The emperor's new clothes

Or Beamish's new coat, to be more accurate.  You may remember that our lovely Alpine male Beamish has a bit of a long term problem with his hair.  Or lack of it .. He is like a rhino and so, last winter, we got him a nice calf coat to keep him snuggly in the cold weather.

This worked really well and he was very happy wearing it but gradually the other boys managed to break the straps and the fastenings and, by the time the warm weather came, the coat was just about hanging on.  Time to find a new coat for our old chap!

A brief trial of various dog coats soon led me to face the fact that I really had to splash out and buy Beamish a proper goat coat.  Not cheap but then it makes me so happy when I see him all warm and comfy that expense doesn't really matter.

So here he is, along with the special 'extension' straps to get round his belly!

As usual, there was great excitement as Hugo thought there was a new goat in the house but he soon realised that it was just his old mate Beamish.

Still on the subject of boys and their hair ... A few days ago I noticed that Handsome Humphrey had few bald patches on his rear end.  Not sure if you can see it very well but the hair on his back (to the right of the pic) is quite long.  The hair on his bottom (to the left by the tail) is very very short and worn down.

Why was this?  He didn't seem to have any strange skin condition, no itching or soreness ... What could be causing it?

Well, it didn't take long to find out ... Seems that Humps is rather popular with the ladies (despite his lack of male 'attributes') and they spend a lot of time rubbing their heads on his bottom!  Allow me to demonstrate with a short video taken this morning ..

And that, dear readers, is why Handsome Humps has a baldy bottom!

Still on the subject of bottoms ... It's that time of year when the young goatlings are all starting to get plump and sprout udders.  Our young Husky goat is no exception .. she is getting very round and that little udder is now clearly visible.  She certainly looks like she is in kid but we will find out for sure next Monday when scanning man Michael comes to check out all the girlies.

We had the first flurries of snow at milking time this evening and it certainly is a chilly night out there tonight.  Nowhere near as much as the rest of the country but David keeps on hoping that he will get a chance to go out and play on the snow plough!

Needless to say, Marmite cat has spent most of the day in the warmest spot in the house .. on the top shelf of the airing cupboard.  I have still no idea how she manages to get right up there!