This Year’s Addition

So this year we expanded our homesteading boundaries and added more animals. This year we have four piglets, only three of which will meet the freezer, the third being a gilt (hillbilly for a female pig that you breed. We hope.) And more chickens of course. But my favorite addition is the goats. That’s right I said goats.

These are very interesting goats too. We have a trio one nanny (already kidded before female), one billy or buck, and one juvenile doe (unbred female under a year of age.) The nanny and buck don’t have ears to really speak of. They’re a breed of dairy goats called LaMancha. Supposedly the most docile of all dairy breeds…whoever said that obviously hasn’t met our Nanny McPhee. She’s about to kid and just not very nice to anyone-except Ramsey (that’s our buck.) She believes we were put here just to annoy her, and is worse about hollering “labor” than I was when pregnant.

Ramsey is the sweetest baby ever. Loves his treats, a little to much actually. He has had his problems from previous owners neglect. His poor feet are just terrible. Honeybear and I literally have to take him down and clean and trim his feet-twice. Quite the experience for us. But I think the absolute worst part is he thinks I’m part of his harem. He’s extremely jealous of Honeybear near me. He scents me. A LOT!

What’s scenting? You’ll regret asking that. (Science lesson coming up.) You see billies (most goat farmers disdain this old label-of course I prefer it.) will urinate on their beards, faces, legs, and sides to have their pheromones available. Pheromones attract girls, and mark their “territory”. When one of their girls is in season they will rub their heads all over them, this also helps the female become more receptive to mating and ovulation. So what’s that got to do with me? He rubs his pheromone infested head all over me. And when Honeybear is close by it gets worse.



Then there’s Little Bit, she’s a breed called Alpine-sweet thing. Huge ears ,spindly legs, and jumps like a gazelle. Trust me-we tested it. Not necessarily on purpose but we’ve tested it. Her name was supposedly undetermined and we just kept calling her little bit till we thought of a good one. After a while no name fit except little bit. She’s not sure bout humans-no qualms about treats-but really not sure bout humans. For some reason Nanny has taken an intense dislike to Little Bit and seeks her out just to butt her. Finally Little Bit has started meeting these challenges with lowered head. She’s at a disadvantage at half the weight and disbudded (they killed her horn buds as a baby) but she’s not just laying down and taking it anymore.

There are several stories about these three even though we’ve owned them for a relatively short amount of time but more about them later. Tomorrow I’ll tell ya about the sale barn.