New Friend

Well a new friend for the Girl s anyways...
meet our newest addition

Yippee.
Yeah seriously that's the name he came with.
He's a purebred Nubian buckling. (we've made some major herd changes in the last few months- but that's another post in itself and needed another buckling for the girls- although we don't plan on breeding until Nov/Dec ish again)

more learning, more disapointment

One of the goats Miscarried last night.
Chris found a small hairless baby goat on the barn floor.

We weren't expecting babies till sometime in April so this is really early.

In Kathy's hypothermia course she sent out a picture of a baby that was born 4 weeks too early. Although the picture was a little hard to look at it was a clear example of the signs of a premature kid. Lack of hair, soft translucent hoof and eyes still fused shut.

These were all present in our little one, plus ours weighed in at less than 2 pounds. where a full term baby should be 7-9 pounds. Telling me that one of the goats couldn't sustain the pregnancy and miscarried too early for the little one to have a hope.


I'm a little sad, but I don't think we could have done anything different.

We're going to make sure there is even more hay in the barn for the next two months.
(one of the other tips was that Labor begins when blood sugars drop.  Blood sugar drops when the demands of the fetus exceed the reserves of the mother. )
We're also hoping that the weatherman's right this time and our temps will be going up at least for Saturday. We have plans to get the bedding all changed out.

Goat coats and food exchange

Today the kids and Chris went and met his parents for lunch in Leduc.

Me? Not so much. I'm pretty sure I've developed strep. So I stayed home and slept.

But I still got prezzies...hee hee

My MIL got two kid coats knitted

Aren't they adorable?

I'm thinking it'll be pretty hard to lose whatever kid is wearing the ORANGE one.

If we get a Houdini goat that manages to do constant escape act ( knock on wood) we'll have a coat ready for them.

Anyways I'm thrilled with how they turned out, and wanted to share them in all there cuteness!

We also pawned off gave them two of the chickens out of the freezer. Since October we've only manged to go through 4 of the 18 birds. If I want  to justify getting more chicks this spring I'm going to have to empty that freezer at a higher rate. The bonus was I got one of her homemade lasagnas in exchange. DEAL!!!

Milk stand is starting to come together

Way, way back in November I mentioned that I had roped my brother the welder into making me a milk stand for the goats?

I'd sent him these plans from the scroungeman website. Which shows step by step how to make one with lumber. But since the welder was making ours out of metal I sent him a few other examples like this of metal ones available commercially.
And then left the designing in his more than skilled hands...

Today I got some pictures

Hurray the goat stand is starting to take shape...

Sparks are flying....

I'm so excited. I looks even more amazing than I expected.
From what I can tell only the neck/head piece are missing right now...

Hopefully it'll fit in the back of my Dad's Blazer and we may see it up here in the next month or so.

Happy Dance~~~



wrappin' it up

My Goat Hypothermia course wrapped up this week. As usual Kathy's course was packed full of great info.

I mentioned before that I'd sent off the kid coat pattern to my MIL. We're meeting her for lunch on Sunday, and she already has two coats ready to go. I'm excited to see how they turned out.

The next project up from this course is the kid warming barrel. I'm on the hunt for the supplies ( like the 55 gallon plastic barrel). but it's next on the to do list. I found plans on the net to make a similar one here if your interested.

Now lets just hope that the sweaters and warming barrel is enough and I won't have to use the resuscitation techniques I learned!!!

useful horns

Freaky dog

The other night I was off to put the goats "to bed". It was already dark and I was actually kind of relieved when Maggie decided she was going to accompany me on the round of chores.

I fed the goats first, and they were happily munching away on oats and hay cubes. So I snagged their water bucket and headed off to refill it. I noticed that Maggie was no longer with me, but I wasn't too concerned.
Although, I wouldn't leave her alone with the goats for extended periods of time (mostly because I think she'd find a way to help them escape). I've watched her before, and the only thing she wants them to do is stay together. So the worst case I figured was she'd herd them all to one corner of the barn.

A minute later, I realized something wasn't quite right. There was two goats standing at the barn door "yelling" at me. And Maggie was nowhere in sight.

The dog had kicked all the goats off their food and was busy chowing down.

OATS AND HAY CUBES????

Since when to Dogs eat these things?

Oh right it's Maggie the chow hound. I'm not always sure she even tastes what she's eating.

Although, I've notice since she heads for the feed shack as soon as I'm done to make sure I haven't dropped anything. It's the hay cubes she's after.

