It amazes me that we ever get any work done around here!

The other day Petunia left her little pipsqueaks in the shade while she went off to graze. As soon as Pluto saw her leave he came straight over to lay near the babies and make sure they were safe. He wags his tail every time a baby goat bounces past him and he makes sure they are never left alone.

A few minutes later, Daisy came to help Pluto guard the babies. No one is messing with these kids!

You may be wondering about the orange X’s. Unfortunately Pluto has been roaming, and recently he turned to trouble. Apparently he was down at the next-door ranch late at night last week and he snarled and chased my neighbor from his truck to his house. I started locking him up at night, but according to the ranch hand he snuck back down there a few days later in the morning after I let him out and he tackled one of their big mama goats. She was not hurt thank goodness, but it has me worried. It does not sound at all like Pluto to chase people or goats, but dogs around farms are presumed guilty until proven innocent. I don’t want to blame Pluto if there is another similar dog doing bad things in the area, so to make certain of his identity Phil gave him some unmistakeable marks. After the incident with the neighbor’s goat we are not taking chances with him. He’s locked in the electric fence at night, and for daytime I rigged up a runner chain in the front yard for any time I don’t have him under my direct surveillance. Hopefully he is either vindicated or we can train him to stay home and mind his own business. He’s never showed one hint of making trouble with people or goats on our place, but animals can act different when they are not in their own territory.

The Nubian boys have discovered the joys of campfires. Luckily this on isn’t lit right now. Lilly always loved laying in this fire ring too.

With the addition of seven kids this year, our herd has almost doubled in size from eight to fifteen. Once Jezebel kids we’ll definitely be doubled! I love looking out at this variety of color. No such thing as a “matched pair” in our herd!

The babies have discovered the delights of the mineral feeder.

Boone found a mentor in Finn. Finn was quite patient with the little copycat. I’ve been impressed with how well all my goats get along with babies. I’ve been told by people who have no horns in their herd that mixing horned wethers with mamas, babies, and other hornless goats would be a bloodbath. So far I have not found this to be true. Quite the opposite in fact. My horned boys are often gentler than the dehorned does. Even Cuzco does not bother babies. If babies step in front of him, he steps around or over or occasionally will nudge one aside with his nose, but he never butts a baby. Finn and Sputnik were a little rough at first but within a week they figured out that babies need to be treated gently and are now nice to them.

Finn always loves to hang the last tippety-tip of his tongue out. He has done this since the first day he was born and it has never ceased to amuse me.

In honor of Cinco de Mayo, we named the new little ones “Pedro” and “Pepita” (Pepi for short). Pedro has the large white spot on his head and nose, and Pepita has the small spots on her face.

Tigerlily is curious about the tiny new babies.

My friend Tiffany and her mom came out for a visit so they could see and hold the new babies. Pepi seemed very content in Tiffany’s arms. In fact, both of these babies seem very content to be held and cuddled. I like cuddly babies!

I’m very pleased that these came out with floppy ears. Petunia’s ears stick straight out, and the sire who was 3/4 Alpine and only 1/4 Nubian, had erect ears. So I was just convinced that these 5/8 Alpines would have straight ears. I’m so glad I was wrong! The ears are adorable!

We celebrated Cinco de Mayo by welcoming two more little ones into the world! I believe this is the first time a Goat-O-Rama gal has kidded right smack dab on her due date. We’ve got a little boy and a girl and we haven’t named them yet, but I’m quite sure the names will be Hispanic in flavor given the holiday. Both are sundgau (I was expecting cou clair!), and the boy has some flashy little white markings on his face, legs, and side.

Petunia delivered the little critters all by herself like a champ (no going in and fishing anyone out like last time!), but true to her nature she was quite dramatic about it. There was a lot of build-up before the blessed event actually got underway. Petunia kept lying down, getting up, pushing, grunting, groaning, stretching, baa-aa-ing, looking at her side, grinding her teeth, and giving me pointed looks as if to say “Could you please DO something besides just sitting there staring at me??” I think she expected me to have the kids for her!

After almost an hour of preliminaries Petunia finally resigned herself to the fact that I wasn’t going to do her job for her. Once the first baby started to come she really turned up the volume, but I tried not to let her theatrics frighten me into intervening too quickly. Once the feet came into view I gently helped pull, but I let her do most of the work and we soon had a healthy, long-legged baby boy on the ground. Phil got behind and was ready to help ease the second kid out, but she flew out too fast for Phil to do more than clean up the face a little before handing her to mom.

