Hoof-Trimming Day

Please excuse my flashing; it was not intended.

Today I accepted that fact that I could not put off the hoof trimming any longer. Ginger started looking like she was wearing fancy slippers. I hate trimming her hooves, because she hates it and refuses to just let me do it without a fight! She alone took three different sessions and a total of about 45 minutes. She won't hold still and is continuously pushing forward and backward with her 120-lb. brawny self. She also pushes, pulls, and kicks her hoof out of my hand. Then I'm in the middle of all of this holding a terribly sharp pair of trimmers in my hand. I'm scared that one of us is going to be stabbed with them. John had to come out and help me so I could actually finish the job this time. Just about every other time I've done it alone, I gave up before all hooves were done; which is why her feet are in such gnarly shape.

One thing I noticed for the first time was that every time I picked up on of Ginger's hind legs, it sounded crunchy inside her joint. Like dozens of tiny dry twigs snapping and breaking. It sounded awful! It can't be good. I'll have to peruse my many goat books to see what horrible condition she has. None of the other goats had this problem - so that's one good thing.


Clover was a doll during the trimming. Juniper was okay; Tulip was not pleasant and faught me the whole time. Luckily, she is still pretty small. I'll have to trim her more often in hopes that she can get more used to the process.


Thank you, Farmhand John, for your help today! Thanks, Asa, for taking the pictures.

Me with Juniper (oh, and Ginger's bottom)

Dominance Issues

Ginger (Saanen) and Clover (Toggenburg). Ginger is the herd Queen. You can see Tulip (Nubian) tethered to the fence. Asa was with me in the field, and Tulip was butting him. I had to keep her chained while we were in there.

My two youngest goats, the Nubians, are showing signs of behavior issues. This past Christmas, our friends came to visit. Their little one, who is 2 years old, went into the goat yard with a group of people to visit with, and pet the goats. She has always loved our goats - and is always kind and gentle with them. Twice, Tulip pushed/butted the little one onto the ground. It didn't take much to knock her down, she's pretty small. It was a solid butting nontheless. The first time Tulip did this, I figured she was simply playing and I thought nothing of it. She did it a second time the next day, and Tulip seemed to focus just on the little girl. I thought Tulip was feeling the need to dominate this little one, and thought it was best to keep her out of the goat yard.

Juniper eating hay while Tulip remaines tied to the fence.

Then, just a few days ago, we had another visitor. This was a stranger, and was a child of about 11 years old. He is the same size as my older son, almost five feet tall. Besides myself and the boy, there were also four other children in the yard of various ages. This boy was one of the tallest in there. Juniper starts butting him - and not gently either. She gave him a good, hard push, then stood looking at him, her head down, making something close to a growling sound. Then she butted him again, with all of her strength it seemed. She was only focused on this one boy. She didn't attempt to butt any of the other children. I got him and the others out of there immediately. I have told everyone in my family that children are no longer allowed in the goat's yard. Now, when Asa goes in there, Tulip tries to butt him.

Here, Juniper is pushing against me. She doesn't butt at all - just a strong, slow PUSH.

All the while, Juniper (Tulip's sister) has been pushing on me whenever I'm in their yard - when she's not eating hay or grain. All the boys in our family have always played this butting game with the goats, who have never been anything but gentle while playing. But, now I see that that has to end. I have read in books that butting should never be encouraged in goats, and I see that there is a good reason for this. Good thing that my goats don't have horns! I am worried that as Tulip grows larger that she could really hurt someone; these goats will grow to be 120 to 150 pounds. Now, when Juniper pushes against me with her head, I gently move her head off of me. I hope that eventually, this will end her behavior.

We had our first burnpile fire of the season last weekend. I love my fires! While John and Sassa worked on the hen house, the boys and I worked on burning everything from the yard that we could get our hands on. We also cut down and burned some yew bushes (which are poisonous to the goats), still lots more to get rid of in our yard. We burned right where we plan to put our vegetable garden this summer. I can’t wait for that time to come around.

