Betty Silver Goat

Betty and Sally

What are you named when your mother is Sally, you have a silver face and you are a goat? Betty Silver Goat is the only one of our goats to have a full name. She is also the youngest and the most friendly.

On Saturday when we went to the Lexington Chocolate Lover's Festival Sally was pregnant. When we got back she had a kid. I was disappointed to miss the birth, but it is still fun having a goat kid here. Whenever we come in to the pen Betty runs up to us to play. She loves to run in circles around a certain tree, jump up onto a root which sticks out and then hop straight up in the air to run around the tree again. Over and over and over.

It is interesting listening to Betty and Sally talk to each other. When Betty was getting near to the electric fence Sally started bleating very deeply to warn her. Betty just answered with a high-pitched bleat and went on towards the fence while Sally continued to warn her. Betty cautiously sniffed the fence, then carefully touched it with her nose. She got shocked. With another high-pitched bleat she ran away from the fence. You would think she learned her lesson, but she has repeated it over and over. A couple times she got shocked while crawling under the fence and then was stuck on the outside, not wanting to get shocked again while getting back into the pen.

The only problem we have had so far was that Betty would only nurse from one side of Sally. We have to milk Sally every day, but we are gradually getting Betty to nurse. A friend told us that when the milking does are kept in with the bucks, the bad smell of the buck is transferred through the milk, making it taste horrible. This caused us to give the milk to the cats. When we finally decided to taste the milk, it didn't taste bad at all. It just tasted like fresh, creamy milk.

It is so fun to watch Xiana play with Betty. Whenever Xiana hears the goats bleating, she asks to go outside. One time when I took Xiana outside I set her down beside Betty. Xiana kept grabbing Betty and giving her hugs, which Betty didn't like too much. Xiana started saying, "A tiss! A tiss! A tiss!" I thought she was just babbling, but then Xiana grabbed Betty, pulled her forward, and gave her a kiss on the forehead. Xiana looked at me and said, "A tiss!"

I am sorry to post so much about goats, but right now they are a big part of our life here in Texas. I just hope you are able to visit us to see just how fun it is to feed goats, milk goats and clear land. Did I mention chasing off a stray cat? And the neighbor's pit bulls? What about the cow in our yard? And burning sand burrs with a blow torch? Life here is very interesting.

Lauren

Farm Update

It has been quite a while since I have posted. On our hobby farm the number of animals has been growing (and diminishing). After I got two angora wethers Thomas also decided to buy angora goats. He ended up with three angoras, a white buck, a pregnant white doe and a pregnant black doe (all red color carriers). The goats were already named, and Thomas decided to keep their names; the buck is Niko, the white doe is Sally and the black doe is Lorraine.

Niko (nicknamed Yak, Longhorn and Spaniard)

Sally (in front) and Lorraine (in back)

After Thomas, Pierce decided to get goats. Pierce wanted to get milk does, but for now he has a Nubian/Boer buck (quite necessary to have milk, especially since we do not want to end up with an Angora/Nubian/Boer goat). The previous owners named him Brandon because the markings on his legs look like rollerblades and knee pads. Brandon wants a doe, so we had to separate him from the rest of the herd (which he yells and complains about whenever he sees us).

Floppy-eared Brandon

The sad news is that all our guineas are dead now. We think a few died from eating ant poison. We found a few piles of feathers, so we thought that the others got eaten by coyotes or owls, but then we found that a local stray cat was visiting our house every night, both to eat guineas and to eat the cat food which was meant for our cats. I just looked outside and that stray had the pluck to chase off our cats, sit on the back porch and eat the cat food! Dad, Thomas and Pierce are off to chase it again (with the gun)!

Lauren