything together like nothing ever happened.... goats are so weird and interesting and entertaining hehe.
Dottie rubbing her horns on the tree like a buck.
The kids were innocent and playing.
Eventually we all went for a walk in the pasture to show the new does the boundaries and we left with everyone getting along. It was an entertaining Thanksgiving hehe. I hope everyone else had a great Thanksgiving!! I would have posted this yesterday, but unfortunately I had to work Friday. :\ I'll try to post again soon!
Looks like they worked it out and everything is fine now.
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