Allow me to introduce you to “Lilly”, a six-month old Alpine/Sable Saanen cross. She’s an absolute love. We brought her home on Friday. Poor little thing doesn’t have a friend in our herd right now. Nibbles uses her for a punching bag, and Cuzco won’t let her anywhere near him. They ditched her and went out to browse this morning, so I let her come up on the porch with me. She made friends with the tin goats. They don’t hit her when she comes up to say hi and they even let her sample their pumpkin!
Lilly is much less stocky than Nibbles but will certainly end up taller. She’s got a fine, soft, silky coat that is amazing to run my fingers through. It’s not nearly as thick as Nibbles’ but is a bit longer. Lilly is a lot more “chill” than my other two goats. She was fine with hoof trimming, worming, bathing, and even blow drying. She was just happy to bask in the glow of human attention. She’s nowhere near as feisty as Nibbles and will probably always get pushed around, but she doesn’t seem to mind too much. Apparently she was at the bottom of the pecking order at the much larger herd she came from, so she’s used to getting beat up. In fact, it’s given her a very high pain tolerance. She didn’t seem to mind getting zapped by my electric fence. Repeatedly. She doesn’t like it, but I watched her stand there and take it for about four zaps until she finally decided to mosey on.
The only time when Lilly is NOT chill is during feeding time! She knows if she doesn’t eat fast, she won’t eat at all. She figured out the secret of diving her head into the bucket and keeping it there no matter what the other goats do. She got her head into Nibbles’ bucket, and Nibbles lifted her off her feet a few times trying to dislodge her. Lilly simply picked up the bucket with her head and ran off with it, which worked great except she couldn’t see! She ran into the side of the house and lost half the grain there, but Nibbles was forced to eat what spilled because Lilly simply wouldn’t let Nibbles into the bucket. Nibbles was extremely put out until she discovered that biting Lilly’s ears did the trick. Phil and I were laughing too hard at their antics to interfere. Lilly may get beat up, but she knows how to take it and she will stand her ground when the stakes are high!