I've got goats on top of goats - layers of goats, even. I've separated the girls from the boys again, so Peaches is with her two daughters and two grand daughters. It's nice to be with just the girls. The boys are too friendly, and paw at me and rub their heads on me. I was in the boy fence recently, adding some fly predator cocoons to the thistle bird feeder that hangs in their shed, when Little Buck got so pushy that I had to smack his ears so he wouldn't knock me over. I turned my back to hang the feeder and felt a wet spray on the back of my legs! I think he peed on me! So gross. When I complained to Brandon he just laughed and said I belonged to Little Buck now, as he had claimed me with his pee. Yuck.
I don't know if you remember, but ages ago I invested in two goat farmer tools. One is a dis-budding iron, which gets really hot so it will burn the undeveloped horn buds off the baby goats so they don't grow horns. The other tool is an emasculator tool. It's a big clamp tool that crushes the cord to the testicles, which sterilizes a boy goat without leaving a wound. They both sound like handy tools for someone with lots of goats on their hands, right?
The problem is, we aren't brave enough to use them! The horn burner tool didn't come in time for Newnoo and Nibs, so I had an excuse not to use it, and they happily grew perfect little horns. I had the tool just in time for Lips and Nose to turn ten days old, but somehow never found the time to scorch their tiny little heads and make them cry.
We tell ourselves that Nibs, Lips, and Nose are destined for the freezer anyway, so what does it matter if they have horns? Why not let us all skip that painful process and save ourselves the trauma? Goats with horns taste the same as those without, right?
When Nibs turned nearly four months old, Brandon and I watched YouTube videos about how to use the testicle clamp tool, lead little Nibs to a camp chair, and trussed him up while Brandon held his head. I stood there with his testicles in one hand and the clamp tool in the other, and couldn't bring myself to do it! I couldn't imagine that it wouldn't just pinch his little balls clean off! Nibs was bigger than the goats in the video too, so I lost my nerve. We had made up our minds that if we used the tool, then he could continue to live with his mother and sister and avoid having to be separated. After I chickened out with the tool (turns out, you can use it on a fully grown goat, so he wasn't too big after all) we moved him to live with his dad and the River brothers, and after a few days of crying to his mother across the way, he seems to have settled into the bachelor pen just fine. Once again, we tell ourselves that if he will ultimately be meat, why can't he keep all his parts until then? I guess we will find out.
When I read about separating babies from their mothers, someone said that if you don't separate boy goats at two months of age they can, and will, breed their mothers and their two month old sisters! Nibs was nearly four months old before I separated him from all the does. Does this mean they are all pregnant from their son/brother/uncle? I'll know this fall if none of my does ask for a date.
Can you see little Newnoo getting a hug from Rufus the donkey? The problem the goats find with donkey hugs, is that they are not mutual. When Newnoo was tired of being trapped beneath Rufus's neck, she tried to move away, and Rufus pursued her.
Which resulted in a goat chase as Newnoo cried and tried to squeeze herself back through the gate with a donkey after her. When she cried, her mom Peaches cried back, which made brother Nibs cry from the boy fence. Everyone one else was crying, but Rufus was enjoying the chase!
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