Cocoa Loco

This year we were fortunate in having a brown goat doeling that lived (something my husband apparently really wanted) .  We have had ones born previously, but they all seemed to catch pneumonia within days of birth and die, no matter what we did, and even if their twins were fine.  I chalked it up to some kind of genetic inferiority on the part of the brown goats, some kind of hereditary immune issue being passed on from our previous buck, Spike.


Cocoa and her mother, Chocolate.

As I said before, this year was different.  Perhaps it was due to multiple factors: Cocoa was born to our best mother goat (Chocolate will let any goat kid nurse off of her) and she was a single rather than a twin.  As she was all brown, given the history we'd had with previous goat kids, we took special care with her, checking on her multiple times a day, watching every sneeze (goats sneeze a lot normally anyway), making sure every poop was regular, giving her the warmest stall.  Although we may not have needed to worry about that last part, because within a day of her birth, she was zooming laps around the stall, jumping in and out of the hay feeder, and trying to jump onto her mother.  Maybe we should have named her Spitfire.  Unfortunately for her, because of her unique (to our herd) coloring and our inability within the household to decide on a name, she has three: Cocoa Cinnamon Bon Bon.  Fancy.  Usually we just call her Cocoa; if she's bad we'll add "Loco" to the end of that.

Cocoa trying to get as far into the hay feeder as possible.

All that personal attention has turned her into a personable goat, in that she enjoys being around people, and nibbling on their clothes while being petted.  However, around goats she is the instigator and troublemaker, always finding new ways of making life exciting.

Cocoa, having decided to join in the spring gardening frenzy, proudly goes to display her find to the other goats.

Like our other goats, she has decided that the grass on the outside of the fence must somehow taste much different and better than the pasture.  Our pasture fence-line has a perfectly manicured one-foot area all around it from the goats eating it.  Unfortunately for Cocoa, as she has grown, so have her horns.  With her wedge-shaped head, this has resulted in her being able to get her head through the fence to the other side, but not back. Which is all fine and well until she runs out of grass to eat.  So we've had to put the Pipe of Shame on her.  It works wonderfully to keep her from getting her head stuck in the fence, isn't too heavy (yay for PVC and duct tape!) and only took the other goats a day to get used to.

Cocoa, wearing her Pipe of Shame.

Our New Addition

We had a new addition to the farm this month, a buckling who has the unfortunate moniker of "Hot Dog."  You would think that something like that came from my daughter, but it was actually my husband.  Unfortunately for the poor goat kid, the name stuck.  At least it doesn't change the fact that he is completely adorable.



Here is Hot Dog with his mother, Fluffball.



Hot Dog has just had a nice milk breakfast from mommy.



Hot Dog enjoying spring.



Hot Dog racing to keep up with the rest of the herd.

Hot Dog showing off.

Hot Dog trying to jump on to his mother.

Hot Dog racing Squeaker.

Now that he's a few weeks old, he's trying to figure out what all the grazing and grass-eating is all about. He keeps bringing sticks and twigs to his mother, trying to impress her.  Between his bouts of jumping, hopping, and general frisking about, he pretends to be a serious grazer with the rest of the goats.  We can tell that he's just nibbling, but it is adorable and gives his mother a much needed break.

Guard Dog Toby

This is Toby, our ground-patrol corgi.  Generally he spends his time guarding our goat herd, watching out for my daughter, and providing general guard duties.

Occasionally, though, he has to think outside the box.  Especially when there are intruders.  Like the groundhog who decided to try to make a new home on our property.  Toby did not like that idea one bit, so he chased the groundhog off, as he does with any intruder.  Apparently the groundhog felt so threatened that he ran to the nearest safe place - a tree.

Toby felt so happy with his success that he spent the rest of his day making sure the groundhog stayed in that tree. By the time the groundhog was allowed to come out of the tree, he must have learned his lesson, because we haven't seen him since.

Spring!

It seems like Spring has finally made a commitment to stay.  Which means several things here at the farm: mud season, spring cleaning, and shearing.  I never knew the meaning of "mud room" until living here, and am already plotting for how to expand ours.  Either that or how to make our kitchen look like an exact replica of the many shades of mud/leaves/sticks and other things that seem to be tracked inside every single day.  Seriously, having a brown pergo floor does nothing; it needs to have nuances of outdoors.  Even with daily cleaning, I will not see my actual floor again until the dry summer.

