Sticky brown noses

As the girls are now mostly pregnant and spending most of their time indoors, we figured that they may need a little bit of a boost to their winter diet.  Although they have lots of lovely hay to eat, the exceedingly wet weather this year has meant that the hay is plentiful but not as nutritious as normal - the nutrients are 'watered down' a bit more this year!

So, with advice from our nutritional specialist, we have added a couple of nice sticky mineral licks into their pen.  As with all our feed, we specify that they must be GM and soya-free.   The milkers usually have a large mineral/salt block that they like to lick at but these new blocks are huge and round and sticky with molasses for lots of energy.  We haven't used them before and didn't know if the girls would like them or not but they are a great hit as you can tell from the crowds around them!

 
And you can always tell who has been a bit of a piggy by the sticky brown marks on their noses!

Thelma

  Quince

The little girls have settled into their new home very well and are enjoying their newly refurbished feeding station.  You may remember that it used to be at ground level and had become too low for them all to feed easily.  So, David decided that it required a bit of modification .. and raised it up on legs.  Much better!

Of course, they can't all fit round it at the same time and so we are still using a number of low troughs for them as well.  This makes sure that everyone gets a good feed .. especially those who are much smaller than everyone else.  Yes, little Fizzy goat ...  Here she is next to her friend Cleo (with the big ears):

I'm convinced that she hasn't grown at all for weeks.  At least in an upward direction.  She just seems to be growing outwards and is getting more square every day!  She really is so much smaller than the other kids ..

 

 But in her own mind, she is a big goat and is exactly the same size as everyone else.  She is pretty feisty and happily shoves others out of the way to get at what she wants.  Here you can see her nipping Cleo to make her move out of the trough!