The Story of a Lifetime: These Things Called Goats

.....pretty much suck. Ummm......yeah. It definitely puts a damper on the whole dairy goat ambitions. I'm a little late in getting around to telling our newest, latest and greatest farming endeavors story so this actually took place a couple of week ago. Seems computer time between schooling children on the computer and lack of any motivation to do much of anything right now except the bare minimum makes all computer related projects a little tardy.

So.......only a mere week or so after shooting Big Billy, in which the children have merrily come up with their own Ole McDonald song going a little like this......"Ole McDonald had a goat....E-I-E-I-O. And on that farm he shot that goat....E-I-E-I-O. With a bang, bang here. And a bang bang there. E-I-E-I-O." Is that even healthy????? No...come to think of it, I don't even want to know the answer to that question.

So, a mere week after that whole episode Grayson comes in one morning pretty calmly....does that dare mean we are getting used to things just casually dying off in our care??????.......and says to Brad and I, "Hey, y'all......the mama goat's dead." I looked at him incredulously and said, "What?" He said simply and all too calmly, almost as if pulling off some sort of prank, "Yes ma'am. She's just laying out in the middle of the pasture dead." I then said sternly and with great direction, "Grayson, That's not even funny. Don't even tease like that. It's mean." With an all too honest look and eyes that spoke nothing but truth he again proclaimed that she indeed was dead and he had no clue why or as to what happened. It was then I guess I started to believe this new bit of morning info. Brad got in on it now and wanted to know what happened. Apparently it was "no animal attack and maybe a snake bite? She's really really big....like a balloon." according to Grayson. Oh my gosh. What else is next? Not having even the slightest desire to go look at yet another dead goat Brad donned his boots and traipsed off to the pasture with Grayson by his side and alot of other younger curious onlookers. According to Brad she was so bloated that she had to be shot before she could be hauled off for fear of her popping. Ugh. Can I puke now? And, of course, Brad is going to come in with that story since it's another reason to put the gun to use. The saddest part was John Wayne still laying by her side, I suppose, waiting for her to awaken. I couldn't bear to hear his baby goat cries. He is still just an animal, and less of a pet than most of any we've had...but the thought of baby crying for long lost unresponsive mother was way too sad for me to contemplate. So, Brad and Grayson went out and shot her back down to size and hauled her off. He stood at the gate crying and crying. Within a matter of 1 week he'd lost both parents and the only herd he had, given the fact that our herd has been slowly whittled down to their little family trio. Before finding out she was dead we had been hoping she was pregnant again and the billy had opportunity to take action before being killed himself. We'll for sure never know now. After Brad and the boys hauled her off to her goat burial they returned so we could brainstorm what to do with baby. As he stood at the gate crying, waiting for her to return, we all thought it tremendously unfair to keep him as a loner. It was talked of going to the auction that very morning and bringing home more nannies but this kind of had derailed that plan when spending all of our time dealing with it all and having to haul her off. So, after a few emails and phone calls to fellow firefighter/farmers we found that the baby could be taken to auction that very day if we hurried. It was the best thing for him since it was much too late to try and castrate him and we knew he would eventually have to go anyway with billies no longer being an option for our family. Better now than waiting even longer. It was only a matter of rushing it by a few weeks. So, in all of our debt free, Dave Ramsey, redneck ways we loaded the dog kennel up into the bed of Brad's truck since we do not yet own a trailer for any of our collection of livestock and rounded John Wayne up into his traveling carton. Once on the road with all of the boys in tow Brad called to confess the degree of our redneck ways. He said you know you've hit the point of no return when you drive through the fast food drive through with a goat in a dog kennel in the bed of your truck and no one even gives it a second glance...and, in fact, just gives you the west TX, finger-flick-above-the-steering-wheel "howdy, neighbor" wave.

Checking their new home out

Brad's handmade nesting boxes.....pretty impressive! We still have to put hay in them and "homey" them up.

So, they eventually made it to the auction and dropped John Wayne off in our attempts to give him a better life....maybe fathering many Boer/Spanish babies and living in wide open, spacious, green pastures roaming free. We chose not to go down the whole meal-on-someone's-table thought process. Garrison came home with stories of how John Wayne had gone to his goat pasture with LOTS of other goats....that would be his auction pen. Oh well. He seemed to think it a great accomplishment and promotion for goats.

The view from the front of the coop......Bertha, the lead rocket. There she sits waiting for her next road trip

That leaves us where we are now.......completely and totally goatless after a year of trying to raise these finicky animals. When Grayson tallied it up he came up with something like 9 goats that we've gone through now. 9 doesn't sound too bad until you figure we've only ever had 9 to care for. I think the final cause of death was determined to be either snake bite, which is kind of far fetched since no fang marks or bite sight could be found on her, or pathetically...worms. So.....we worm these things. I was even worming them every 6 wks instead of 3 months like what had been recommended after finding out from some of the guys that during the rainy season you had to double up on it. But apparently we bought the crapped out stuff that the worms quickly built up a resistance to. I had a hard time coming to terms with the worm diagnosis since it was Grayson, Evye and I that had sweat our butts off chasing goats down and wrestling them to the ground to squirt this disgusting white liquid into their mouths. It definitely gave a new meaning to the words rodeo roundup. All of that for what exactly.......to have them die anyway? Right. And, if it was worms why in the world was the little one still going with his smaller body when the bigger mama goat succumbed to them? After some talking to others it supposedly came down to the fact that he was a Spanish/Boer cross so therefore much heartier than the pure bred Boers. Boer goats are well known for their tendency to die off at the mere thought of anything that might be wrong with them.

Caring for them all

I figure I'll take on this new dairy goat challenge about like I did the chickens. RESEARCH. And read, read, read. Educate ourselves. Now that I finished up the chicken books I've started in on the dairy goat books...at night for leisurely reading, no doubt. The goat pasture now sits vacant, which I am fine with at this point. I figure we can get it really cleared and tilled now and plant some coastal before taking them on. In the meantime I am gleaning all info I can get ahold of concerning their care and upkeep. Maybe, just maybe, we can keep these things alive. Maybe.

Checking them out to see how they're adapting.....

On a surprising note......the chickens are amazingly still ALL living. I thought for sure we'd kill at least half of them off. But education paid off in every way and we have managed to keep every last one of them not only alive but thriving. They finally outgrew their dog kennel brooder....yes, that would be the same kennel that hauled the goat to the auction.......and so just yesterday the coop had the finishing touches put on it and they were promoted out to it. Well, finishing touches as far as what they need to survive out there. As far as aesthetics go, I still have to paint it. Despite the cooling fall weather I'm still opting to wait until the days get no higher than 80. If I can get to it I'll do it sometime in Nov before Ivye makes her arrival...if not, I'll just do it in December once I"m up and around again. I'd rather be bundled up doing it rather than sweating profusely. I'm definitely quite limited in just how much I can strip before the town starts calling in out of fear of what they are having to look at. But, so far, chickens are growing and we will have eggs sometime in January if all goes according to plan. We did opt not to order the other 26 chicks until the spring. Since they could not be delivered until the week of Oct 20th and the children and I are leaving only 3 short weeks after that to stay gone until baby gets here I kind of had to rethink that whole plan. Though Brad could easily care for them any OT shifts and then having to come up to FW for a day or 2 when Ivye does come leaves them potentially unattended for a few days at a time. No good. So, we'll wait til spring and warmer weather, where the risk of freezing and/or starving them to death isn't such an issue.

Their temp floor boxes until they figure out their nesting boxes are above