Casey Blackboer

I wanted to give Casey one last summer.  But he’s just too tired.  He is the last of my kids born in 2011.  And I kept a lot of kids from that year.

He is the last of my three amigos, and the sweetest boy ever.

Moose, Casey, and Myson

My heart is breaking.

Casey, With his mom Scarlet; Casie and Cookie; Casey and girlfriend Maisie; That tummy spot!; dressed for Halloween.

Good-bye my sweet boy.

Ready for the Weekend!

I am so ready for the weekend.  I’m already checking goats around the clock, so not having to get up and go to work will be nice.

the full pink moon setting over pasture

Hera is ready to pop!

Buffy was out enjoying the sunshine.

Ms. Goose was trying to lay an egg that cannot hatch.

They are so cute together! Tiger, Sky, and Rocky

Everyone up north is doing okay–Bee, Casey, Dolly, and Floyd

They get their splints removed and checked out next week.

Maybeline

Hilda

one of the hens–barred rock

Pluto is still with the bucks; I can’t figure out how to get just him through a gate or door.

Sky is such a sweet, goofy boy.

Latte is so cute!

I still can’t get over how different Skittles looks (before I expanded her pen).

I can’t believe Ostara is about to be a mom.

Mr. Peacock

Zinnia is such an elegant lady.

Tiger is so funny!

And my sister will be here soon to help with kidding.  It’s all very exciting!

Llama Drama

Well, Skittles is an interesting mystery.  She likes people. She’s a bit more aloof than when she first got here, but she will still come up to me at the fence, and I can pet her most times.

Skittles

I think she and Maybeline will get along when they are together.

Maybeline checking her out

Maybeline even decided to lay down next to the pen where Skittles is at.  That is a huge trust thing.

bad cell phone picture of Maybeline sleeping

You might have noticed I did not mention her when I talked about moving animals around.  She is still in the Morton building.  I tried introducing a goat.  The first time, Ava came in, and Skittles totally ignored her.  The next day, I brought Casey in.  After a while, she decided to try to stomp him.  Luckily it was in slow motion, and he’s perfectly fine.

Casey looking out the gate from the north paddock

But that means, it’s going to probably be a long slow integration.

She gets to be near the goats in the north paddock and likes to watch the goats when they are up from pasture.

And I really need to get her sheared.  You can see she has a halter on.  That is the first step in getting her sheared.

Her fleece has not been sheared in quite some time (if ever).

Touching her is easy.  Getting the halter on was a bit terrifying for her.  Luckily, I had a friend to help me, and we eventually got the halter on her.  There was some screaming and a little bit of spitting (that was Skittles, not us), but nobody got hurt. And she’s obviously been halter broke and leads fairly well–she’s just a bit out of practice. I don’t know why it was so terrifying for her to have the halter put on.

She is such a pretty girl

We did decide to leave it on.  It just seemed necessary in this instance.  We had to make an adjustment to the halter the next morning, but she was much calmer when we removed it and readjusted it.  That’s the plan–make sure the halter is not scary.

Still lots of times the ears go back; she is still nervous about the whole situation.

She seems to really be eating a lot. And she really likes to stare at my green yard, so I’m trying to be nice and cut buckets of grass for her.

She knows what’s in the bucket.

checking it out

She really likes that.

She does not eat like a lady

I’ll keep working with her and trying to gain her trust and make sure things are not too scary for her.  I can tell she still has some low level anxiety going on most of the time, but I’ve got to get her sheared.

But she does appreciate it!

Once I do that, I’ll have a better idea of what her true body condition is. That’s really hard to tell through all that fleece. I do have someone coming to shear this weekend, so wish us luck!