Weirdo Dog!

A pattern and a confession

Last week I mentioned how I was going to sign up for the goat hypothermia class with Kathy at HMFF?

The class was up and rolling as of Monday. Today we received an e-mail detailing the pattern for Kathy's ever so cute little lamb/kid coats.
Which I promptly forwarded to my MIL

*Gasp*

Why?

This is the confession part...

I can't knit

*double GASP*

Yeah, I know. I have all these great plans that may or may not include getting animals like sheep, alpacas, and angora rabbits. Maybe even some angora goats.
All fiber animals.
And yet I myself can't knit.

Growing up I can remember my mother knitting me exactly one sweater. I also remember getting yelled at if you talked while she was doing this. "BE QUIET I NEED TO COUNT!!!"- My super crafty mother got right stressed out by knitting. In fact after she finished the sweater, I don't recall seeing her ever knit anything else.
This is probably why I have no idea how to knit.

I was absolutely in love with a Patons pattern  called Sally Secretary Monkey. I bought it and begged my MIL to knit me one. Which she did and I got got for Christmas. Awesome gift!

My favorite part is her little high heels.

Anyways, I can't knit. I've made my confession I feel better.
Okay not really.
One of my goals for 2011 is to learn, at least be able to knit a scarf by the end of the year? We'll see.
I don't suppose you could just raise fiber animals for the fun of raising the animals and barter/sell/trade all of the fleece/fur/wool???
Yeah, probably not really the point.

But right now I've talked my MIL into making me a couple of little goat coats. Because I've learned 2 very interesting facts from the workshop so far.

1) Kids can get hypothermia at any point in the year. They go from being inside Mom at a comfy 103 degree F. temp. to being dropped on a barn floor at whatever the temperature outside is sitting at.

and number 2 has nothing to do with why she needs to knit them for me, but it was an interesting fact about goat coats I thought I'd share.
2) They need to be made from Acrylic yarn. -because you can't use real wool. A baby animal can't smell even slightly like another animal to a new mom.
Something I totally wouldn't have thought of, pretty interesting huh?

Workshop sign up.

Oddly only days after I wrote the post about losing Larry to what I think was hypothermia. I got an e-mail from Kathy at Herbal Maid Fiber Farm asking if anyone would be interested in a workshop on Hypothermic Resuscitation. It's more for lambs and kids, since lambing and kidding season is about to start. But she's promising a pattern for a knit/crocheted kid coat, Instructions for making an incubator barrel for your nursery, pictorials on how to resuscitate a hypothermic newborn and more.
I sent off an email expressing my interest. If I'm going to be stubborn and stick with this goat deal. I have to start looking to the experts for more info!
Plus I took the goat milking and Cheese making classes from her last spring, and thought they were excellent.
She doesn't have the workshop listed on the website yet, but if anyone else is interested all of her contact info is there. Just shoot her an email and let her know.

some goat humor

see more funny videos

I laughed so hard when I saw this picture I just had to share.

Back to the Drawing Board

All I have to say is….”Somebody LIED to me!!!!”


So you may have guessed by the post More Goat issues. We had another traumatic goat problem. Our new goat “Larry” died, and were pretty sure it was from exposure. I.e. Hypothermia. AGAIN!!!!

I’d left the evening chores for Chris to do when he came home from work.
He walks in the kitchen looks at me and says, “So how long has Larry been dead?”
I was so mad I could barely respond to him.
Partially at him for stating it so abruptly, for thinking that I may have known and left this discovery for him to find and deal with…but mostly I was pissed at the goat, at us, at the situation, again.

Let me say that in most of my travels, readings and seeking of “expert opinions” the one common theme is that goats have very minimal shelter requirements. The lady we bought most of the goats from told me she’d had 2 small bucks stay in a large doghouse all winter.

So why is my goat frozen stiff in my barn?

That’s right, he was inside this time. In the barn and frozen.

Most articles I’ve read say that a lot of the time goats require only a 3-sided shelter. They need only a place to escape the rain, snow and wind. Yet here I am with the barn that we went out of our way to patch up, insulate and repair, and it’s not enough?!?!?

What the heck is going on?

I swear there is no other time I have been so close to throwing up my hands, admitting we don’t have a clue what were doing and putting this place up for sale.

There is nothing like losing 2 animals, quite literally within a month of each other to the same thing? I wanted to scream. I wanted to sell the rest of the goats, because we may be unfit goat owners.

