More fun with the goats!

Here, the goats are intrigued by Ellie's 4th of July flip-flops. You can really see how little these goats are. They're both still young (Moose is 2 1/2 months old and Lily is 3 1/2 months), but they are a miniature dairy breed called Nigerian Dwarves. They will only get maybe twice their current size. We chose them because of their small size -- I never realized how gigantic full-size goat breeds were until I met some up close!! Nigerian Dwarves also have proven to be good milkers, and I'm looking forward to the day when we can milk Lily. She'll have to be bred and give birth before of course, which may happen next spring or may be even another year from then, depending on how big she is come late fall. (You don't want to breed a young goat too early or she may have troubles giving birth. By the way, Moose will not be the daddy goat since he is now a castrated fella. We'll probably take Lily to breed with one of our breeders' bucks when it's time.) I'm eager to try my hand at making goat cheese and other goat milk goodies, but that's still way in the future. For now, we're enjoying how baby-like these two little ones still are.




Lily really loves grain-feeding time! In fact, at dinnertime, she climbs all over and even tries to get inside the grain bins. I went out this morning, and there were goat berries (a.k.a. poop) all over one of the grain bins and on the ledge next to it, implying *someone* had probably *slept* there at some point last night. Today, those bins are being put into the barn room where the goats can't get to them, and so we won't have to fend off their eagerness at mealtime!



Moose and Lily both love playing on these old cable spools we got from someone on Freecycle.org. We had to nail plywood over the holes in the spools so their small hooves wouldn't fall through. We also have an old galvanized metal watering trough (which used to house baby chicks before their coop was complete) turned upside down for them to play on next to the spools. Goats love to climb and crave variety and fun, and we aim to please. ;-)


Can you tell we think these guys are awesome?? ;-)