Flo meets Flo and Beamish gets a new coat

Visitors are like buses at Ellie's Dairy.  We don't have any for ages and then lots come along together!  Yesterday we welcomed Matt and Becky from Horsham who are going to be milking sheep in the spring and producing bottled raw sheep's milk.  Watch this space for updates on that one!

Today we had a visit from a wonderful young lady called Florence who is aiming to start up her own goat dairy and cheesemaking business in Essex.  She has been working really hard to get lots of experience with goats and cheese and will hopefully be starting with two goats of her own in the very near future. 

She was thrilled to find that one of our goatie ladies has the same name .. here they are together.  The two Florences:

And, of course, no photo shoot would be complete without Humphrey:

Betty always like to keep an eye on things, just in case she might miss something:

But, unlike yesterday, Thelma was not sticking her big goatie nose into the camera.  Too busy being curled up and fast asleep!

Round the corner in the boys' house, there was great excitement (mostly on my part!) when Beamish got a new coat. Now, we are not usually the type of people who put rugs or coats on our animals unless they are really ill but David thought that Beamish might like something cosy in the cold weather.

Poor old Beamish has had a bit of a skin/hair problem for a few years now which nothing seems to solve.  The vets have all drawn a blank and nothing we have tried has ever succeeded in growing Beamish's coat back - he has a virtually bald back and sides and his skin is like a rhino.  The only thing that has had a slight effect has been a wonderful smelling palm oil and hibiscus rub which one of my lovely customers, Catherine, made specially for Beamish.

But as he is now getting older and feeling the cold a little bit more, Beamish has sometimes been seen to shiver even as he snuggles up next to Max.  But proper goat rugs are quite expensive and we didn't want to spend a lot of money on something that may be ripped to pieces by the other boys.

And then David chanced upon a 'calf coat' which looked to be about the right size and a fraction of the price.  So we ordered one up and it arrived yesterday.  It is not a perfect fit but it covers most of Beamish's baldy bits and will hopefully keep him nice and toasty in this cold damp weather.

And doesn't he look smart!  Fortunately, it is the same colour as Beamish and so noone else seems to be bothered about it.  Beamish is perfectly comfy and happy with it - he has not been scratching at it or pulling it about or trying to get it off and so I assume that he is content to wear it.  When I put my hand under it tonight, he felt lovely and warm underneath it and so I hope that he will be glad of his little jacket as the temperature falls.  There was a short outbreak of excitement as Daramac thought a new goat had arrived in the pen but a quick snort and sniff confirmed that it was actually only Beamish with his new coat on!