Goats and stuff

Guess it's about time for an update on the goat project. I started with three goats about two years ago. They were, I am told, half Nubian and Pygmy goat. All three were black with a few white and brown markings. There was the fully grown doe and her two female offspring. When the younger 'girls' were old enough I agreed to host a pretty fellow who was mostly brown with black and white markings who wouldn't stay in his owners pen. He stayed with my girls for a couple of weeks and then started trying to wander again so I assumed he'd done his duty and asked the owner to come get him.

After the usual interval I was presented with six more goats. Only only four were female. Those I kept, selling the males. I also traded off the oldest female goat and one of the young males for another pair of goats. A male and female goat that were all white. I eventually discovered that the male, at least, was one of those infamous 'fainting' goats. My house cat got out and startled him and he just fell over. Very odd.

In any event, I kept him separate until about 3 months ago when I returned him to the pen with all 7 of my does. The over all plan for now is to sell all the kids and re breed after the does have dried off. I have not trained the girls to stand for milking and I have no patience for cleaning, or keeping clean, a milking parlor.

Now, after a very busy and trying week that included loosing one kid despite buying all kinds of things I now don't need, loosing half a nights sleep two nights in a row, and helping one doe during a breach birth I can report that I have twelve goat kids. . . I think. The little buggers keep scampering around so it's hard to tell.

Now if you managed to keep track of the numbers above you should have figured out that I had 7 does, so you are likely asking: Only twelve? Well, it breaks down this way. Oreo had two, Baby had two, Star had two, Rose had one that didn't survive, Brown 2 had one (the breach) Brown 1 had three (that Rose stole from her as she is more dominant than Brown 1) and Cookie had two. At least that's how I think it is, but it's hard to tell as I did have other things to do and all of them except for Brown 2 refused to kid while I was watching.

This is a learning process for me. Last time they kidded I had made the mistake of  not taking the billy (ram, whatever) out before they started having the kids. I lost one kid then because he kept them moving so much the little thing got trampled. (I think. Once more I wasn't there when it happened so could do nothing to prevent it.) This time I took the Grand Wizard out and put him into exile in a separate pen. Next time I will have to have one of the stalls in what is now a horse barn set up to put the girls in with several smaller stalls for each doe. The idea being to keep them together but still somehow separate so there will be no stealing of other's kids and I will know for sure which kids go with which doe.

But that's a lot of work and I need to get some materials together for it besides. Meanwhile I need to
catch up on my sleep.

As for the naughty kid stealing Rose, if I can get a stall fixed up I plan to move every one around so that I can lock her up with at least one of the triplets leaving the other two with Brown 1. Unless of course Brown one has already started drying up. Sigh. You have to make so many decisions when you are a goat lady. Maybe I should just sell them all off and get chickens. I like eggs. I know I like to eat chicken (might even be able to kill one never tried.) But I've never tried goat meat and if I don't like cow milk I doubt I'll like goat milk.