Lost and Found

For some time now, one of our hens has been leaving the flock each night for a destination unknown to any of us. Each morning, she rejoins the group and spends the day foraging with them – but seems to prefer her solitude during the night. But where exactly does she go? It’s been a mystery that I’ve tried to solve several times, but get too bored or run out of free time to follow her long enough to know where it is that she goes. Alas, I finally stumbled upon her hiding place, and it was right under our noses the whole time. While fetching the mail today, I peeked under the front porch, which I do most times that I am walking past it in hopes of discovering some sign that this is where that hen might go. Well, today I finally saw a whole clutch of eggs that gave away the hen’s secret nest. I’ve looked in that particular spot many times, but it’s the deepest and darkest area with the least amount of height under our porch, so I was never able to see very well in there. For some reason, today I bent over a bit more than usual and poked my head in a bit farther, and hey! there’s a bunch of eggs in there!! Twenty nine eggs to be exact. I removed every last one of them (oh, my poor legs!), and the chickens tried their best to eat one of the eggs that I accidentally cracked open. Now, we will be able to gather one more egg each day; I plan to put a nestbox in that spot to help keep the egg poop-free, and make it easier for me to spot the egg. Victory!

Week One: Ginger's Belly

From top, looking down: Normal belly girth of Ginger.
I don't think that she's even supposed to show until a couple of months before.

My Ginger is Back

On Sunday, I went to retrieve Ginger from her Love Shack in Maryland. And whew! She smells like a buck! However, I have grown to like that smell; I never thought I would, but I do. It just smells like goat - and I love goats. So, it makes sense to me. The first day back, she seemed kinda quiet and confused. I am imagining that she misses her fella, Wind. But, she's back and I'm thrilled that she may be carrying a happy little bundle in her belly.

I envisioned that when Ginger was led into their yard, that the other goats would run up to her and give her goat hugs, and that Ginger would prance around with giddiness at the joy of returning to her family. That didn't happen. At first, they seemed to be blind to each other. Didn't even seem to notice each other's presence. Then after a minute or so, Ginger decided that she needed to reassert her position as Herd Queen, and started to kick some goat butt all over the place. If anyone got near her, she butted them really severely. Not just playing around either. She seemed genuinely pissed. She was downright mean! I felt sorry for Clover, who seemed to get the brunt of the aggression. But Clover stood up for herself and gave Ginger a taste of her own medicine.

Go Clover! Show Ginger that you are not going down without a fight!

Next day, thing were back to normal. No more fighting. Just the normal shoving around of Tulip and Juniper when they get near food that Ginger wants. It's good again.

Estrus Follies

I just lived through another bout of CloverHeat. With Clover, there is no doubt at all that she is in heat. With Ginger, I was never quite sure. This is not the case with Clover! She will continuously bleat her loudest. I usually hear her first thing in the morning, thinking that she has been mortally wounded. She must be dying, yelling like that! She goes into heat about three or four days after Ginger does.

The first day Clover went into heat this last time, she completely lost her mind when I left their yard after evening feeding time. I was walking away from the gate, she was yelling, and the next thing I knew, she ran right past me in the people yard. She just ran through our yard, across the street toward their pasture. When she reached the pasture, she screeched to a halt and looked around, like she was suddenly wondering "What am I doing? Where am I going? What now?" Then she ran furiously back to me and stopped. Then she ran up our yard and jumped on a table. I tell you, that poor girl is having a hard time of it. I felt so bad for her. I grasped her collar and led her back into her yard - she walked with me without a fight. I locked a second lock on the gate, thinking that she must have pushed her way through the bottom of the gate. Two steps away, I decided to look back - and there she was, leaping gracefully over the four foot fence. I had to chase her down, then again, led her back to her yard. Unfortunately, she and Tulip and Juniper had to spend the rest of the day and night closed up inside the barn. The next morning I put up an extender at the part where she jumped over the fence and hoped for the best. She checked it out and even looked like she might try it, but I could see that she had decided it wouldn't work.

She could have easily jumped over other parts of the fence, but she didn't try. I don't know why, but I'm glad of it. By that evening, she had visibly calmed down, and the next day, she was back to normal. I only have fifteen more days until the madness begins again.