Oh! The lessons goats teach us... - Original Post date - 08/17/2011

Once again, my apologies for not writing more regularly. This summer has been one that I won't soon be forgetting - and not for the good times! Well, there have been a few of those though as well.

So to the new happenings on the meadows...
Well, Daniel has decided to spread his wings and try living on his own. He has been gone for two weeks now and so far he is doing good. He is living with the family of one of his good friends and seems to be thriving on the freedom. I know he will continue to do great and hopefully juggling full time work and his last high school credit in a few weeks won't be too much on him.
The mystery of the pregnant goat that never gives birth may have been solved today once and for all. Poor Trixie, it has all been such an ordeal for her. I had our vet, Kelli Drost out today for a
visit and to see what Trixie's udder was suddenly much bigger on one side. It turns out the poor girl has mastitis which may be caused from a lymph node problem. As this may be a highly contagious problem so she has had to be isolated until she runs through a course of antibiotics over the next few days and being milked and given an udder treatment. She really does have the tiniest teats ever! At least she stands quietly while being "milked". So Kelli, informed me that once she is treated she may dry right up and display no signs of pregnancy! So for the next few days we will have to wait and see how she does. I can't believe after all these months of waiting and preparing for Trixie to have babies she may not in fact have any!
The big surprise of the day today was learning that not only is Dixie definitely pregnant like we suspected, but Kelli feels she should give birth within a few days! I am dumbfounded by being kinda caught by surprise on this one. We suspected she may be bred but figured that nothing would happen until after Trixie gave birth. Kelli informs us that Dixie will be the first to give birth. I just hope she waits until Trixie comes out of the kidding pen! I hope we become better goat farmers than we have been so far!

In other goat related news, the boys - always so funny and entertaining have begun to enter into rut - breeding season - which is causing them to act out more aggressively and let's just say that the odour they cause is creating some havoc around here. Geordon and I are even contemplating not keeping bucks now after all and looking into some kind of AI for future breedings. This is only
the earliest stages of rut as well; we have months more of this and it will only get worse! I can't imagine how bad things will smell around here in the fall when they are fully in rut... I don't think I want to imagine it either.