This and That

Just some extra pictures from the last week or so.

Stormy

Buster (with Fionn in the background)

Sky’s favorite toy is still his Jolly Ball.  Best toy ever!  And, yes, I almost got hit by the ball and run over by the dog.

Sky

These two girls are still cranky whenever they see Tony.  I am almost afraid to hope they are bred though, and it’s still a really long time before they would be due.

Odie and Maybeline

I think I shared that I couldn’t touch Hera anymore after I caught her and put the horn apparatus back on her.  She finally got to where I could pet her again, and then I had to catch her and give her a dose of copper.  You guessed it.  I can’t touch her again.  I am certainly planning on locking her in with a buck in a small space so I can get her back to being friendly.

Hera

Clover and Wanda

Leo is doing well.  We thought he might have diabetes last spring, but he is actually doing quite well now.  I’m thrilled and amazed since he’s pushing eighteen.

Leo

I am very happy to report that we haven’t had any coyote attacks out in pasture.  The goats are out there almost as soon as the sun comes up, but everyone has stayed safe.  I’m going to credit the fence away from the woodlot.

The good news about Zinnia not being bred is that I can keep milking her all the way until the first of May if she stays in milk.  I’m not sure she will, but I can try.

Zinnia

A woodpecker climbing up the maple tree–even if I just get to see their back side, I enjoy them.  The red-bellied woodpeckers are my favorites.

I told you I was going to take lots of pictures on the weekends to make sure I could blog through the week.

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Settled and Unsettled

It’s been long enough since I mixed the bucks and does for spring break babies that I have a good idea of who will have kids in March and who didn’t settle.

Clover, Wanda and Astra all seem to have settled.

Of the girls that I didn’t see come into heat when they were with the bucks, Bambi and Vinnie have come into heat since then, so I know they aren’t bred.

Vinnie

Daisy, I thought might have been in heat, but she came into heat around the same time as Bambi and Vinnie, so it must have just been lots of hormones and not her.  She couldn’t have come back into heat that soon.

Daisy

Cinnamon might have been in heat around the same time, but she wasn’t obvious, so I’m not sure.

Cinnamon

Sidney and Blaze I’ve not seen in heat, so they are probably bred.

Sidney

I have seen LilyAnn in heat, and that doesn’t surprise me.  I thought she was too far into being heat to get bred when I put her in with Zeus.

LilyAnn

Then there’s Zinnia.  She came into heat right after I put her with Xerxes.  She was bred.  She came back into heat.

Zinnia

I’m a little worried about Xerxes’s low success rate at making babies.  I’m not sure if it’s him or the lack of copper in the girls.  Yes, it can cause fertility problems.

Xerxes

We’ll have to see what happens with the girls I give him for June babies.  Otherwise, I might have to rethink keeping him forever as a replacement for when Fionn is gone.

They Are Naughty

I don’t know what it is about this time of year, but it seems like this is when the goats all decide they are going to die if they don’t find fresh browse.  It makes me very unhappy when I look out the window and see the no-man’s land at the bottom of my property filled with goats.

Because it isn’t fenced and they can get out on the road.

Usually, I just go out to pasture and call them to come back and they do.  Not yesterday.  They traipsed out on the road.  A truck had to slow down to go through them.  Then I ran back up the hill to the barnyard (and I really thought I was going to have a heart attack running up the hill).  Then I got the Ranger and ran their butts up the road and into the barnyard.

They act so innocent.

“I wasn’t quite done eating those mulberry bushes? Could you open the gate again?” Clover

I went down and patched my hobbling from a couple of years ago (the last time I posted about them doing this).

“I was just trying to find a way to get to Xerxes,” Maisie.   “Me too,” Sidney

Hopefully it lasts another two or more years!