The Goats
Go To Flo And The Wains NOT for the squeamish......
Piglet (the goat) relaxing in the sun, surrounded by tasty clover. Life's good....
I got two goats in the summer of 98. They hadn't been treated very well, living on a damp piece of disused railway line, tethered to a wire by chain collars with oversize bells (you can still see the mark the chain left on Piglets neck in this photo) feet not trimmed, etc.
Late in the summer of 98 I came home to find Piglet standing on three legs crying in pain. After several visits from two vets, three different casts and 10 weeks or so of not healing I discovered that goats need different minerals to sheep (despite what the vets had said) and a simple change of mineral lick to a "horse" one was all she needed for the bone in her ankle to mend. Her ankle will never be right, the joint on one side is fused solid and that side of the hoof grows out of shape. But she's a happy goat again, just a little slow on her pins......
Because of Piglets leg and the fact that the vets were telling me just to put her down because she wasn't going to make it. I decided to get Florence mated, so she would still have company if her mother (Piglet) had to die. This is the result, Sookie-Bear (white) and Fearless Eric curled up in an old sink in the goathoose.
Go to Flo And The Wains NOT for the squeamish.......
This is "The Sook Monster" at 6 days old waiting for me to take her to be disbudded. It sounds kind of barbaric to burn thier horn buds off, but it's done under general anesthetic and they didn't seem bothered at all afterwards. I was going to let them keep the horns if they were both female, but with Eric being a bloke, he would have grown a BIG set and the others would have suffered.
A couple of days later, snoozing in the sun.....#:o)
I dug this stone up and thought the kids might like it. I was right !!
Busy making the yard out of the useless garden that used to be there and the goats (large and small) were never far away.
Goat heaven.....
Snow
2002, the kids had grown up and have been joined by Danny the horse. They do get on OK most of the time, but they need more space so we've bought a few more acres for them to graze and for Danny to have space to stretch his legs.
2008 update. Piglet died in 2007, old age and there's not much you can do about that... Eric got meningitis a few months ago and had to be put down. Piglet dying wasn't too bad as she'd had a long and good life here, I'd been expecting to find her dead for a while. Eric was a different story all together as he was not even middle aged, bit of a shock to find him staggering round the yard. We fought it for a couple of days, but he ended up unable to move, blind, deaf and stressed. He would only relax when I sat with his head on my lap stroking his head and neck. Definately time to have to have him put down, hope someone would do the same for me if I was in that state.
Fearless Eric died tonight bullet in the brain turned out the light I was there at conception, there at birth tomorrow I'll put him in the earth No more to wander, get in the way I'm going to miss him, many a day Who was this Eric? I hear you ask naught but a goat who ate my grass Are these tears for me? or him? my sorrow is such, where to begin?
Email me at chaz@goatpark.f9.co.uk