Trick Riding Goat For Sale

I put Gimli on Craigslist last night. According to the "Best Days" calendar of the Farmer's Almanac, today and tomorrow are the best days to wean. So I was hoping that someone would just show up and take him but I am going to separate him from his mother today regardless. Which means that I am going to have to start milking twice per day.

He is cute and fun but he is also getting a little annoying. Especially when it is someone else's car.

He was no problem to keep in the goat lot as long as the fence was hot but for some reason it is no longer hot and he knows it. He slips underneath it anywhere he wants to. I worked on the fence yesterday for hours and nearly had a heat stroke but I can't find the problem. I cut weeds, moved limbs and replaced insulators but there is a mile of fence meandering around pastures before it gets to the goat pen. It's really hard to find the problem. I am going to walk it again today.

But in the mean time, if anyone is interested in buying a 3 month old boer wether who does some trick riding, let me know. Mr. Shorty says, "He has to go!"

General Update

Spring is a busy time for us even when we aren't having any foals. It seems like I don't have much time to blog anymore. I have taken on the new responsibility of Collette and her three doelings. I separated them for the first time last night. My plan was to try to milk her this morning but since the milk stand wasn't ready, I decided to work on that today and try to milk her in the morning.

I fed and watered the doelings and then took some pictures of Collette's strutted udder in case anyone who might be interested in her wants to see it. It is a little lob-sided with the left side being larger than the right but she has a lot of milk. With the three kids nursing her I had no idea what her udder looked like when it was full.

I put her back in with her babies after I took the pictures and they were happy to see her. This is the first step in the weaning process, spending the night apart. Hopefully she won't give me too much trouble in the morning when I try to milk her. I will post the results tomorrow.

Angus is doing great and eating us out of house and home. He is dying for a playmate and tries to play with the doelings, that doesn't work very well, when Collette tries to fend him off they get into a head pushing competition that he always wins. We have to keep a close eye on them.

I still do not have any broody hens and I don't understand it. Last year they all wanted to go broody and this year no one does.

Calico is due on Sunday, Mother's Day. I have her and Paris in the foaling stall right outside our door, I put them in there for the first time last night. She is getting very close by the looks of her. Her udder isn't strutted tight yet but is getting very full, she is very indignant when I touch it. She thinks that I am going to milk her and she knows that just wouldn't be right. I have to touch it quickly to check it because she anticipates my move and out maneuvers me.

Paris is definitely bred also. I don't think that I have posted that my doubts about her have been erased. She isn't as big as Calico but she is big and is in the process of making an udder. She is due on the May 31st.

I have a ton of work that is going to have to be done. Cooter destroyed my dog kennel, that is where I usually separate the kids at weaning time. I have repaired it before and it is a big job. We need to get a bottom strand of wire put up around the goat lot so that the babies don't just walk under it like Angel does.

Sky, our new filly is growing more beautiful everyday. It has been raining so much that I haven't been able to get out there and play with her and take pictures.

I am not complaining about the rain because rain brings grass and our pastures need grass right now for the amount of horses that we have. Of course, the yard looks awful and since our miniature horse, Mr. Shorty has already foundered once this Spring, he has lost his job as our official lawn mower.

Trouble, our Cushings Disease mare, hasn't shown any signs of improvement. I started her on the Chaste Tree Berry Powder on April 24th, so it has been two weeks today. Maybe I am being too impatient. The article said that we should start seeing results in three weeks, so I'll try not to be discouraged yet. The first result is that you will notice they are drinking less water, but she is sharing a big water tank with our large herd, so there is no way for us to notice a difference. Her long curly hair is still hanging on for dear life. We plan to shave her as soon as we get a decent day.

Another Lovely Day

Before the clock reaches midnight tonight, I thought that I would blog about the day, it was lovely. It wasn't hot like it has been for the last several days, it was just right. I made Cooter a new colorful goat rope halter. He had outgrown his old one and since I am staking him out everyday, I wanted him to be comfortable. The bright colors won't last long with the way he will treat it.

When I went to get Cinder to milk her this morning, Angel ran out the gate while I was taking Cinder out. This was strange behavior for her, so I watched to see what she was doing. She went right straight to the truck and tried to get into the back, she sniffed all around and then went into the barn/house where our large dog crate is and sniffed it. I finally realized that she was looking for Zinc, the goat kid that we took to his new home yesterday. She takes her responsibility for every goat very seriously. She is a great livestock guardian dog.

My Husband thought that the grass was getting too deep in the goat lot, so he put Shorty our miniature horse in there to eat down the grass some. But as soon as his belly was full, he started chasing the goats and horsing around. The goats didn't want to play and Angel didn't want to play.

