Battling Bucks

I have written about the crazy antics of Luke and Michael many times in the past. Since Jillian and Mallory have arrived those silly bucks have really been trying to show off. You would think Michael would be happy; he did after all have his dates where he got to dance the paso doble with Jillian and the Argentine Tango with Mallory. But noooooo, not these bucks! Every morning they start their show. They bow their heads at each other

and they charge!

Sometimes Luke has the advantage....

...and sometimes it is Michael.

The sounds; the snorts, the crashes!

To tell you the truth this old goat is getting tired of it. There is a time and a place for everything and every morning is NOT the time.

Luke and Michael even seem to think the publicist is a doe! She is a bit, uhm, disconcerted by this. She is DEFINITELY not a goat!

Don't forget that that you can buy a Flock of (soap) Chickens in my shop! And if you put "blog" in the notes to seller the publicist will give you a $1.00 refund to your paypal account. In other SpokesGoat news Spring Bouquet and Lavender soaps are now on the curing shelf.

Awwww, Such a Cute Kid

Much has been made about how cute Kevin is...I can't disagree! He is a very cute kid. He has been from the beginning. I am not saying this just because I am his mother. I see it everyday in the comments on this blog. So I know it is not just me. I mean look at his little face...

How could anyone not this he was the cutest kid walking?

I know the publicist loves him. She is always petting him. This has made him into a very friendly goat.

He is especially cute when he is hopping around on everything. I just want him to stay off of me! I am not a surfboard...I am a goat.

It is a shame that Kevin will never be a daddy goat because I think he would have made some very cute kids himself. But I am not sure the world is ready for super-hopper goats!

I hope you will please forgive me for this Kevin retrospective. I was a little bit tired today and so was the publicist.

The Time is Coming

The time is coming. A time when little Kevin is not going to be a Happy Goat. Not because he won't be living on the Farm any longer but rather because it is time for him to be weaned. I have to be honest about this; I am going to be one happy nanny when it finally happens. I am sure all of you mothers out there know what I am talking about and just add the factor of little horns butting your udder into the mix and I am sure you will all agree with me that it is time for the boy to be getting all of his food on his own.

For those of you that don't know these things a kid stimulates the milk flow from the doe's udder by poking it with his head. OK - butting it. This is just fine when there are no horns involved but Kevin's little horn buds are becoming horns plain and simple so it is time for him to leave this goat alone. A kid is weaned at two months of age. Kevin was born on April 6th and I am counting the days. I hope you realize that this does not make me a baaaad mother, just a mother tired of having her udder butted.

To get him ready for weaning I have taught him all the important skills a young goat needs to know to survive. He now can drink water from the water bucket. He does this with enthusiasm. As an aside I will let you know that we goats LOVE hot water. Even in the summer.

I have shown him how to find the tastiest weeds and grasses to fill his little tummy.

He discovered the wood pile and the delicious fiber of bark. Yum yum!

As we all know he didn't immediately understand what the mineral bucket was for but he is still young. He can't possibly learn EVERYTHING in two short months now, can he?

The publicist has started to give him a little grain at night when I get mine. I haven't gotten a photo of this yet but he is pretty funny about eating it. He hops right into the feeding bin on my milking stanchion. It makes it rather hard for me to get to the grain. Silly kid!

All in all I think he is growing up to be a fine young goat. He will do fine when he has to move to the kid pen. I suspect he will be sad for a day or two but he will get over it very quickly. I will be just on the other side to give him a nudge or a lick when he needs it. But that's it. No more udder butting for me. Hooray for that!

Now I must do my job as SpokesGoat. I have been slacking on that lately. There is a new item available in my shop! Yes, you can now buy a Flock of Chickens. Not real chickens of course, but soap chickens. You get one Rooster in the Goat Pen soap and two The Chicks All Right with Pricilla soaps. What a deal! And you don't have to scoop any chicken poop! Why not head over to my shop and check it out?! If you put "blog" in the notes to seller the publicist will give you a discount of $1.00. She will send you a paypal refund. Isn't she nice?

