About our Goats...A Just for Fun post

As of late, my posts have been pretty "heavy". And while life sometimes can be extremely "heavy" there are always little things here and there that can lighten things up a bit. So, I thought I would do a post just talking about our goats. Something just for fun and much lighter in mood than things of late have been. First how many? We currently have 5 breeding stock. We have two two year old Nubian does, a one year old Nubian doe, and two 1 year old nubian/boer cross bucks. I never thought I would like goats very much. I related them to the one goat that my grandfather had when I was a kid and also related them to cows in personality. The goat my grandfather had was mean....very mean. He didn't stay long at the farm. After he chased my cousin and I on top of the car for the second time my grandfather decided his time was up. My grandfather gave him to his farm hand and he ate him. In my opinion it was good riddance because I was tired of climbing on the car. Our goats are different, none of them are mean. The two boys are precious pets with very loving attitudes. Buck, my oldest really thinks that he is a pet. During rut he gets his feelings hurt because I simply don't want to scratch his head.....it is stinky. Billy, my junior buck is just as sweet but not nearly as insistent on his head scratches. Buck is the biggest of the two even though he is only a month older. He truly is already showing signs of being built like a tank and I can only imagine how big he will be in another year or two. His dad was huge. Billy has a little more refinement from his Nubian mother that show through. Lilly, our youngest doe is just as sweet as the boys. She really is just like "one of the boys". She is as rough and tumble as they are and enjoys sparring with them as much as they enjoy sparring with each other. She's my firecracker in the herd. She thinks it is her personal duty to keep the dogs in line whether they are out of line or not. All Lilly has to do is look in the dogs direction and they head for the hills. She is one tough cookie, my little Lilly, all the while keeping her feminine grace about her. She loves to scratch her itches with the tip of her horns and so as a result she has a permanent tuft of fur at the end of her horns. It is quite cute. Tea and Coffee are my two older does. They are as different as night and day. Neither had been handled much by their previous owner. It took awhile before we could even touch them without first cornering them in a stall. Coffee came around a lot quicker and now she thinks that she is the only goat that deserves Mama's scratches and attention. She gets very jealous when I am petting someone else and will nip my arm for attention. For a goat that had not been handled much at all and never milked she is awesome. Each morning she is waiting on her milk stand to be fed and milked. Her favorite place to be scratched is on her rear end right above her tail. A scratch in this spot will render Coffee totally helpless as she enters a trance like state of utter delight. Coffee and Tea can also tell time, very very well. They know when I am supposed to walk out the back door of the house and if I don't do that at the exact moment their clock says to, they start to holler. And they holler loudly thinking that I really do need a very loud alarm clock. This rouses the lazy boys from their sleep in the hay. So when I walk out the door I have 4 eager faces at the gate and one eager face on her milk stand. Tea is the regal princess of the whole bunch. She only allows scratches when she wants them. She is also the loudest and seems to protest most often mostly about nothing (or so it seems to me). While everyone is happily munching their hay, she will stand in the pasture and scream her head off. No one else seems to pay her any attention and so neither do I. She truly is a beautiful doe with a chestnut coat and striking black markings including a black dorsal stripe. She has been the hardest to get to come around to being handled and touched. Like I said, everything has to be on her terms. It will be an adventure training her to the milk stand and being milked. I have a feeling she won't take to it as easily as Coffee has. As of now, it takes two of us to do anything that requires her to stand still. Trimming her feet this past year would have won us awards with America's Funniest Home videos had we had someone video taping it. Maybe I should have our first milking video taped and sent in?! Well, I suppose that is about it for the goats. I must say they are nothing like I thought they would be. I truly love my goats and am very pleased that we chose them for our little farm. They are addictive, kinda like potato chips.....you can't have just one!