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Thursday, April 8, 2010

(G)oat(G)irl

I was born in Des Moines, IA. Although Iowa is a predominately agricultural state, Des Moines is not. Later we moved to the suburbs and that is where I spent all of my formative years. I tell you this so that you may understand that I am NOT a country girl. Yet I find myself living on a goat farm. In the country.




The lovely lady with the beard and the blue collar is Gabby. She was my first bottle fed goat. She used to love me best, but then puberty hit and she switched allegiance to my husband. She luuuurrrrrrves him. She starts rubbing her head on him as soon as he crosses the fence and then nibbles on his jeans. The runt next to her is Tinkerbell, and she is my latest project. Between Gabby and Tink there was Patrick and Henry, and Lucy and Ethel. Unfortunately bottle fed goats don't usually survive and those 4 are no longer with us. Tinkerbell doesn't know it yet, but she is headed to the big goat pasture in the sky in a month or two.



Please disregard the Beverly Hillbillies goat shed there. It was still cold when they started dropping kids and my husband was still unemployed so he just nailed up scrap lumber to keep the wind off them. Last year I think we lost about 40 kids to the elements. That includes the ones that got suffocated at the bottom of the goat piles. They would bunch up trying to get warm and the ones on the bottom would be dead, every morning. We only lost one this year, and it wouldn't have survived any way. It helped that we bred them later in the fall, too. You can see Gabby being the Alpha Female at around 0:55.



They all came running over to the feeder when they saw me outside. I wish I could have caught the babies doing their little hyper jumping and hopping thing. It's adorable.

This certainly isn't the life I envisioned growing up, but it really is a (g)ood one.

5 comments:

Raquel Byrnes said...[Reply to comment]

Yay! Your comments work. Those videos were sweet. So glad everythingis working out for you now!

Mel Chesley said...[Reply to comment]

Aww I love goats! They're so cute. But I hear ya, I would have never thought I would live in Alaska of all places. And a small town to boot. I'm used to big cities and being able to go out when I want. I grew up in tough neighborhoods and sometimes I think these small town people think I'm much too gruff. Psshh! Whatever. Me and my tattoos will beat them up. ;)
Just kidding!
I love your goats, sorry you lost so many though.

Lisa said...[Reply to comment]

Oh my goodness, they are unbelievably precious! I love the little babies and did see one do a little bunny hop in the last video.

Great Post!

Rae said...[Reply to comment]

Wow! You just keep amazing me! You kicked butt with the comment thing- and now you are actually posting videos!!! Yay!
I would never want to live in the city. I am a country gal- but we don't have animals. Unless you count our dog.
The goats are really cute, but I interviewed kids at a 4H fair once and those darn goats like to jump, jump, jump! A little creepy for me...
Keep up the good work. You are Comment Queen!!!

tooleftfeeet said...[Reply to comment]

heh..cute goats.. my sister had several at one time. do you raise them for milk, etc?