Saturday, February 6, 2010

Ack! my text mssg post didn't go through!

so y'all don't know about the goats!!!!

On Wednesday, Wilhelm and Buddy finally made a decision on how to do the pen for the goats! We have a fairly dilapidated barn behind the cabin. Most of one of the side walls are gone, there are some pretty serious holes in the roof over what used to be the stalls, and I don't know if it ever had exterior doors. But, the center aisle roof is pretty sound, and the back of it opens into a good sized area before it drops down into the field. With my input, they decided to use cattle and hog panels to fence in about 15' deep of the center aisle of the barn, and about 20x30' outside the barn. Unfortunately, there's not a whole lot of browse in there right now (as it's February and all), so we've been giving them hay and assorted greenery as we can find it. We have a problem with Devilwood (aka osmanthus americanus around the house, and it tolerates pruning well, so we've been feeding that, blackberry brambles, and a few pine boughs dropped by the latest big storm. So far, they've liked everything. :)

They seem to be doing well, but they're still a little shy of us. The does are Sweetie and Jenny, the bucks are Ramsey and Bucky. I had nothing to do with naming them! Sweetie and Bucky are "ours" and Jenny and Bucky are Buddy's. Sweetie is currently pregnant, probably with twins, and is due to drop in the next couple of weeks. Very exciting!!!

The horses have been extremely interested in what's going on across the road from them. When we were installing the goats, the horses were all standing right near the fence, looking very intently at the barn. It was really quite amusing. They've chilled out considerably in the last 2 days, but from what I understand, they weren't terribly well human socialized to start with.

Polka is totally enamored of the goats, she wants to go see them all the time, and would love it if they would play with her (and since they weigh about the same as she does, I don't know if I'd be worried about it or not), She was very close to climbing into their enclosure by herself today, but I'm trying to convince her that its a bad idea. There should be photos soon! I took them, but haven't put them on the computer yet, and the camera is down at the cottage, and the internet is up at the big house.

Plans for chickens are still underway, as well.

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