On closer examination of Larry, we realized he had a completely unfit coat for our weather. The rest of our goats have their beautiful goats, and if you lift the hair they have an undercoat of hair as well. They look shaggy. They are warm. They are Alpines that seem to be able to survive in our severe climate.

Although I think Larry had some Alpine in him, his floppy ears were a dead give away that he was a cross. And whatever he was crossed with must not produce the same kind of undercoat that the other goats do. You stuck your hand through his coat and you touched skin. It was like sending someone outside in –28 degree C weather in a spring jacket.

Chris had mentioned before that Larry wasn’t as shaggy as the others. I wrote it off. Maybe he’d been a total inside goat his whole life. Just let him adjust to the cold he’ll grow a thicker coat like the others if he needs it!

What was I thinking?

I should have gone out there and put the “goat coat” on that animal.

I didn’t know.
And my ignorance has cost us yet again.

I’m stumbling blindly right now. There are so many things I don’t even know where you’d find the “answers” to when you don’t even know to ask the question. The worst-case scenarios could be endless.

I don’t know right now what the next step is. I don’t know where were headed from here.
Do we try again with another male goat?
If we do it will be a purebred Alpine, or something equally hardy.
Do we sell Romeo?
He can’t continue to bunk with the girls, but no companion in his own barn and own field may kill him too.
Do we sell them all?
Admitting maybe goats are harder to figure out than we thought.
Right now I don’t know…

More Goat issues

Right now were having more goat problems.
BIG goat problems.
But I'm really upset about it, I can't figure out what were doing wrong, or how to correct it. So until I have some more answers, I'm not sure I can say a lot about it.

Larry Stinks

Okay so we had goats since August, and to be honest They smell like animals to me. Maybe I've adjusted my nose, but really I couldn't figure out why everyone complains about goat smell.
But this new goat
PHEW!
After being in the auction yard he's covered in poop from who knows what, but he's got stinky goat smell underneath.
HE STINKS!!!
Really truly stinks.
The worst part it's way to cold to scrub him down, so we get to put up with stink goat till spring? Not happy.

Oh and his name has become Larry by default.

Nathan immediately wanted to name him Linus.
That seemed like bad karma.
So I through Larry in the ring, along with a few other suggestions.
I also posted this picture on facebook

Announcing the arrival of our new goat.
And how much my van stunk after his ride home- *Note* to self- only buy goats in warm weather from now on, so we can use the truck instead of the van to transport them.****
Mentioning, that Nathan wanted to name him Linus and I was thinking Larry.
Suddenly everyone had a goat name...
Bob
Hank
Mr. Tumnus
And my favorite Zye as in Zygote.
I think Zye is hilarious and immediately tried to use it.
The only problem is once Nathan and Chris find a name they cling to it.
(the cat that suppose to be named Chevy, but hasn't been called that in over a year???)
So Larry had already stuck.
It might be just as well, I have no plans to breed Larry in, so he probably won't be here very long, I'd rather keep the name Zye for our next Buck.

Because Santa doesn't deliver goats

As I mentioned in the previous post, we hit up the Sheep and Goat auction yesterday

ME + Auction = B-A-D

I could have come home with a hundred critters, without batting an eye.

I already said how tempting the lots of 7-12 wethers were. Especially one, that had 7 or 8 cuties. All with shiny well brushed coats. They were full of life and energy, and only averaging at 35 pounds. They were just babies. The only reason they escaped coming home with me was, I could just imagine the look on Chris' face when I told him to cram 8 of them in the back of the minivan.

Then there was the Sheep. I was smart enough to sit on my hands every time the auctioneer called out something was a cull. But one little sheep stole my heart completely. It was a good thing all the boys were fussing or it would have been in the van too!
It was the sweetest little brown and white lamb. In a lot with two little white ones. Every time they were prodded in one direction, this little brown and white cutie would take a flying leap trying to hurdle the other two and be in front. If sheep had true elbows it would have been a sheep mosh pit. I loved his antics and truly thought about ignoring the sheep ban for this little one.

About 3/4 of the way through the sheep (which was 2 and half hours of just waiting for us), a hutterite came in with a crate full of puppies. I was up pacing the floor trying to give a cranky Greg a new view. One glance at those puppies I knew they were at least a good part Pyrenees and I made a bee line back to my seat. There was 4 of them. 2 girls and 2 boys apparently. They were still releasing and catching the pups as the bidding started. The bidding went up and up fast for first selection. Bidders choice was at $110 before all the pups were sexed. Which determined there was in fact only one female, who was of course snatched up by the bidder with first rights. Left with 3 males Chris was giving me the evil eye not to bid. I wasn't going to, until the auctioneer dropped the price back to 25...then 15. I was busy giving the puppy dog eyes to Chris (all puns intended) when the numbers rocketed again 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 42...47. I think it ended up at 57 a pup, all I know is the bidder took them all. So not 3rd or 4th tries. I'm sure Chris was saying a prayer of thanks under his breath.

