Our sweet goats seem to always have a smile on their face. (Why wouldn't they!) Especially our sweet Saanen wether, Bear. He truly is a gentle giant living amoung the little Nigerian girls. The one thing he can't understand is why he can't sit in laps like the girls can. We give him as many hugs and scratches as possible, but I know he is just begging for a lap!
Bear's Mona Lisa interpretation Our sweet goats seem to always have a smile on their face. (Why wouldn't they!) Especially our sweet Saanen wether, Bear. He truly is a gentle giant living amoung the little Nigerian girls. The one thing he can't understand is why he can't sit in laps like the girls can. We give him as many hugs and scratches as possible, but I know he is just begging for a lap!
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If you recall, Honey had a rendevous with a buck back in November(Check out Blog dated 11/15/2010). Well, she has been in heat at least three times since! I guess that means no babies in April. :( We were all so excited for many reasons; Honey is our first little girl who we love so much, and we were so excited to have "Little Hun's" running around. Also, we had her bred to Luzifer Blue, which is a buck we like very much and thought he could improve upon Honey's conformation. We decided not to try to re-breed her, since we have acquired two doelings by Luzifer Blue. Since we have a few girls "coming of age" this year, we will just wait a little longer for goat parenthood. We will have a busy year, with having more little girls to show, starting in April! We love our little Goaty Girls sooo much! Doesn't it look like they are looking back at us with the same loving thoughts?! More real; They are totally looking at us like in the episode of Gilligan's Island, where the lion looked at Gilligan and saw a can of meat! I probably look like a bale of alfalfa! I'll take that love:) Big goats, medium goats, little goats and girls! These are a few of my f - -ay---vor---ite things! A little Sound of Music never hurt anyone! This is WHY we have goats.....fun, cute, fun, cute and yes, they are fun and cute! They love us and we love them. We put our three little ones, 2 1/2 mos now, out with the "gang" during the day. Oh boy, do they have fun, running and jumping all over the place. The older group doesn't seem to mind adding them to their herd. Everyone has been quite hospitable up to this point. As long as everyone gets their fair share of attention, nobody minds the growing family. One of the things the goats love to do is hike around through the woods with Katie and Becca! They take them up and down and all around and the goats find it all exhilarating. The thing about having goats in the house, is that you've got goats...IN THE HOUSE! Let me put it clearly, we will be vacuuming shavings, probably for a very long time. No doubt in 4 years, I'll move some huge piece of furniture and there will be a shaving from when we had "THE GOATS IN THE HOUSE"! Ok, ok to all my non-farm animal friends, this isn't as gross as it sounds. (Well..maybe a little gross.) We had baby goats, like Chihauhua size, in a pen, on our tiled family room. We had rubber mats with shavings and hay, that I cleaned out everyday. There poo is about the size of a LeSeur baby pea. So before you judge, our goats were probably cleaner in our house than most people living in their own home! You know who you are! With that said, you will never get me to defend raising "farm animals" as "house animals". It's only extraordindary situations that give any farm animal clearance to enter the human habitat. We are having a lovely stretch of weather this week, and felt it was a perfect opportunity to get them outside. They were in a barn before we brought them home, but did not have an adequate, safe place for them yet (long, boring story!). Actually we still don't, but managed a temporary situation for them, until we can have their permanent space complete. Hopefully this week! So, our little ones were evicted from their cushy digs and reintroduce them to their true identity of being a goat! Coppelia (far right) Airborne! Yes, there are THREE new little girls in our family room! We have been waiting patiently for the beautiful "Bambusa" doe at Little Tots Estate to have her babies! Well, she had two lovely does and we are beyond thrilled to have a part of this wonderful senior doe in our herd! The story goes...We were heading to Rusty Repp's to drop off our Honey for breeding and picking up the Bambusa doeling. We also decided to acquire an additional doe so she could be raised with another peer. It absolutely makes a difference on them socially, to be able to have the comraderie of other goats. Anyways, when we got up there we were so taken with the little doe out of LTE Lobelia that we just added another! Why not! Warning to all.... these little Nigey babies are soooooooooo cute...prepare yourself, if you really think you can just have one! The three girls are currently "housed" in our family room until their pen is done outside. Hopefully this weekend! They get to come out a few times a day and run around, or I should say "zoom around like maniacs"! It can get quite comical at times, with all their bucking and springing and "goat skating" on the tile floors!
Oh My! Our sweet, little Honey had a rendevous this past Tuesday with the handsome Woodhavens Farm Luzifer Blue!! We are hoping for little girls early next April! As you can plainly see, "Her Loveliness" is quite offended by Luzifer serenading the doe next door!
