Lucy Oozing and I Can’t Be Happier!

Ok, I know that’s gross, but real farmers don’t let a little goo dampen their spirits. I’ve been watching Lucy like a hawk for signs of going into heat, and I think it might have finally paid off. I had her locked up on the stanchion giving her hooves their second trimming (it will probably take a few to get them in any kind of decent shape after the neglect she suffered), when I smelled something, well, a little funky. I turned my head to the right to scope out her bottom a mere 10 inches from my face, fearing the worst. When Tierra was sick her butt stunk horribly from having diarrhea. But, lo and behold, no diarrhea smears, but a nice line of dirty goo hanging from her vulva. I’m super paranoid about seeing tapeworms hanging out of an animals butt, so that was understandably my first thought. Yes, of course, I have a picture!

Now aren’t you glad I’m thorough? ;) You can see that the underside of her tail is a little dirty, too, which is another sign of having discharge. Her vulva also seems a bit swollen, which are all signs of being in heat. I’ve been watching Louie for any signs of interest, but so far nothing. This could stem from a few things.

1. Lucy is not really in heat and I have no idea what I’m talking about. Very probable.

2. Louie does not have any idea what to do with a doe in heat.

3. Louie is gay.

4. Louie and Lucy have already satisfied their carnal little goaty needs unbeknownst to me, and now feel glowy and satiated and in need of a cigarette and have resumed life as usual. I don’t know if it works this way in the goat world. How do horny goats act after they’ve done the deed? Surely they don’t keep at it the whole 12-36 hours that she can be in heat, do they?

Guess I’ll just have to wait and see if she goes back in heat 18-21 days from now before I have any definite answers. If Louie continues to not do his job, I may try to find somebody local with a Pygmy buck to service her. Their babies would be what’s known as a Pygora. Here’s a picture of one.

Ambrose Cheats on the Chickens

Ambrose's new obsession: the goats. He is out there every time I milk now, although, being the Non-Cat that he is, he won't even touch the wasted milk in the strip cup. He has a particular fascination with Lucy. Now that we have the back pasture available, I like to take a lawn chair out there and read. The goats will not go out there unless I "shepherd" them. Today Ambrose of course saw it as his responsibility to be my co-shepherd, and posted himself under a nearby bush. Soon all three goats are surrounding him eating the bush over his head, and he was just lying there with his eyes at half mast. At one point Lucy, by far the more curious of the bunch, gave him a good sniff, to which he replied with a half-hearted hiss and resumed his catnap. After such a strenuous morning he decided to spend the afternoon lounging in the goat pen with the goats.

Tierra Better!

Thank goodness. I saw her eating some fallen leaves in her pen yesterday morning and she actually ate a few cups of grain for Dustin when he got home from work last night, which we both took as a very good sign. Unfortunately, she had diarrhea again last night when I went out to milk her, but this time I think it might be because her rumen was not prepared to digest grain after going a couple days without any. Their rumen uses bacteria to digest their food, and any sudden changes in feed can send it into an uproar. This morning I only let her eat about a cup of grain, and so far so good. She seems to be over the worst of it, and has even started giving almost her normal amount of milk. I’ve continued to milk her while she’s sick, but she was only giving about and ounce at a time. I gave this milk to the chickens, as I do not feel right drinking raw milk from a sick goat.

Tierra Sick!

When I went out to milk Tierra last night she was not interested in her grain. This instantly alarmed me. Grain is like crack for goats. They’d slit your throat in a second for if it meant more grain. She only gave me a few ounces of milk (her usual is about .5-.75 cup), and she had signs of diarrhea all over her bottom. Freaked me out! I made sure she had some baking soda if she wanted some, but she was not interested. I felt I had to do something, so I squirted some warm water and baking soda in her mouth. Dustin was sick and asleep, so I chased her around the pen until I had her in a headlock and drenched her. This morning she was still not interested in eating, and just laid there on the ground. I brought her a bowl of grain and some fresh water, and she took a good swig of water. Still wouldn’t touch her grain. I am royally freaked at and a part of me is already bracing myself…… just in case. The only thing I can think of is that she ate something that did not agree with her out in the new pasture. We’ll see how things go.

Froggy Business

Every night when I go out to milk, I turn on the back porch light so I don’t kill myself going down the stairs. As everyone around knows, this place is crawling with little green Anole lizards and bright green sticky tree frogs. Each night I am careful not to step on or squash the odd tree frog hanging on the screen door or resting on a pair of shoes outside. I had started to notice, though, that the frogs liked to go stake out the back porch light and gobble up the bugs that flew around it. This amazed me, but not half as much as when I started going out at night, flipping on the light, and seeing a little frog perched WAITING for me to turn on the light. Whoa. So I took this smart little guy’s picture.