Exploring the Chicken Tractor

Now yesterday I reported to you the shocking fact of the appearance of the chicken tractor in my goat pen. Today I am going to show you how we all reacted to this unbelievable event.

Jillian and Mallory are the first goats down to the goat pen. Abigail, Kevin and I stay back a bit. I have to be milked. They were very surprised to see this strange thing in the pen.

Jillian approached cautiously

Then they both explored the goat house and sniffed at the chickens. I think they might have sneezed.

After my milking I saw the odd building in my pen and went over to investigate. I mean really! What was the male person thinking?

Abigail spent quite a bit of time checking it out. She gave it a couple of good butts just for good measure. But then again, Abigail would....

So far we have been lucky and Kevin has not hopped onto it yet. I think this is a good thing as he might fall right through and end up in with the chickens. I suspect they might peck him! What do you think?

Since I don't have a photo of Kevin inspecting the chicken tractor I will leave you with a random photo of Kevin just because he is so cute.

Whole New World

The chickens have moved out of the basement. The publicist is happy about this but I am not happy about this AT ALL. The chicken tractor is IN MY GOAT PEN.

MY GOAT PEN!

Can you imagine such a thing? Harumph! Now I have to admit that the male person did a very nice job in building the chicken tractor. The roof even matches the roof of my barn. Here he is putting some finishing touches on it:





It took some thinking for the publicist and the male person to figure out how to get the chickens from the basement to the tractor. They had about destroyed their brooder.





Then the publicist thought of the cat carriers! This worked very well. They could carry three chickens at a time this way and she had three carriers so it didn't take too long. The hardest part for her was catching the chickens. She is very glad that no one was taking video of her because she feels that SHE looked like a chicken chasing them around!

Here are the first three in the top part of the tractor:



After a bit half of the chickens were in the top part





and half were in the bottom:





It is a very nice place for the chickens to live; inside the top part there are rows of roosts for the chickens to use at night.




There is even a cute little ramp for them to walk on to go in and out of the top part.



They seemed happy today but the publicist did have to "help" some of the chickens out into the warm sunshine. She figures that in time they will understand that they should come out during the day and go back in at night. In fact the male person had to help them in to the top part last night. Silly birds!

Tomorrow you will see how we all reacted to the presence of the chicken tractor in our pen.


I want to offer my congratulations to Rabbit Hill Farm. They have won the sample sized soap for winning the "What's That Smell" game from yesterday. The publicist really chuckled at Buck Muck. Heh heh. That is a funny name.

What's That Smell?

In honor of Da Old Man we here at the Happy Goats Farm decided to play a game of What's That Smell. Apparently this is a game he plays quite often with his wife, Da Old Lady. Now here on the Farm we have a wide variety of smells I'll bet he doesn't get to smell in Casa Crochety. Starting with goat gas. Unless he is hiding a goat in there and he hasn't shared that with us. But that is another story altogether and we will leave it to Da Old Man to tell....

This is how our game played out. The Farm wheelbarrow was sitting upright with some remains in the bottom. I will get to the remains later. I, being a goat of some class did not participate in this game.

First up was little Kevin. Of course he needed to sniff at the wheelbarrow. We were just lucky he didn't decide to hop in it!

Abigail stood by, egging him on.

But then she gave it a good sniff too.

Mallory wasn't going to miss a good smell. But WAS it a good smell?

Jillian walked on by...she knew better than to smell ANYTHING in the bottom of a wheelbarrow!

I can tell you that the last thing that wheelbarrow was used for wasn't pleasant...oh no! The publicist used it to clean out the buck pen. It carried load after load after load of wet hay full of buck poop, pee and general bad buck smell. She immediately took a shower.

So if any of you can come up with a name for THAT, be my guest.

So, humans - WHAT'S THAT SMELL?! The answer that best amuses the publicist will win a sample sized bar of my rich soap. Uhm, keep it clean humans we have young readers!

AbbyDay - Jillian is a Pain in My Neck

Happy Memorial Day!!!

