And then there were goats....






Me and Jose

 Goats....why not? Our ever expanding farm family recently added a 4 month old donkey, named Jose. A sweet, super soft little guy that I just love. When I go into the pasture he snuggles up beside me for some quality ear scratching.  He is probably my favorite animal baby.... just don't tell the others.  Initially, he shared the two acre chicken lot with our flock of red laced cornish, a few red bourbon turkeys and some  white and barred rock hens.  Donkeys are herd animals and his feathered friends just weren't cutting it for him. He needed four legged friends, a herd to call his own. Goats seemed to be the best solution, so down the proverbial goat path we went. Neither my husband nor I knew the first thing about a goat, but how hard could they be to raise? After a bit of research on the various breeds of meat goats I discovered that for our needs a combination of hearty breeds was the way to go.






"Billy"

 




A bit more research led us to the Garrett's at  www.Stokelandsavannas.com. The were local, only a 45 minute drive, which constitutes local around here. They had just the goats we wanted. The Garrett's were extremely knowledgeable and spent most of the evening explaining to us the finer points of raising goats.They even gave us a hands on demonstration on how to trim a goats hoof. It was the darnedest pedicure I'd ever seen!We came away with one purebred Boer buck, which we named Master Sgt "Billy" McGraw, after Allen's good friend with the same name and rank. We also purchased two savanna/kiko cross does, "Freckles" who has spotted ears and "Strawberry" who has a pinkish tint to her coat. There was a third goat who managed their way into our livestock trailer that day. She was a pure bred boer the Garrett's called "Tilly". She was very old, blind in one eye and mostly deaf, of course I had to have her. The Garrett's surmised from her gentle nature she was probably a pet prior to coming to live with them on their breeding farm. They didn't want to sell her at the livestock market because she would certainly go to slaughter. They needed to make room for new breeding stock so we agreed to give her a new home. Much to my mother's disapproval, we now refer to Tilly as "Grandma Goat". Sweet natured, can't half see, can't hear...just a few similarities with her new namesake:)

 "Grandma Goat"









When they first arrived to our farm, only Grandma would let us get close to her. After a few weeks of dispensing apple flavored horse treats from our pockets we had all made friends. They now eagerly greet us and eat from our hands. Jose quickly joined his new herd and is now quite happy. Apparently, goats are better company than chickens.



"Freckles"



The undeniable queen bee is Grandma Goat. She makes sure she gets all the grain she wants before allowing the others to eat, proving animals can overcome handicaps as well. Freckles is the youngest and most timid of the herd. She has such a sweet, quiet disposition, we just adore her. Billy is a young buck, both literally and figuratively. He and Jose rough house like any two little boys would. Billy will head butt Jose, who in turn unleashes his flying rear hooves in carefully placed judo kicks. Jose will then gallop circles around Billy, taunting him like any self respecting little brother would do.


 

"Strawberry"

Strawberry is quite the escape artist and recently provided one of the best laughs I've had in months. She apparently wanted to be in the pasture with her BFF, Freckles. Freckles had been moved to our "nursery" pasture with her two new babies. Strawberry scaled the five foot woven wire fence right in front of my husband and step son. They were in the nursery pasture constructing a little goat play ground for the new babies, that will be another story. Allen thought he could run down and catch one of the worlds most agile, four legged creatures. The bout was set. In one corner, Strawberry in her prime, with four cloven hooves and limber joints vs. Allen in the other corner, in his very late 30's, wearing coveralls and heavy boots. After about 20 laps around the two acre lot, Strawberry had had enough and out the other side of the fence she went. Down the driveway she trotted while poor Allen was left huffing and puffing in disbelief he had been defeated by a goat. I grabbed the bag of apple peelings I had just peeled and headed out the door to lure her back.  I was doing holiday cooking that day and since I'm a notoriously messy cook, my attire was cut off jean shorts, an old t-shirt and flip flops. About half way down the 400 yard driveway it hit me, its 40 degrees out here. Apparently, I'm no better than my husband when it comes to making quick decisions regarding our goats. I couldn't let her reach the road, so a very chilly, slow but steady pursuit ensued. After a freezing 30 minutes, I convinced Strawberry that she wanted some apples and back down the driveway we came.

The moral to this story is you will "catch more flies with honey", or in our case, more goats with apples.