Land Ahoy!

Up until now, the goats have been limited to the area of our yard I’ve fenced off for them, which is no small portion (about 5,000 square feet). Bigger than our house, certainly! We knew that the back portion of our property was partially fenced, but were under the impression that the entire back section was incomplete. WE WERE WRONG! After traipsing back there to take a look at exactly what it would take to finish fencing it in, we discovered that instead of about a 300 foot gap in need of fencing, it was already fenced in, but with two 10 foot gaps where somebody had apparently cut away to allow a 4 wheeler or something through. One side still had the flap of fencing attached, so we simply closed it up and tied it back together with some wire we had on hand. We would have been able to do the same with the other gap, had it not been for the fact that a tree had fallen on that flap of fencing. Feeling a bit cheated at having come so close to having a useable pasture for the goats but having the prospect snatched from me at the last minute, we dejectedly walked back to the house, which is no small feat in and of itself. It’s a veritable jungle back there. As we approached our yard, we discovered a stack of old lumber the previous owner must have secreted away in the bushes, and what do you think we found there? A roll of field fencing!!!! We could not believe our good fortune. So, we grabbed it and turned back around to go patch up the remaining hole in the back fence. Twenty minutes later we had a pasture. WHOA! At this point it was getting dark, but we still opened the gate for the goats and told them to run and be free! Which, of course they did not. They moseyed at best. But within minutes they were gobbling up anything in sight. Tierra was particularly happy to have some new bushes to practice her acrobatics on. She spends a good portion of her time standing with her front legs on a tree stretching her long neck out to eat the good stuff on top. Here’s some pictures of their grazing ground. The back fence line is somewhere in the general vicinity of the farthest line of trees in this picture. This is taken standing in the goat pen, looking toward the back of our property.

Here’s a picture showing some of Tierra’s common acrobatic moves to get to the choice leaves that everyone knows reside at the top.

And the best part about the addition of the new pasture? I CAN LOCK LUCY AND LOUIE OUT WHILE I MILK! Those two have been a constant pain in the butt while I milk Tierra. I’ve had to pour them each a bowl of grain outside of the milking area, then run over and milk Tierra before they finish eating. This worked for about two days, until Louie decided he didn’t want his food, he wanted Lucy’s. So, he’d stop eating his and go chase Lucy off hers. She is too intimidated to go eat his, almost like he’s marked it. So, she comes and bugs Tierra for hers. I don’t know how 50 lb Louie is more intimidating than 125 lb Tierra, but he seems to be in Lucy’s eyes. So, then I started pouring Louie his bowl, and putting Lucy’s grain between my knees while I milked. This worked for about 2 minutes each time, then Louie would come over and I’d have to play offense over Lucy with my legs, milking Tierra at the same time. NO LONGER! Now I lock those two rapscallions out in the pasture with one bowl of grain for Louie, milk Tierra at my leisure, and then go hand feed Lucy her ration. *Whew*

There’s A Goat In There!

Now that the initial shock and joy of the goats’ arrivals has worn off a little, I’ve had some time to adjust and have a good look at them. Tierra is in fabulous condition, despite having a sore hoof from when Casey trimmed her before bringing her to me. Apparently she got a little over-zealous and nicked her a little, which happens from time to time. Lucy, on the other hand, is a mess! On closer inspection, I discovered her hooves are HORRIBLY overgrown and her mohair is not in nice little ringlets like Louie’s, but huge chunky dreadlocks. She’d put any Rastafarian to shame. I’ve decided to shear her, and after hacking away at her with a pair of scissors (and giving her a nice cut and having nightmares about it for 2 nights afterwards!), I decided that is just not gonna cut it. No pun intended. Instead I used Dustin’s hair trimmers (sorry honey!), which had to recharge a few hours after about 5 minutes of cutting at Lucy’s oober-thick coat. What a mess. She was a good sport about it for the first 2….DAYS! I had no idea what kind of project this would turn out to be. After 2 days of me coming at her with loud hair-pulling clippers, she learned to avoid me. That’s saying a lot, considering she’s the sweetest friendliest little thing you’ll ever meet. On about day 6 I managed to clip off the last of it from between her back legs. You wouldn’t believe what I found as I went. Whole pine needles embedded in her coat. Leaves. Stickers. She had a huge sore on her side from God knows what. Her entire underside from her chest to her bottom was a solid sheet of orange matted hair 4 inches thick in some places. In essence, her legs were pinned to her body from so much matting. You can imagine how much she enjoyed me poking around in her privates with the clippers, but it all had to go. Her bottom was a wasteland of nasty hair. Here are some pictures of the process.

