You just might be wondering… goats? When did goats come into our plans?
Well, here is the story! Our good friends from up north have goats! And they have quite a few of them. And they are costing a good deal in hay, feed, time to care for and all that stuff. Used to be their three daughters were all very involved in the care, feeding and handling of the herd of over 17 critters, but now, well, the girls are getting older and have jobs and plans and things that are keeping them from enjoying the herd as much as before. So Dani is the main goat mom at the moment and she’s getting a little overwhelmed. Dad said, time to thin the ranks a bit. So they have been working to find awesome homes for a few of them to ease the situation. When I heard about it all, I offered to take a pair if that would help out. A pair that might be a little harder to place for whatever reason. Since most of their goats are dairy/milking goats and I really was not ready for anything like that, a nice pair of whethers sounded perfect!
Whethers are fixed male goats. hey are pretty much destined to be pasture pets and landscapers for the most part… or unfortunately, BBQ is one of their best callings! If they were to sell these two boys to the random public person, it’s not a sure thing where they might end up and that is just not acceptable for their wonderful bottle raised babies!!! I wanted them to know that we would do our very best to always keep them together and happy on our little homestead. They would have a place in our hoof herd and hopefully would be happy and content here on the farm. Since they would be the only goats, there would be much less competition for all things goat around the place instead of in a larger herd.
Now, I’ll admit, goats were not really in our initial plan, but we just love their goofy antics. The sheepies are awesome and love to be petted and visited, but they are a little bit aloof at times and really don’t play… the goat boys play. They buck and gambol and butt heads and wrap necks to wrestle. They are very inquisitive and like to sniff kitties and chickens and dogs. They like to jump up on stuff, like the cable tables and they are working on trimming up our bushes and trees. They are very well behaved and walk on leashes! They are adorable. They are content to spend their evenings in the paddock and don’t mind to be put in. Of course, they like getting let out! So far, no escapes! I think they are enjoying the place.
The sheep are kind of adjusting to them, though at first just gave them glares of discontent as only ewes can do. Haha… if you haven’t noticed, sheep can really give ou attitude. They have this way of looking at you under their wooly heads that is positively chock full of hutzpah. You KNOW when they are annoyed. Now my girls came from a mixed herd with goats and llamas so they are fine with that, but I believe they were expecting to keep their own little Windhaven paradise all to their little selves and goats were not in their plans. Mocha would really like to play with them, though… which is funny, because she’s the more skittish of the herd. But she’s the youngest, just a yearling ewe. She watches the goat boys with their silly play and she just longs to join in. She will get really close and baaa at them, and when they rush over, she just has to run away. But she’s getting closer and closer to them and just watches them like a lovesick puppy. I predict that eventually, she will be the icebreaker and will enjoy time with her new brothers as well as her mommies.
The funny thing… when Donna shared a photo of them with me in the beginning of the planning stage… there was nothing to scale them in the photo. So when they hopped out of the truck I was amazed!!! Timmy, the larger of the two, was the pony I always wanted!!! He’s BIG! Tall and skinny! So cool… he’s about 150 pounds!!! He’s the black and white fella. His partner in crime is Bryce… he’s a little closer to what I imagined them to be, about the size of the sheep. But it’s cool, they are super awesome critters! I guess since they have a lot of pgymies and smaller ones, I just assumed these boys would be in that range! Haha… We had to do a little fence adjustment as they pretty quickly found that they could push their heads through our stick fence and probably the rest of them would easily follow! Maggie got some wire fencing up on the inside of it right away. We want to keep these gentlemen safe and sound!
So that’s the story! We now have a pair of goats to entertain and amuze! And they love bluegrass music! Which is a good thing. I’m sure you will learn a lot more about goats as we do in the coming weeks for sure! And we’re so thankful for our friends to allow us the chance to love these fellows and give them a great forever home!
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