Farm-Style Manicure

You should see my lovely fingernails, they are brittle and broken, split and jagged. They usually have unidentified dark substances under them as well. I try to keep them out of my mouth most of the time for that reason.

Dipping crushed oyster shell straight from the bag with your bare hands to feed to your chickens is rough on your nails. Bracing yourself with your hands in the mud and manure to look under the goat/chicken house for a lost hen is not good hygiene. Getting into a slight scuffle with a Billy Goat can and will break an already brittle nail and also bruise one's knuckle.

I don't know what has gotten into Cooter, well maybe it's because it's Spring but I didn't know that he had a calendar and knew the exact day that Spring arrived. He is getting hard to deal with, he usually just nibbles at my fingers and clothes, sometimes puts his head against me and applies slight pressure but today he was just being mean and trying to knock me down. He did the same thing to my DH while he was shoveling out the shed, he took the shovel to him and that made him worse.

He likes being kicked and hit because he likes to play rough, so I avoid getting rough with him, even if he makes me mad. If he pushes on me, I grab his ear, give it a twist and hold him still in one place for an extended period of time. When I let go he usually doesn't want to play anymore. But this type of training does take time and patience.

After the slap with the shovel, he thought we were on his energy level and were thinking like he thinks. I know from experience that it is hard to win in a hand or foot to hard head battle with a buck. If you kick them, it will hurt you worse that it hurts them and hitting them with your hand is just stupid and I have the bruise on my hand to prove it.

Billy goats are made of tough stuff and I should have known better than to have made such a pet out of Cooter but he was so sweet and cute, I couldn't help it. My last buck was not pampered and he avoided human contact, so he was much better behaved.

I am afraid at this point that I am going to have to resort to drastic measures and purchase a cattle prod because I don't want my Grandkids not being able to go into the goat lot because of a mean billy goat, plus the fact that I am just getting tired of his annoying behavior.