Meet The New Goats

I’m here to tell you, goats are addicting. What started as “long term lawn mowers” has turned into so much more. Goats are seriously the most entertaining critter on our homestead. They jump, play, and get into trouble. While they are not beginner livestock, they are totally worth it. On Sunday we brought 3 more new goats to the homestead.

We are slowly but surely working our way into the dairy goat business. In the mean time, we are building our herd with genetics that will make us successful. Crooked Oak Farm of SC hooked us up with two gorgeous doelings and a BIG buck.

Of course within 24 hours of them being on the homestead, they ended up ingesting mountain laurel and we had to bring them into the living room to nurse them through it. I swear, if it’s not one thing it’s another with these animals. But we got them through it and they are in their respective pens.

Spike is our new buck. We decided that we wanted to have the ability to retain doelings that caught our fancy. The problem is that I can’t breed the doe back to her father. I mean I could, but the chances of there being problems is high and I don’t want that.

Jade and Sapphire are our 8 week old, blue eyed doelings. They are adorable and full of piss and vinegar which I love. The first night we had them, they screamed the entire night because they wanted their momma back. The second night they were in my living room fighting off toxemia. The third night they were back to screaming their heads off. My poor neighbors must hate us.

The best part of the last four days is that Champ had her baby! So I ran a pool for how many she would have. I got guesses all over as well as different dates. Since she decided it kid a full week after her due date, the dates didn’t matter. But I guessed that she would have three babies and she did! Unfortunately, only one of them lived. We are not 100% the cause but we have our suspicions. But Stella was born and started screaming at me within about 10 seconds.

Champ is seriously the best momma. I was concerned at first because Champ didn’t seem to want anything to do with Stella, but over the last several days she has really become an awesome momma. Stella has blue eyes like her momma and I am absolutely thrilled to have her.

We are still on baby watch for Bella but she isn’t showing any signs of having those babies so I guess we’ll see what she does over the next week or so. We also think that Bailey and Oakley may be pregnant which would be awesome since they are just now big enough that I’m not super worried about the kidding.

So that brings our count to nine goats…. I think.