We sat in the very front row at the auction. And although it tugged at my heart strings to meet half of these darlings eye to eye. Especially when they came to the bars to cry out their protests and frustrations of their situation. It was also quite the education. A massive amount of sheep were there from a herd dispersal. The auctioneer said the owner was headed in for surgery and selling everything. These turned out to be great bench mark sheep. Watching those sheep come in, some with obviously pregnant bellies hanging low. I started to watch the way they all moved and was able to access the differences from a healthier flock to the culls. Of course many of the culls were blindly obvious. A pair came in missing a massive amount of wool from their back ends and sided. I just had this flash of "How would you keep these guys from getting frostbite?"
There were others too. One came in with only half a back leg. A full grown Ewe, but from the knee down there was nothing.
Another mixed lot of about 15 came in, and some of them looked like they had clubs instead of a hind leg. The leg was swollen and thick, with no bending where a knee should be. The herder that worked for the auction house announced they all had foot rot. So I got a "ring side view" of what that looks like.
I've seen illustrations of how you DON'T want a sheep's hind legs to look

Once when a flock came in together, half of them were tripping over each other, and most of them fell. That's when illustrations like these started to make sense. As soon as the animals were standing still you could see almost everyone of them had deformities like this, or even more pronounced in their hind legs.

Overall, we came home with just one male goat; which is what we went for. Although he's a billy instead of a wether like I'd hoped. He is however a decent size at 60 pounds he should be fine around Romeo. (Who seems to be in constant Rut) I hope it all works out as planned.
It was a fast lesson in sheep too. If your paying attention you can learn a lot sitting that close to the action. Although I still can't always be sure how much something is going for. Is there an Auctioneer to English dictionary you can get somewhere?

restocking the barn.

 It was the last Goat and Sheep auction of the year. Since we're desperate to move Romeo back out of the girls barn (where he's been living for heat since Linus' departure). We made it a priority to get there today.
OH Man, did it take forever!
I swear they ran through hundreds, and I mean HUNDREDS of sheep. Were estimating it was probably close to 800 head. All I know is it took over 2 and 1/2 hours before they even started the goats.

I was originally hoping to come home with a whether, but I came home with another little Billy instead. All of the whether's were being sold in groups of 7 to 12. I couldn't quite justify bring home that many goats at once.

 They said he weighs in at approx. 60 pounds. Which I figured was a fair size to be around our other goats.

I wanted to isolate him for a week or 2. but Chris, has thrown him straight in with Romeo, more worried about him being to cold in the barn alone.
So the plan is to shoot all the goats with black leg and de-wormer tomorrow, and I guess just pray he isn't carrying anything.

See, if I'd bought 7 or more whethers they could have kept each other warm and stayed in isolation.

Nathan wants to call this guy Linus, but that seems like bad karma.

I've been trying all afternoon to convince him the goats name is Larry. Well see if it sticks.

Other than one ear that looks a little chewed on, and he seems a little on the skinny side. He's alert and very vocal. So fingers crossed I can pick relatively healthy goats now.

Stupid Goat

We lost Linus Thursday night!
I'm MAD! Stupid goat up and died on me! I thought we we're going to pull him through. I feel like he just gave up and stopped fighting for his life. We tried really hard to nurse him back, and Wednesday it looked like we might get him back. By Thursday, he wouldn't even put the effort in, to drink or to stand. I'm mad at the stupid goat for being a quitter, even if the odds were stacked against him.
I'm really trying not to view our animals as pets anymore, so I wasn't totally crushed like if it had been one of the dogs. What I'm mad about, is losing animals may be the way of life on the farm, but I want to learn something from each one so we can prevent it in the future.

With Linus I'm not sure if it was totally the cold that killed him, or if he went down with something else in the cold.
Yes, I'm sure he had hypothermia.
I read that although you may be able to rewarm the animal, if their internal organs have begun shutting down, they don't really have a hope in survival.