So I focus my energies on cleaning other things, like the barn.  Spring is when we do one of our major semi-annual barn cleaning events.  It's warn enough to stick the animals outside for a day while we overhaul and do general inventory. 

Spring is also shearing time for the angora goats.  The other goats always find it interesting and want to know what's going on, seeing the angora goats as strangers without their long coats.

Sassafrass was the first one done.  As usual, she was best behaved of the group for her haircut.  She did not take kindly to having her picture taken though, high-tailing it for the barn before I could get a good picture.

Basil, our buck, wasn't far behind.  He was the last one shaved and apparently figured out what was going on.  He jumped the fence and made a break for the pasture so that he wouldn't have to be shaved.  Unfortunately his head was no match for his stomach, and we were able to get him back with a bowl of grain very quickly.  But he wasn't sticking around after his trim either.  Or maybe he thought there would be more grain in the barn, since Sassafrass went in there so quickly?

Leah decided to let me know what she thought about the whole thing:

As much as they do not seem to appreciate having been shaved right now, I bet they will appreciate their hair cuts once the weather really warms up!

 



Mystery of the Missing Goats

Now that we've had a few warm days, mud season is here.  The almost two feet of snow is nearly gone, but has left lots and lots of mud behind.  Our younger corgi is reveling in the squishy squashy feeling between his toes, while the other one minces around like a girl trying not to get his pretty little paws dirty.  Very entertaining to watch the two of them out together.

Since the weather is no longer in the negative digits, we've started to let the goats out of the barn.  One day last week after I returned home from work, when I did my usual check on the goats I noticed that it was very quiet.  Too quiet.  No goats in the pasture.  No goats in the pen.

The dogs and I wandered around the side of the barn.  Still no goats.  We looked in the woods.  No goats.  Usually, if they get out they do not go too far.  Being the stomachs-on-legs that they are, as soon as they find a good meal, that's usually where they stop.

Feeling rather concerned, I finally went into the barn to check on the other herd, just to make sure nothing had happened to them.  And that's when I found the missing goats.  Apparently, they had gone out of their pen, into their pasture, through their gate into the other pasture (of course they found a hole in the fence the first day they were out), and then back into the barn on the other side.  Why they chose to go back inside on such a nice day is beyond me.  I am also not sure how they managed to open the barn doors (but I suspect that a certain husband did not lock the doors properly the night before).

Happily all goats are fine, although confined to quarters until we get the fence mended.

Goat Kids!

Well, all our does have finished kidding for the winter.  We started in December, right before Christmas.

Here is the first doe kid of the season.  She is the only all-brown one that we've had survive, and so is already being spoiled by my husband and daughter. We could not decide on a name for her, so she got three: Cocoa cinnamon bon bon. Sounds pretty snooty and high-bred, right?

 

A day later, Muesli, a buck kid was born. Since he's a buck and therefore won't be staying permanently, no one cared what I named him.

After that, we had a break until late January, when Squeaker was born. She got her name because she doesn't make normal goat kid "maaa" sounds. Instead, she sounds like a squeaky toy. Since she's otherwise healthy, we aren't too concerned. Plus, you always know when she's talking.

After Squeaker was born, I was lamenting not seeing any of the goat kids actually coming out. Well, Snowflake decided that she would wait for me.  One day in February, when we had been without power for 24 hours due to an ice storm (and would continue to be without power for another 3 days), I went out to check the goats. It was dark in the barn, even with the flashlight, but I thought I saw a baby. I did.


















As my husband and I went about doing our goat feeding and watering, about an hour later another one came out. So we stood and watched the two for awhile, making sure everything was ok, since Snowflake is a first-time mother.

Well, after about another hour, she had a third kid!

We ended up bringing the third kid inside as a bottle baby, since his mother didn't have enough milk for all three of them.

He enjoys romping in the kitchen with the corgis, and getting into trouble as well. He is well on his way to being spoiled.

Our final kid was born just before Valentine's Day: our first angora kid! Unfortunately, her mother wants nothing to do with feeding her.  So she has also become a bottle baby.  Happily, all kids are doing well and are super cute!

 

 

 

 





Draft Blocking Door Snake Tutorial

With the cold weather hitting, my husband asked for a draft-blocker for some of our doors.  I decided to make them interesting to look at, since they will be in front of our doors for months.

For the tutorial, click here.