The past couple of days have actually been quite mild, relative to the time of year. All of the snow has melted and so the animals are really enjoying their contact with the ground, mucky as it may be in some areas.
The goats enjoyed a walk today – yesterday I was feeling pretty sassy, so I took all 18 out (the bucks and Maryman do not go on our walks) at one time, and hoped for the best. I must have been channeling Balki Bartokomous pretty strongly, because they let me herd them without any argument. And when it came time to return to the barn, they only required the hint of receiving some grain (which they ultimately did) in order to acquiesce to my request. I was quite surprised at how smoothly it went, to be honest – and the same happened today. Any hint of movement from me out in the fields and they are all quite responsive, trying to anticipate which direction we will head in next.
There was even an expedition up “Mount Poop” – the former manure pile that was already several years old when we moved in back in 2008, but named thus because it amuses our son. I noticed that the herd queen from the small group of goats we recently acquired, a black and white LaMancha named Winter, and our existing herd queen, Heidi, had a little Queen of The Mountain going on up there. This is the first time I’ve seen Winter challenge Heidi. It will be interesting to see how that conflict progresses.
We are hoping to have more cooperative weather this weekend in order to be able to work on beefing up our lean-to into full-fledged buck housing. Additionally, two of our Nigerian Dwarves should be coming into heat – likely tomorrow or Saturday – and we will need to take them to get bred. So it’s ramping up to be yet another busy weekend!
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