Big Changes

Wow! Was there a big change in my barn last night. It caught me by surprise. It also made me very happy. I now have my very own pen! It used to be I had to share a pen with Abby. I have chronicled in this blog how Abby is less than friendly to me - and I am her mother! She butts me to get to the hay first and doesn't let me have any until she has eaten her fill. If the publicist comes in with a treat she butts me out of the way so she can get there first. This does not work though as the publicist see right through her and makes sure we each get our treat at the same time and in equal amounts.

The stress of living with such a contentious kid was getting to me though and the male person really gave me a nice little pen all to myself. It has a bench for me to sit on and my own little hay feeder. I am going to be sure to get some photos today to show you. It was too dark last night when he finished so I couldn't take any after I was done looking inspecting my new digs. I am so excited.

I knew I would have to be somewhere alone to have my kids. A goat always has a place to herself to kid. I just didn't know the male person was going to do something so nice for me. Now I can sleep in peace anywhere I want in my own little slice of heaven pen. Of course Abby now has her own pen too, but really, do I care about that?

How to Milk a Goat

I was asked what it was like to be milked. It took me a couple of days to get the male person lined up to take the photographs but here we go - what it looks like when the publicist milks Abigail. I would have posed for the pictures myself but I am not being milked right now because my kids are due so soon. When a goat is pregnant about a month before she is do to kid she stops being milked so her udder can rest and get ready for her kids to nurse. Abby will stop being milked in June.

First Abigail runs up onto the milking stanchion. There is always some grain waiting so it is easy to get her up there. When she first started being milked she was not very co-operative but she eventually figured out it was a good thing; she got more grain and her udder got emptied.




Then the publicist cleans her teats with a baby wipe and squirts two squirts from each teat into a pan to get things started. This cleans her off and gets rid of any bacteria that might be on her. Then she wraps her hand around one of Abby's teats to milk her.

It is a two step process - rather like a pull at the top and then a pressing with her fingers to get the milk out. She switches back and forth between Abby's teats because her hands get tired. She does this until there is no more milk to be squirted.

You obviously note that the publicist milks into an All -Clad CopR Chef Sauce Pan. This is part of her good pot collection and it is desperately in need of a good polishing. The publicist suspects she is the only goatherd to milk into such a pan. She would love to know if there is anyone else doing so.

After the milking is done Abby gets down off of the stanchion and then we all get our afternoon apples! (The flash from the camera makes the photo pretty poor but you get the idea.)

I love eating my apples.

The publicist takes the milk up to the trailer (she is living in her fifth wheel while her house is being built) strains it, and puts it in a jar for the male person's morning cereal and coffee.

I hope you all enjoyed this lesson on milking a goat. If anyone else has any questions for me I would love to answer them. I will do my best to address any query you might have!

Dreaming of the Big Day

It is not that long until I have my kids. I am excited because they are so cute when they are little. But then I could always find that I have another Abigail on my udder and that would not be so nice, would it? Abby was a nice goat in the beginning, I don't know what happened to her. I am a good nanny goat so it is nothing that I taught her. There is plenty of food on the Happy Goats Farm so it is not like she has get to the hay pile first or she will starve. I just don't know....

My Sarah was a good little goat. She loved the publicist and she was good to me. I know she is happy in her new home with little Nora (Abby's kid). Nora was very pleasant too.

Hmmm, must just be something about Abigail. Even when Sarah and Michael were little goatlings she would try and butt them and stare them down on the spools.

Maybe she just likes to be top goat.

It will be interesting to see what coloring my new kids are going to have. Since I am a brown and white goat and Luke is well, rather cow like in his coloring who knows what these kids are going to look like! I truly fear polka dotted goats. That would be something now, wouldn't it? I can see it now brown and black spots all over the poor little goatling.....I would never live it down. But I have to admit that it was love at first sight when I saw Luke arrive at the Farm. Even though he was just a little guy he caught my eye. I knew that we could make - oh this is a family blog, I will stop there. Just rest assured that our kids will be cute no matter what their coloring and I will love them as long as they don't start acting like Abigail.

I just know I can't wait 'cause I am tired of hearing all the other goats call me "wide load."

Goats DO Love Pine Trees

As the spokesgoat for Happy Goats Soap I do have to do some work. Today my work is actually a pleasure. We offer a lovely soap called Goats Love to Eat Pine Trees Soap and my publicist thought it would be a good idea to prove this. A very generous person over at the Forest Service office gifted us with their personal Christmas tree - yum! Our male person chopped it up into four sections and we all got to share in the munching - yum! Then the Forest Service gave us its office Christmas tree. How exciting - even more yummy green pine tree to eat. Yum! This time of year with all of the tasty weeds covered by snow it is nice to get something green.

I have been enjoying my pine tree even though I have to share it with Abigail. I also use the trunk of the tree to scratch my head. I guess this spokesgoat thing really isn't that hard after all, is it?

So why not head over to Happy Goats Soap and check out ALL of the rich, beautiful soaps available. I wouldn't be a good spokesgoat if I didn't encourage you to do that, now would I? The soaps make a good, fluffy lather and leave your skin feeling moisturized, not dry. You can read here what our customers have had to say.