Ragdollcatlady's Just a Little Patch of Weeds Farm journal

[babsbag]

I just looked at a spotted black/white Boer and thought I needed her...NOT!!! I understand the addiction.

 

[ragdollcatlady]

Addicted to goats! Not me!!!! (where is the innocent halo smiley???)

Ravi is gorgeous and she knows it.

As for Andizzle....yeah, I kinda put the cart before the horse and bought myself a buck before I had any girls....but who could resist that big baby buffalo with spots?

 

[babsbag]

The red doe that I have for you has a white belly band too, guess that is my herd trademark. She needs to put some weight on, she is the low girl in the Boer herd and won't fight for her place. No matter where I put her everyone eats her food. She isn't skinny, well, maybe for a Boer she is; but she isn't as big as Ravi. I agree that Ravi is gorgeous. I noticed that your buck is disbudded. These girls have horns, hope that isn't a problem. I have been keeping the Boers with horns; just in case they ever ended up in a show ring they need their horns. I disbud all my dairy stock, for the same reason...they can't have horns in the ring. Crazy. The Boers don't use their horns like weapons like the Alpines do either.

 

[ragdollcatlady]

I had Andys horns removed because he kept getting stuck in the fence and with the crazy heat we get, I can't afford to have them stuck with no shade or water. The neighbor had a goat with horns that nearly expired from just that. She came home in time but I understand it was pretty bad. I can see about having them removed if I need to. I would love to show, but wouldn't have the foggiest idea where to start or how to do it. Just the 4H and county fairs, learning along with my kids is all I know about showing goats.

 

[babsbag]

We run a hotwire inside the fence at goat knee height. Takes care of their desire to stick their head in the fence or use it as a scratching post. The bucks are harder too because they have bigger horns, but I do understand about the heat and getting stuck in places; goats seem to excel at that.

 

[ragdollcatlady]

My goats can be soooo bossy sometimes! I was bringing Georgia and Spellbound up to milk. Since the C section, Jane has really been an outcast from the main herd. So a few weeks ago, she started wanting to come up when we milk. I am not milking her, as her kid drinks all she has, but I let her come up and eat alfalfa and some grain while I milk the other 2. That way she isn't competing with anyone else for food and I know she is getting enough. So today, Georgia jumps over the "speedbump board" and spins around, puts her hackles up, shakes her head at Jane and grunts!!!! LOL!!! She was very clearly telling her that she was sooo not welcome to come up and eat.

Good thing Georgia isn't the boss of me and I have the opposable thumbs in the family...I unlocked the gate and let Jane come up anyway!

 

[ragdollcatlady]

We had a really nice mothers day weekend. DD and I drove up to Grandmas new house after work on Friday. My mom met us up there. I woke up before everyone on Saturday made myself a cup of coffee and checked out the views from the windows. Made another cup of coffee, more views, another cup, same views, another cup, samer views.....still no one else was up so I snuck outside to check out the property. At her other house, my grandma spent hours weeding her beautiful flowerbeds, so imagine the look on her face, when she came into the kitchen the first thing I said was " I am so jealous of all those weeds!!!!"

Seriously, she has a gorgeous pasture full of oak trees and small flowers, blackberry bushes, poison oak, several different varieties of weeds....Perfect for goats! Forget the grandkids, I am sending the goat kids to grandmas for the summer!

We had a huge breakfast and then headed up to see grandma Kathy. Had a great visit with her and her son. Then I saw a truck go buy with goat crates in the back!!!! (If you haven't heard, dog crates are no longer dog crates, they are officially goat crates.) Babsbag delivered 2 boer goats to us! Yeah!!! Super exciting! We packed up and said our goodbyes so we could get the goats back to grandmas and see what they thought about her weeds!

By the time we got back, the roast was done and several cousins, aunts and uncles were waiting for us at grandmas. The goats settled into crates for the night once it got dark and we had a great visit with family.