He was running them from one end of the lot to the other, so I rescued them by opening the gate, they all ran out past me in desperation. Shorty used to stay with them all of the time and they got along fine except when he would get the rips, like he did today.

I put halters and lead ropes on Cinder and Calico, then tied them up in a lush shady spot. Angel and the other goats will not leave them, so every one enjoyed the day and the change in diet.

My poor Husband was feeding some horses and moved a separation gate, then got stung by another red wasp. They seem to have nests everywhere we turn this year.

The Boys

I was standing in the door of the chicken/goat shed the other evening, just watching the goats play and some horse antics, when I realized that all of our intact males are just forces to be reckoned with.

Cooter, my buck, had been pushing his limits with me all evening. He had been cooped up in the horse trailer too long and I had turned him out with Collette and Paris for awhile to get some exercise, since his buck pen wouldn't hold him anymore. He was pushing everyone around and was just generally being King of his domain. We are keeping him separated from Calico and Cinder now because we don't want them bred back.

From my vantage point I watched Cooter strutting his stuff. I could also see Badger, our Grullo AQHA Stallion, who was busy chasing my chickens who had just happened to wonder into his pasture, he was not only chasing them but trying to kill them.

I looked off to my left in time to see Jazz, our Appaloosa Stallion making a dive at the fence that separates him from Shorty, our miniature horse gelding. Shorty has a talent for driving Jazz insane by ignoring his strength and not showing any fear of him. I also personally think that Shorty makes rude remarks to Jazz that send him into a rage. Because one moment Jazz is calm and quiet, then the next moment he totally loses it and tries to crawl over the fence to get at him.

My Roosters like to find a high place to crow, they will also stand up to almost anything that threatens their hens, it's a guy thing. The testosterone driven males on this farm will take on any challenger. They can be quite annoying at times but are to be admired at others.

We did get a hot wire installed on top of our buck pen. So I don't have to deal with Cooter's posturing anymore. When I go into his pen now, he is just glad for some company and I don't have to deal with his buckishness, he is just a friendly puppy dog.

The icing on the cake for me when I was pondering these things, was when my little buckling Jasper got shocked by the electric fence. He yelled and jumped straight in the air but didn't run away like a doeling would do. He pulled himself up to his full height and marched right back over to that fence to let it know that he wasn't afraid of it and would fight it if necessary.

Mr. Shorty

Mr. Shorty is our miniature horse, who thinks that he is a draft horse. He has a bad case of LMS (Little Man Syndrome). What he lacks in height he makes up in attitude and desire to one day rule the world.

We acquired Shorty several years ago, as a badly foundered and neglected kid's pony. He was free, so why not? The price was right. He did require some foot adjustments.

And in case that you didn't notice his feet....

Because poor Shorty couldn't stand on his other three feet to have one foot trimmed, he was stretched out on his side, while my husband and a neighbor took a hacksaw to him.

The picture above is after we had had Shorty for awhile and my poor husband had finally gotten his feet back in shape. He complains that he is the hardest horse to trim that we have, not because he doesn't behave himself but because he is so short and it is back breaking work.

Mr. Shorty is a very good natured feller when he wants to be, as you can see by these pictures of him with our cat, Garfield. Not only does Garfield like Shorty but my hens seek refuge on his back as well, to get away from the rooster. Our rooster even occasionally takes a free ride on Shorty's back. The goats like to chew on his mane and tail, stand on his back when he is laying down and play tag with him, he always wins.

But Mr. Shorty's true love is kids, he likes them for some reason. He doesn't care at all for adults though, he doesn't even tolerate them well.

These pictures are of Shorty with our Grandson when he was younger. We took Mr. Shorty to Sunday School one Sunday morning and he nickered when he saw the little children coming to ride him. He is really good with kids and he just loved our Grandson until he reached about 7 years of age, then he started considering him an adult and wanted nothing more to do with him.

Shorty looks like the perfect little pony in these pictures, but looks can be deceiving. He is a wolf in sheep's clothing. He picks a fight with horses six times his size, he torments both of our stallions, he is impossible to catch if an adult tries to catch him, however, any small child can catch him at anytime. He walks under fences and goes anywhere he decides to go. He is very hard to lead unless it is a child that is leading him, then they can drag him around anywhere.

We have to keep Shorty in a special pen that he cannot escape from in order to keep him from foundering. It takes only a small amount of grass to founder him and he has even foundered on too much hay, so we have to feed him carefully. He is also a master mind when it comes to gates and his timing is always perfect for escaping through any open one. On these occasions, Mr. Shorty gets the rips and that is very entertaining to watch, he is very athletic and fast and can leap small buildings in a single bound.

All in all, Mr. Shorty is pretty worthless and pretty valuable at the same time and we love him.