Kidding Arrangements

With the herd back out on the Back Forty, I had to come up with a different plan for June kidding.  I don’t have time to track sleeping kids down on twenty acres.

Jethro by Popcorn

So I put panels across the east side of the barnyard and my four June moms (Cutie, Chiffon, Penelope, and Astra) got to have the front pasture.

I also let Dolly in there so she can still get her sweet feed everyday.

Dolly Street (she’s officially 14 now).

I also brought Flora over because she’s due next, and she’s a first timer. (Oops, I told you I keep interrupting my scheduled posts.)

Flora

But I still don’t have enough shelter for the rest of the moms who still need to be brought over.

Daisy

Sidney

Luckily, my nephew finally brought the manure spreader (it’s been crazy busy and rainy-we’ve had full on mud making it hard to do anything)!

So, the plan was to quickly clean the building out and move the birds.

That would give the goats enough shelter.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t get it done before we had another night of rain on Thursday.

I had already put Flora in there for some quiet bonding time.

And food. She stayed under the picnic table all day, so she needed some extra care.

I ended up with all the moms and old ladies in the garage and buck room.

Dolly and Flora

Well, except Astra. She was still in the Love Shack.  Hey, it was one night, and I still hadn’t started cleaning the bedding out of the garage, so why not.

Naughty Goats

I was off to a good start of getting things accomplished Saturday morning.  When the goats went out to pasture, I went out and let Margarita, Caroline and Ducky out of the north pen.  Margarita trotted off to pasture, happy to be free.  Caroline whined and yelled and finally just settled in next to the pen I just kicked her out of.

Caroline and Ducky

Eventually, while I was doing my work, I managed to catch Tansy and throw her and Alice out too.  But that meant I know had two adult goats crying like kids because they were not with the herd.

Tansy and Alice

Since I saw some goats out in pasture, I yelled, “Hey, goats!”  That almost always works.  They took their own sweet time, but they did come up from pasture.  I gave them some corn and figured Caroline and Tansy would go back out with them.

2TC relaxing after snax

But I was missing some goats.  I went out to pasture and walked all around, but no goats.  I finally found them on the bottom of the hill across the road–you know, not on my property.  So, I yelled again, “Hey, goats!  Come on, goats.”  They followed me up the gravel road towards home.  Of course, we got to a point where there were lots of yummy scrub brush in the ditch, so I had to leave them and get a bit of corn to rattle in a pitcher.  That did it.  They were running to get back in the barnyard.

Popcorn was one of the naughty ones.

While they were still cleaning up the last of the corn, I pulled the panel over and shut everyone off the Back Forty.

Shellie and Dolly in front of the panel I put across.

Then I fed the bucks a bit of sweet feed and shut their panel.  They are now confined into the buck room and the pen off the garage.

Xerxes, Freddie, Frodo, and Benji with Aurora on the other side of the fence.

The goats and llamas are back on the front pasture.

Playing on one of the fallen oaks.

Cupid with Ostara and Brigit

Cutie

Maybeline

Pretzel

They will stay there until I can get the panels across the ditch replaced.

It’s a mess down there.

That is probably not going to be until the Ranger comes back home.  Hopefully, the front pasture lasts that long, and I can get it taken care of quickly when the Ranger gets home.

Looking Like Summer

I love this time of year.  Everything is turning green and there’s wildlife to photograph and happy goats and llamas on pasture.

eastern kingbird

Aurora

blue jay

2TC

Odie

Baltimore oriole

Tramp

eastern meadowlark

Bob Cat heading out to hunt

red-winged blackbird

Dolly

sparrows

Ostara has become a total wild brat.

Bobolink

Sorry to overload with this last subject, but I’ve never seen such an agreeable snake before.

fox snake

probably at least four feet long

Here’s to another great weekend!