Sunday we drove another 1 1/2 hours to go pick up 2 nubian babies! Yeah more goats! We had dinner with family again, then headed home. It was really good to get to visit and a nice way to spend mothers day.

Before I left for work on Monday, DH came home from work just as I was getting ready to go to work, and he put together a really nice breakfast for me.

Great Mothers Day! Hope everyone else had a good one too!

 

[ragdollcatlady]

This is my new boer baby

This is my new boer yearling

One of our new baby nubians

Our second baby nubian

 

[ragdollcatlady]

Last night I let the new girls out with the rest of the herd. I had everyone come up to graze the front part of the yard so the "old" goats were not in their regular area and were less interested in the new goats and more interested in the weeds. Then I grabbed some alfalfa and everyone came running back into the pen, including the new girls. They were all good so I hung out and walked around for about an hour 1/2 to be sure we were getting along OK. At one point the new yearling was feeling so good, she started kicking up her heals and racing around the goat shed, ricocheting off the side and just running at top speed, in and around everyone else. I think she is happy! She is too short to reach the branches on most of the trees as fatso RavioliAnna already trimmed them mighty high.

Speaking of Ravi, she is super shiney and slick! Beautiful! Super fat....I thought all the weeds all day were the reason, but she looks like she is building an udder! I need to check the calendar...I thought she didn't take cause she seemed to keep coming into heat, but maybe she did? That would be killer cool!

We are trying to think of names for the new goats....

On a very sad note... Mom came and took Whiskey today. I absolutely love that dog, but the other night the dogs got out of their yard and attacked Delaney. She didn't survive the attack even though the neighbor jumped the fence and tried to save her. I held Delaney and stroked and loved her as she passed. It was horrible. I know that most of the problem is just that queens are bred to herd and keep going no matter what, I think the dogs just got a little pack mentality mixed up with trying to make the goats go some where else and once they grabbed her.....

I was concerned that I might have issues with her drive but until now, it has just been rounding up turkeys into a small corner of their pen when I had purposely opened the door to let them out to roam for a bit, or accidentally killing chicks that weren't able to handle her herding attempts. I can't have harming my herd and I know that she was upset about the new goats, especially the one that I had up in the front half of the yard. She doesn't think the goats should be there and she hated that my nigerian babies were constantly coming up to that area.

As a guard dog she is awesome, always alerting us to anyone coming up to the house. As a house pet she is great. She is obedience trained (official certificate from Petsmart) and she won agility with my daughter in 4H several times. Of all the dogs we have had, she is my top 3 favorites. Maybe even my #1. I love her alot. But I don't have the money to create a yard for the dogs is really, truely escape proof. They are mostly house dogs, but they have to get some excersize and our dog yard is more of a respect the boundaries and you can go potty and play for a few then come back in through the doggie door to chill inside. I know they are actually able to jump it if they choose or dig under, etc......

Mom loves Whiskey and I know she will have a great home, but it is still hard. Losing one of my favorite goats and my favorite dog in just a few days. Mom and were talking though and maybe there is another force at work... mom plans on keeping her and moms dog will just die of happiness to have Whiskey stay for good since he loves her, but we both had a temporary thought, that maybe my aunt is is need of a dog like Whiskey. She is going through some difficult times that a good guard dog exactly like whiskey, great walking companion, loving pet, but warning and wary of strangers, might just be perfect for..... Our other dogs started howling and going nuts when it was time for her to go, all the dogs Whiskey included seemed to know what was going on...it was a little strange. I have taken just Whiskey to the school to pick up kids before and they never reacted that way. Whiskey jumped right in moms car and settled down. She didn't jump out or looked worried or stressed. Normally she will be nervous or stressed even when she is just excited to go somewhere. I guess it is just the way things are supposed to be.

 

[bonbean01]

Your goats are beautiful!!! And so sorry about losing your goat and dog...and yes, sometimes things do work out the way they are supposed to...even if it is not how we wanted things to be.