I am not happy with these new goats around here! Why did we need to get new goats anyway? Weren't things just fine they way they were? There was me and Pricilla and the boys. We didn't need any other goats! OK, OK I know they weren't living the good life like we were and they sure were hungry when they got here but boy oh boy has it been a pain since they arrived.

I was just resting by the spools the other day, minding my own business. I know this is an odd position but I am very pregnant right now and it is hard to get comfortable.

I got myself up to move around a bit and Jillian, fresh from her battle with Pricilla for the top spool, decided to butt me. You saw this photo yesterday.

She butt me some more.

And then, then SHE BIT ME!

Can you imagine? She actually took a nibble on my shoulder! I am not a goat snack!

Then she tried to look nonchalant - that is a French word. I am a smart goat.

Since it is AbbyDay I end this post with a photo of well, ME! In all my goatly glory.

Pricilla Reigns Supreme

I know I am an old goat but that doesn't mean I don't have a few good goat battles left in me. I am the Head Goat around this Farm. It has taken Jillian and Mallory a little bit of time to figure that out. They think that because they came from a place where they were alone that THEY would continue to be in charge of how things ran when they moved to the Happy Goats Farm. Well! They had some learning to do - especially Jillian.

I love lounging on the spools. They are comfortable, I can catch the breeze up there, I can see what is going on and I can bask in the sun. You all know how much I love to bask in the sun. My spool time is being infringed upon by my little hopper Kevin but that is OK - he is my kid after all. But when the new goats in the pen think they are going to push me off of my favorite spool they have another thing coming! The other day Jillian jumped up to the lower spool and started to butt heads with Kevin.

She sure had quite an audience. Maybe that is why she continued her battle.

Although she did seem to be giving him a kiss a bit later. She also might have been giving him a nibble. I can't be sure....

Then he didn't give way she started to butt heads with ME! ME!

Well, I showed her who was boss!

As you can see from this picture I am the one basking in the sun on the high spool. THAT tells you who won this battle, doesn't it?

She then started to butt heads with Abby but that is a tale for another day.

Jillian just needs to learn her place in the herd. It is my job as Head Goat to teach her. Hurumph! There is nothing wrong with basking on the lower spool, as long as I am not the one who has to do it.

I hope you all have a nice time basking today.

I want to wish you all a Happy Memorial Day for tomorrow. I know this is a special holiday for you humans. The publicist has a brother who served in the US Navy and she lost an uncle who served in the US Marines during Vietnam.

Here Chick, Chick, Chick!

I have had several people ask me about the Farm chickens. They haven't disappeared; they are still living in the basement of the publicist's house. She has been known to mumble things about the chickens getting to live in her house before she does. I am not quite sure what this means. It must be some strange human thing....

But anyway the chickens are growing and growing and growing. They will soon have enough feathers to go outside into their chicken tractors. The male person is going to build them this weekend. I have heard rumors of these chicken tractors coming into our goat pens. I am not sure of what I think about this. I do know that Michael the buck is going to butt the heck out them. I mean, he butts the plywood stack so why wouldn't he butt the chicken tractor?



Right now the publicist says the chicks all look like they have the mange. I am not sure what this mange is but after having seen the chickens I never want to have it! Oooooh are they bad looking. Half down and half feathers. They are scary looking. But if you look closely you can now start to tell the hens from the roosters. The roosters' combs are bigger and spikier than the hens'.

The publicist has also figured out the mystery of the little blue mystery chick! Turns out he is a Blue Andalusian. The male person is happy about this because his tail feathers are good for use in flies for the fly fishing that he likes to do in the spare time he doesn't have. It looks like he is going to be a very pretty rooster.

The chickens are still hard to photograph as they are inside under their warming light. And Mr. Andalusian kept running away from the camera. Hopefully when they get outside the publicist will be able to get some better photos. Not to mention the fact that they will be in full feather instead of this mangy current state. They sure do peep up a storm. I was amazed at how much noise they made. Silly chickens!

I hope you have enjoyed this update on the feathered members of the Farm. Now we just have to keep the felines off of the feathers and we will be fine.....