Spring is in the air

You can tell spring is in the air. Birds are everywhere, they seem to have appeared out of nowhere. Baby grass is poking up among the brown and this is all I see:

Heston is one horny little goat. The goat babies turned two months old this week and seemly overnight the male hormones kicked in and he became a horn dog. It seems to be more of a game for him to chase his sister around trying to launch his body at her. Sometimes he'll just rest up there like she's a Lazy Boy recliner. She wants nothing to do with this and usually just lies down eventually. He gives up and goes about his business. I'm desperately trying to wait until 10 weeks old (a week and a half away) to neuter him but I feel I'm going to cave soon. The thought of more baby goats running around just doesn't do anything for me. I'll be making an appointment at the goat vet to have his procedure done. They are just going to band him. That's where they put a strong little rubber band over his family jewels which shuts off circulation and they eventually shrivel up and fall off. I was going to band him myself but the tool costs about $15 plus shipping and the vet will do it for $5 (and I don't have to do it). Bonus! Maybe if I ever had to do this again I'd just buy the tool, but THAT WILL NOT BE HAPPENING. It's good to wait as long as possible to castrate, if the goat is intended to be a pet, so their plumbing can mature to prevent bladder stones. We lost Buddy the goat to Urinary Calculi about two years ago, and that is something I never want to witness again. I've learned more about raising goats over the past two years and hope to prevent any issues with my two current (one almost) wethers.

I was curious yesterday as to how much the kids weighed since they just turned two months old so I hauled the bathroom scale outside and picked each one up and weighed it. Beef cake #1 (Heston the boy) is already 56 pounds. Yikes! He was exactly 30 pounds at one month. Almost a 30 pound weight gain in a month, no wonder people eat these animals! That's crazy. Coco, the girl, weighs 42 pounds at two months old. They sure are growing like weeds.

They moved out of their shop pen this past weekend. The night temperatures have been staying above 25 degrees consistently so it was time. They enjoy their pen in the horse pen and enjoy it more when I let them out every morning. I think a portion of the walnut grove will be fenced off at some point for them to graze down as we don't want the back yard to become grassless and poop filled.