I think this is what happened to Linus. Although we were able to warm him up, and by Tuesday he was looking better. He was on his feet, eating and drinking. By Wednesday he still wasn't pooping, which makes me believe his Rumen shut down. Apparently a goat that sufferers hypothermia, will go into survival mode, where the where the "essential" organs will get blood, and the heat/nutrients to stay alive, but the goats body doesn't consider the rumen an "essential" organ, and it can be the first to shut down. Building up bacteria, and obviously if the food is going in, but not coming out the bacteria will increase.

So I believe Linus was going through slow system shut down. He looked well for a day or so, but the inevitable was catching up to him.

My frustration, is that he also may have been showing some of the signs of Urinary Calculi. Although he only showed about half the symptoms, and most of them could also be accounted to the after effects of suffering hypothermia. If it was a case of Urinary Calculi, then we need to take another look at the feeding of our males, to make sure that Romeo doesn't suffer the same. We may be missing essential nutrients, or have an excess of others, which would cause this condition.
I'm left wondering if, he was ill and fell in the snow. Or if he was stupid and laid in the snow until he couldn't get up.

That's where I am. That's why I'm mad. I can handle losing an animal, but I want to use it as a learning experience to make sure we don't lose another in the same way. So I'm mad I don't have all the answers, I'm mad at the goat, because I feel like he gave up and submitted defeat before I was ready. (It may have been inevitable if his rumen shut down, but I wasn't ready to quit fighting for him yet). And I'm mad, that now I'm probably going to have to go on a hunt for a new companion for Romeo.

I think were losing him

Tuesday night, when Linus came in the house.

He was completely limp, and almost lifeless.

We spent most of the night warming him up.

He stayed in the kitchen in the giant wire cage.

He made it through the night!!!

Yesterday, we managed to get some food and water into him.

He could stand for awhile.

I went out and got him A GOAT COAT.

(Okay, it's actually a XL Dog coat but it fit)

I thought we might be getting somewhere.

But all that has changed again today.

He won't take water again.

He hasn't eaten.

He falls over every time you try to get him on his feet.

He curls into a little ball, but his eyes are open he's not sleeping.

He's still in the house, he couldn't handle being outside even for a few minutes yesterday.

He's warm, but he's not happy.

I think we may be fighting something else as well. But I don't know what it is.

The question is was he sick? and that's what caused him to fall over in the snow? Or did he get hypothermia, and just can't get his strength back. He seems to be giving up.

I'm pretty sure we have a dying goat.

There is a goat in the house

There is a goat in the house, and not for fun.
Calgary, AB was the second coldest place on earth today, right after the South Pole. Edmonton fell somewhere around 6th on the list, and one of our goats fell victim to the cold.

We were out most of the afternoon, and when we got home, we found poor Little Linus lying in the snow. He was right outside the barn, but since he still acts like a baby and never wants to be left alone, the best we can figure out is he was waiting for Romeo to come with him. So he got tired, laid down where he could still see Romeo, then got too cold to get back up.

Chris found him as soon as we got home, scooped him up, and came running for the house. He held him against his own body for probably 40 minutes with a blanket wrapped around him. Then we added an electric heater to the mix. For the last few hours he's been lying on the floor wrapped in a blanket next to the heater.


We haven't been able to convince him to eat or drink yet. So I know we're a long ways from being out of the woods. When he came in, he was limp in Chris' arms and since then, we've actually got him to bleat at us a few times and hold his head up. He'll turn his head to Chris' voice at some points. But it obviously takes a lot out of him and he curls back up and falls asleep again.

I don't know if he'll make it through the night or not at this point.

Most of the info I can find online talks about newborn kids getting hypothermia. Linus is nearly six months old. I read on one source we shouldn't be trying to force any food or liquids into him orally because...
when the temperature of the goat falls dangerously low for whatever reason(s), various internal organs begin to shut down as well - the rumen included. Therefore, it is never a good idea to try and orally stimulate a goat with food or liquid. Doing so can create equally dangerous (and often fatal) conditions by contributing to harmful bacteria build up within the digestive system itself. Always ensure that the goats temperature is within the normal limits before providing food or liquid orally. Any stimulation given to a goat suffering hypothermia should be administered intravenously.

I tried to shoot about 1tsp of molasses into his mouth when he first came through the door hoping that the sugar would help perk him back up and give him some energy. It obviously wasn't the right thing to do, but I'm not too worried about it because he seemed to let most of it run out the other side of his mouth anyways.
Right now, we have him in the kitchen in the big metal dog cage with the heater still going beside him, and blankets wrapped around him. He's twitching and shivering a bit. But I see that as a good sign, as his body is starting to try and generate it's own heat again. His breathing also seems to be deeper and steadier.

I wasn't expecting a half grown goat to experience hypothermia. I'm struggling if I should take advice meant for newborn kids that suffer hypothermia, or treat him like an adult goat. With him being right in the middle I'm not totally sure what to do?!?!

I read one article that suggested injecting them with a saline solution to ward off dehydration. I'm hesitant, because I can't find any other sources that suggest the same. So if he's still to weak to drink tomorrow, I'll probably have no choice. I need to ensure he gets his fluids somehow, but for tonight, I'm hoping he drank enough today to survive without more fluids for a bit.

So for now, cross your fingers that he makes it through the night.

I've been banned

Yup, The whole time we have been here, Hubby has let me pretty much run loose on deciding what animals to add to our menagerie.
It's not like I run totally wild, and completely decide on a whim. I've usually done quite a bit of research into care, feeding and breeds, before I make any decisions.

But in the past week or so, Hubby actually put his foot down about not one, but TWO animals, that I am now apparently banned from bringing home.

The first is Sheep.
We had quite a lengthy discussion one night which started with Chris stating he had watched a few sheep and thought they were quite dumb.
I told him a story I'd heard about how you have to watch sheep near a dugout in the winter, because although the ice on the dugout may be able to support some weight, it can't usually support an entire flocks weight. So if one sheep wonders on to the ice, all of them will follow, and there's a good chance you'll end up with all of them going through.
The conversation also moved on to how sheep were less socially interactive with humans than goats, and how we wouldn't see them as near as much fun after loving the antics of our goats.

Then what seemed to seal the deal for Chris was when I described how you have to shear them, and how the fleece has to come off in one piece in order to be sell-able. Not to mention how awkward the positions you have to be able to get into to in order to shear them. (Not that I've done it, but I've read the books and studied the drawing/diagrams) I just think sheep shearing is a skill that you would hone after much practice, and I think we would mangle a lot of fleeces to learn it. Rendering them worthless, and taking a big chunk out of any profit you could make off raising sheep.
At the end of this talk, Hubby made the decision I was not to add any sheep. They seemed like a lot of work, for little reward, and not very suitable for the direction we're trying to head in.

Surprisingly, the SECOND animal I've been told NO about is a Llama.
I'm not totally sure if it's a hard definite no like the sheep, because we're basing it off one ad I read. So more research would have to be done.
But, we have a pretty big coyote problem here. As the days get shorter, the food gets harder to find, and I'm worried that the goats might look like a pretty good meal to the coyotes in the area.
Since our dogs aren't used to being around the goats enough, they aren't trusted to be turned loose around them alone yet. Making them utterly useless as herd protection
So I told Chris a few nights ago I had been considering getting a Llama as herd protection. However I was having second thoughts after reading an ad posted on kijiji by someone looking for one.

the ad read..."If you have a llama, alpaca or donkey that will not stomp out my dogs, but live with and guard the sheep,goats, pigs and chickens, and you no longer need him/her,..."

that will not stomp out my dogs?

I've been thinking this over quite a bit since I saw it. To me it kind of makes sense. If you have an animal that's there to protect your herd from coyotes why and how would they be able to distinguish the difference between a coyote and a dog? Maybe they wouldn't even try, anything animal that doesn't belong to the herd must be a threat. Their purpose is to safe guard the other animals from outside threats...so it would stand to reason...

I guess right now there will be no Llamas added until I can find out if this is a common occurrence.
I certainly wouldn't want to see one of my dogs taken out by the Llama just for going near the goats.

Dr. LOVE

One of my goats ha been re-named, but its neither of the ones I was thinking about re-naming back in September.

No.

It's Romeo.

Chris has taken to referring to him as Dr. LOVE.

Since he is obviously in rut and absolutely tortured every time one of the girls heats a heat cycle. He spends all day trying to lick them through the fence. Making the strangest guttural, licking smacking sounds I have ever heard. And trying with all his might to woo them.
If you let him anywhere near them he chases them around desperately licking, rubbing and doing anything he can to be allowed to be close to them.

Chris just laughs at him. and says " Come on Dr. Love your moves aren't working" as he throws him back into his own pen.

It's quite the displays to watch.

Of course poor Little Linus gets the brunt of Romeo's failed love connections with the girls. I'm very worried Linus isn't going to end up being a studly Buck for us after all since Romeo is bent on turning him gay.