So all in all it was a nice, stress-free kidding. The babies are big and healthy (I didn’t remember to weigh exactly how big because I forgot to put the hanging scale back in the kidding box after I took it to the WCGE two weeks ago). Petunia is enamored with her new babies and won’t quit talking to them. There’s been an endless stream of babble coming out of the kidding shed all day. Petunia was somewhat indifferent to her first kids two years ago, but not to these. She had a lot of good reasons why she wasn’t a great mother the first time which is why I gave her another chance. I won’t keep a goat that’s a poor mother. But she’s definitely redeeming herself this time around!

I hope you’re enjoying the nice spring weather as much as we are!

I want to write down this funny little story about our LGD’s before I forget about it. Last Sunday when we came home from the goat show in Greeley we were greeted by two unexpected things: One was Pluto with his face and mouth full of porcupine quills, which I was able to remove with a bit of patience and a pair of pliers (hopefully he learned a valuable lesson!). The other was a pure white dove. I saw it hanging around on the hillside behind our house and when I approached it, it only walked away just out of reach. It was clearly domestic but I was surprised my dogs had allowed it to hang around. Pluto is notorious for chasing crows and magpies and has even killed a few of them. When I tried to catch the bird it flew up to the roof of our house, but an hour later it was back down in our backyard. Every time I went outside the bird was there and one or both of the dogs was guarding it.

The bird was still there the next day and the dogs were still standing guard so I went out with a bed sheet and caught it. I was afraid it wasn’t getting enough to eat or drink on that barren slope so I put it on our back patio and gave it grain and water. It ate and drank before going back out into the yard where it hung out near Pluto. We had a hellacious wind on Monday night and I was sure the bird would be gone by next morning, but it was still there. It was not until we had five cars full of noisy homeschoolers over to our house later Tuesday morning that the bird finally disappeared along with Pluto, who hightailed it to an undisclosed location the second those rowdy kids stepped out of their vehicles. Pluto eventually came back an hour or so after the crowds left, but the white dove hasn’t returned. Some folks have told me it was probably released at a memorial service. I have not ceased to be amazed at the instincts of these amazing dogs. How do they know that a creature is domesticated and needs to be protected? They would not have allowed a wild bird to hang around like that, and they certainly wouldn’t have guarded it.

We took these photos almost two weeks ago and I’d better post them now before they get any more outdated! We were snowed in that day so we brought the triplets into the house to play on the couch and watch a movie with us. We’re snowed in again today so I actually have time to post these!

I love the single black lightening bolt on Boone’s face. Maybe we should have called him “Harry Potter”! Boone is probably the most curious and outgoing of the three. I love his curly coat.

“My, what big feet you have, Crocket!”

Nanno’s turn to hold the baby goats!

Oakley is the fuzziest of the bunch and the one most likely to jump in your lap and nuzzle your face.

Crockett is the most laid back and will fall asleep anywhere. His horns are really coming in and he’s got one pink and one black!

Last Tuesday my sister-in-law came with her kids and a whole bunch of other homeschool families from Salida to see the baby goats. There were about 15 kids under ten years old running around our basement. At one point we had everyone sit down on and around the basement couch so I could teach them a few things about goats. We let the babies into the basement so the kids could hold, pet, and play. The baby goats went wild with all the excitement and jumped in everyone’s laps, chewed on their hair, and generally raced around from one person to the next for attention. Human and goat kids alike got a huge kick out of the experience.

Delilah went out to forage with the other goats this morning and left her babies alone in the shed. Pluto was concerned and went in the pen with me to check on them. He is totally enamored with these kids and spent time gently licking each of them. When one jumped on him, he collapsed onto the ground and rolled over. At one point he had three babies crawling around on his belly. I went inside and left him with them. I wanted to see how he’d act while “unsupervised”. Unbeknownst to Pluto, I had him on the Goatoscope.

I enjoy watching him interact with the kids, but he is definitely still a puppy in training and not to be totally trusted with them. I kept an eye on him in the monitor, and after 10 minutes or so the kids began to annoy him by clambering onto his face. His response was a very light “snap” to push them away. That might be acceptable discipline for puppies, but not for kids! I opened the window, waited for him to do it again, then hollered at him the second he opened his mouth. He jumped like he’d been stung and immediately slunk out of the pen with his tail between his legs. I want him to enjoy the kids, but he must learn that they cannot be treated like puppies. I’ve read that these dogs do not really leave the puppy stage until they are a good two years old. Pluto is not quite a year and I think he’s making very good progress. It looks like he will mature into a very good LGD once he learns a few “do’s” and “don’ts”.

We had a good two feet of heavy, wet snow over the weekend, so the Nubian boys, having only recently come from the much warmer climate in Pueblo West, needed a little extra protection. I found some fleece fabric, doubled it over, and with a few safety pins I managed to make them some little jammies.

Oh, and here is a photo I took of them playing in our kitchen about a week ago. It’s amazing how much they’ve grown in the short time since!