In this picture you can really see how nasty her bottom was. She’s the one on the right.

If you look closely in this picture you can see that Lucy is a little more than half-sheared. This was taken on about day 4 of the shearing process. She was bright white under all that filth.


This was actually taken a few weeks after I finished shearing her, and it’s already grown back quite a bit. It was shaved all the way down to just some white fuzz over pink skin. Unfortunately I did not think to take a picture until after she’d managed to dirty herself up nicely. Oh, well.

I was able to salvage a bucket of Lucy's mohair. The rest I just threw away it was so disgusting. I plan to experiment with this batch, learn how to wash it and whatnot. Better to practice on this mess than on the quality mohair I hope to harvest from her in the spring. The washing process is fairly involved, requiring multiple washings with very hot water to remove the waxy build up. After that, it can be carded for spinners or sold as is for doll-makers. I've seen it online anywhere from $9/lb to $36/oz. Pretty big difference. It all depends on the quality of the mohair. Unfortunately, I would not know good mohair if it bit me on the butt. I still have much to learn when it comes to the Angora breed.

Adventures in Milking

Ok. So, as far as my milking experience thus far, I have squeezed one squirt out of one of Tierra’s teats a couple months ago when I first went out to Casey’s farm to see if I wanted to buy Tierra, and one other experience milking her infront of half a dozen people the day she arrived, with Casey looking over my shoulder to see that I was doing it correctly. Now the true test comes… time to do it on our own. I was lucky that Tierra arrived on a Saturday, so I had the Saturday night, and both Sunday milkings with Dustin to help me. The first real milking all on our own Saturday night was a bit hairy, as Tierra was not thrilled at having a new person (especially one who obviously did not know what she was doing down there!) groping her in the dark. She’d stomp and swat at me with her back hoof, but I was tenacious and clung to that teat till I got the last drop out. Or so I thought. You see, goats are infamous for their conscious control of their milk letdown. You milk a little, massage the udder a little, and in theory, she should let down some more milk. This was not what Tierra had in mind. As soon as I’d let her off the stanchion I would look and her teats would plump back up full of milk. Oh, well. She can keep her stupid milk.

Things got markedly more interesting the next evening milking after Lucy and Louie had arrived. You see, the milking stanchion is in the goat pen where Lucy and Louie can be in the middle of things. I had not anticipated their interest in the process. To further complicate matters, I had not devised a lock for the stanchion head gate yet, so Dustin had to stand there and hold it closed so Tierra would not escape (she was still not thrilled about my overtures to milk her). So. I’m trying to milk a cranky goat, all the while trying to finish up before she finishes eating her grain ration or all hell will really break loose, and Dustin is holding the headgate closed with all his might, as Tierra is trying to get away the whole time. Now, remember, this is happening at 8 o’clock at night and it is pitch dark out here in the country, and we are doing this by flashlight. I can hear Lucy and Louie over in the corner behind Dustin, and it was particularly chaotic over there. Tierra was acting particularly agitated and stomping and trying to break the stanchion. Dustin is constantly moving about and muttering to himself, I’ve got my face buried in goat flank trying to get some milk out of these blasted things all the while avoiding flying goat hoof, and all I hear is Dustin saying, “They are being so bad! They are being SO bad! Oh my word they are being SO BAD!” I was too harried at the time to ask what on earth he was talking about, but he told me later that Lucy and Louie were pushing him from behind and attempting to trample him to get to Tierra’s bowl of grain. Tierra, who has been milked a few years now, was justifiably outraged that ANYBODY would try to take her grain while she was being milked. In her view, that’s the deal. You give me grain, I let you do what you want. Nowhere in there did she allow for other goats to raid her coveted grain bowl. So she was trying to head butt them the whole time, which just made the whole thing extra fun.

Notice how Tierra keeps herself separate from them. Can’t say I blame her.

Dustin and Lucy made up pretty quickly.








At the end of the day, it really is worth it to have fresh goat milk finding its way to your table. It’s starting to pile up in my fridge. I’ve started throwing the extras into the freezer. Perhaps time to try making some cheese!