The Lap Goat

As you know we acquired a dairy goat named Dym. We made her a separate temporary pen behind the shop where she can get acquainted with the "boys" (the two mini horses and the other goat). Turns out she's not in that pen very often. Whenever I go outside she can hear me (somehow) and will cry loudly until I go back there and let her out. She then takes off for the gate to be let into the back yard. Once in the back yard she wanders around eating this and that (usually my tomatoes). She's happy as a clam as long as she's where we are. I feel bad that she's alone since I know goats are herd animals but it doesn't seem to bother her at all. I let our other goat out to meet her this past weekend and it went fairly well. They got all excited and did the "goat dance" where they bump heads and chase each other. She thought this was fun for awhile and then he started getting a little too frisky and she started running from him. I put him away and we'll try letting them together again another day.

I mentioned in a previous post that Dym is believed to be pregnant. On day eleven of the pregnancy I had the opportunity to give her a shot to end the pregnancy or to let it go and possibly have baby goats the end of December. I tell ya, that was one of the hardest decisions I've had to make in awhile. On one hand, I'd love to have baby goats running around here. But on the other hand I don't want those baby goats to freeze to death since January around here isn't very forgiving. Also I'd love to try my hand at milking a goat...can you imagine all the fun things one could do with gallons and gallons of fresh goat milk? But milking in January, February and March? Not so much fun. So day eleven came and went and I decided not to give her the shot. Who am I to play God? I really hope she is pregnant because I'm so excited for this!

Sean doesn't know much about this but I'm building a birthing stall in the shop where she can have those babies and there will be electricity available for heating lamps and such. I'm also going to build a milking stand so milking isn't too hard to accomplish (I hope). I've been reading every book I can find on breeding and milking goats so I hope I'm ready when the time comes. This winter might be quite the adventure!

For now I just enjoy looking out the window and seeing this: