Mischief

As I have said many times – goats are great characters and usually up to mischief of one sort or another.  Ours always seem to have a fascination with our car – last year’s kids seemed to spend all their time climbing about on the roof.  This year they seem to have other ideas…………

 

Wispa the naughtiest goat in the world looking for somewhere comfy to lie down.

 

Marshmallow back seat driving.

 

 

Crunchie and Honey making sure no-one else can get in.

At times it feels as though we are in the monkey enclosure at Longleat Safari Park – I’m just glad they haven’t started pulling bits off the car yet!

 

Sunbathing goats

Kashmir, Cadbury and Drifter chilling out

 

The weekend here has been gloriously sunny and the goats have been taking the chance to do a bit of sunbathing.

 

Wispa – just for once immobile !

Saturday was so hot that even Wispa (the cheekiest goat kid ever) had to lie down and sunbathe for a while.

Golden Guernsey baby Kashmir

And his twin brother Korma

And twins Korma and Kashmir hunted for shade and ended up retreating under the nearest gorse bush.  but came out to play as the worst of the heat died away.

 

Honey’s first outing

On Sunday Honey was a week old and, because the weather was reasonable, we took her out so that she could have a run around and her mum could have a bite of fresh grass. We have uploaded some videos to youtube of little Honey’s first foray into the big bad world. Click on the pictures to go to the videos.

 

Goat baby number 2

We were surprised yesterday evening, when we went to feed the goats, by the sight of another new goat baby. We knew that mum (Coco) was close but I was predicting probably another week or so. That’s goats for you! Another girl, this one has been named Wispa.

 

A new arrival

Yesterday saw the arrival of the first goat baby of 2013

The new mum is Crunchie (one of the apprentice’s goats) and the new kid, a female, has been named Honey (short for Honeycomb).

 

one puzzled little goat

While we were working at the field the other day, the baby goats decided that our parked car was exactly what they had been wanting to play with.  Here’s Marshmallow, trying to figure out how to get to my cap on the inside of the windscreen, while she is still safely on the outside 🙂

And here are Crunchie and Bournville playing king of the castle with poor old Horlix definitely NOT the king.

Needless to say they were most indignant when we finished work and took away their “toy”.

 

Spring grass

Malteser enjoying the spring grass

 

A prickly problem

Have you ever noticed how animals just love to eat the unexpected?  Both of our ponies just love to eat the heads of the big thistles before they flower and, on a walk today, Brownie decided that she likes them too.  They must either taste amazing or be very highly nutritious as they obviously have quite a problem with the thorns, but they keep coming back for more!

Brownie dealing with the prickly problem

Do your animals have a taste for strange things? Tell us here

 

Hide and seek goats

Yesterday was one of those days.  We were at home just getting ready to go to band practice when my phone rang.  It was my nephew to let me know that a friend of his had texted him to say that my goats were out and were by the airport.  Now, the airport is about as far away as the goats could get and still be on the same island, so I was a little surprised.

I casually said “oh no, they won’t be mine, they will be J’s”!  I then proceeded to phone J to inform her that her goats were probably out and on the road.

A short while later my phone rang again – it was J to let me know that her goats were exactly where they should have been.  I decided that I had better go and just make doubly sure that mine were where they should be.

They weren’t!

So now I had a huge problem!  Logic was screaming in my ear that my goats couldn’t possibly have got as far as the airport.  Not that it is that far – but that would have meant passing the gates of many, many tempting gardens on the way.  Surely I would have had a phone call from some irate householder vainly trying to protect his shrubbery from the swarm of hairy locusts.  And surely I should have had a phone call from SOMEONE to say they had been seen on the road.  So, should I go and search in the vicinity of the airport where I had been told they had been seen?  Or should I follow logic and search closer to home where it was much more likely they would be found.

I decided to try a compromise.  I searched in concentric semi-circles (if there is such a thing) starting at the barn, and working outwards in the direction of the airport.  I reckoned that this way, if someone was exaggerating and they were  just heading that way, I would probably spot them.  If they HAD been to the airport, I would probably meet them coming home for dinner.  And if they were AT the airport, I would find them eventually.

After an hour of driving round in ever increasing semi-circles, I was starting to give up hope.  I was so desperate, I even tried typing “airport” into the message facility on my phone to see if predictive text came up with any other options!  Eventually, in desperation, I phoned my nephew, who phoned his friend to ask him EXACTLY where he had spotted the goats.

It turned out that they were about 100yards away from their pen, in the opposite direction to the airport, and by the time I got back to the barn and had grabbed a bucket to call them with, they had heard me and were already squeezing back through the gap they had made in the fence!!

And the worst of it was …….I am SURE I heard them sniggering as I closed the gate behind them!

 

Horns

As you can see from this picture of Wilfred, our main billy goat, the boys can grow pretty impressive sets of horns.

I was quite surprised to watch them and learn that they don’t appear to use their horn tips aggressively.  They use them for the important things in life – like scratching their back – and use their battering ram foreheads and the base of their horns for arguing with.

 

The apprentice’s wether, Toffee, has strange horns.  You can see in this picture of him that, instead of curving outwards, his horns are growing straight backwards and curving downwards.  We have been watching and waiting for them to start curving outwards, but it has become increasingly apparent that, left to themselves, his horns are going to grow either into his neck, or “just” either side of his neck preventing him from moving his head properly.

If you compare him with the photo below of his mum Coco, you can see the difference in the shape and direction of growth of the horns.

So, when the vet was here to do the routine vaccination/teeth/check-ups, I asked him to have a look at Toffee.

The end result is that I am going to have to remove the tips of his horns – I suppose on a regular basis once I start.  The vet has kindly furnished me with a full set of instructions on how to do it so all I have to do is get the apprentice to keep him standing still while I lop off bits of horn.

Watch out for the update where I announce the winners of this particular fight 🙂