Becca and I made our way up to Columbia, SC this past weekend to watch the Dairy Goat Show. We did have entries ourselves, but decided to leave our little girls at home since they just got over some stuffy noses. Showing our goats never comes before their well-being. Katie decided to stay home with her Daddy and help out on the farm and not miss her rehearsals for the Nutcracker Ballet. Becca wore her "whites" and had no shortage of participating in the show. She showed does throughout the two days and was excited about participating in the milking contest at the end of the Sr Doe show on Sunday. Angie Peevy let Becca use one of her beautiful Alpine doe's to milk. Thanks Angie!!! She actually sacrificied going to watch the "Wild Cow Milking Contest" to help us! Yes, you heard me right! If they had only let Becca ring out her clothes in the pail, I truly believe she would have won! It was awesome! Total high-five to the Bunny for having fun trying something new! There was a nice turn-out of some super quality Nigey's from Little Tots Estate, Madison's Meadow, J Nels, Yellow Rose, and Gypsy Moon. I ended up volunteering as an announcer on Sunday. Being handed a microphone can be quite empowering, releasing the American Idol beast within! I resisted the strong urge to break into "I Will Survive"! No guarantees about the future though. I've been asked to announce at the Clemson show next spring! As an exhibitor, the facility was easy to deal with, nice location, reasonable crowds and friendly people. We will definitely return next year. Hopefully exhibiting our own goats! We will be venturing into the breeding arena next month for Honey and Nilly! Stay tuned! FYI- It's supposed to be almost 90 degrees tomorrow! Above- Becca working hard in the milking contest. Far left- Becca with LTE Gerbera in a nice Best Nigerian Sr Doe class. I could not resist this picture! Does anyone else see anything WRONG! If you aren't supposed to be operating a vehicle while talking on your cell phone, I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to be "operating" an elephant either! We stood and watched in amazement as a man then got on with his infant daughter, all while this "handler" continued his conversation, no doubt discussing Iran going nuclear or ending the war in Afganistan or our jobless numbers! Why did the gentlemen with his baby, who no doubt transported his child to the fair in a car seat, felt it was fine to bring his baby on this huge animal, being controlled by a carny, with a stick, on a phone? Is it really just me?! Ugghh! Our girls got shaved for the shows just in time for the cooler weather to arrive. We think they look pretty snazzy in their "goat coats". Nilly, below, will be getting her "hair done" this week as we will be taking her to the GA National Fair in Perry next Monday. No worries, we have a coat special for her. Katie, Becca "Bunny" and I ventured out Friday afternoon with the back of the truck loaded with three goats and a day's supply of survival gear for attending our first goat show at a fair! Always priding myself in being the ultimate "manager of preparedness", I was not prepared for the 24 hours of contact with the masses of "fair-going public!" You could say the 3 hour drive north to the Gwinnett County Fair in Lawrenceville, GA, was uneventful. Well....not acknowledging the homeless man at DQ trying to convince me I had something loose hanging from under my truck, proclaiming he could save my day. The only thing I saw loose under my truck was a homeless man trying to con me out of a few dollars as he virtually crawled beneath the front drvers tire! Upon extracting this "less fortunate" individual from under my front bumper, we proceeded onward, goats safely in hand. We arrived early, around 3:00PM, long before the majority of other goats. It was brutally warm, mid to high 90's. As the night wore on, pens began filling rapidly and by 9 PM the fair was in full swing. The aisle got so jammed at points, that Katie said it looked like one of those conveyer belts in a potato factory with them slowly rolling forward! Pictured below, was a lighter traffic moment, but you can see our pen to the left, with a sign we made, DO NOT Touch or Feed! The fair closed at midnight, but there were still people milling about the barn from the fair. The wonderful ladies with their beautiful Nubians planned to camp out in the aisle and assured us they would protect our babies! Off to our hotel for a few hours of sleep before our return in the morning. There were some amazing people and animals at the fair! Friday night was a late one and an exhausting one! Sugar is passed out in Becca's arms, who was equally tired. People walking by would ask if Sugar was ok. It's Showtime!(Left)Katie and Bunny helped their friends Christy and Esther with some showmanship pointers before their class! (Below) Katie & Roxy fourth from left and Becca & Honey fifth from left Ages 10 -16 Showmanship - 13 Exhibitors in all! Left -Top four finishers! R to L - Becca, (Go Bunny!) Cayden, Katie and Alice! Awesome Job! Below - Honey show'in off her Showmanship blue! Congratulations to Little Tots Estate Acanthus!!! She won Grand Champion Sr. Nigerian Doe and more importantly is our Roxy's mom!!! Welcome to our family!Katie purchased this lovely doeling, Double Durango French Vanilla, 3/11/2010, from Jan Conner of Pretty Penny Goats, Winston, GA! We took delivery at the show and are so happy to have her join our growing family of sweet nigey girls! Katie calls her Nilly and she was accepted by our little gang with no problems! Check out our Goat Page for more pictures and details. Big thanks to Jan for having the strength to let this little lovely go! Below- Surprisingly, Nilly and Bear became instant buddies! He didn't, and still doesn't, love having Roxy around. But he has been very kind and gentle with Nilly since the very moment she was added to the paddock. We are starting to think Bear is a racist, since Roxy is the only brown doe! Katie commented that we should get a few more dark does to balance things out, but then David said that probably would only lead to goat gang-banging! |
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