Monkey has a new friend

Number 1 Husky daughter has a new friend.

This little character has been nicknamed Boomerang .. put her back in her pen, out she comes.  Put her back in her pen, out she comes.  You get the idea ...  So we have just left the pair of them free-ranging around the barn.  They can often be found curled up asleep together in a spare kidding pen ..

Husky/Monkey is the ring-leader.  She decides what they will do and where they will go.  Little Boomerang just follows on behind.

Meanwhile, Maisea and little Rubbish are still going strong!  This pic was taken last week by our student Rebecca:

Lampshade and the Chocolate Drops

Curious title eh?  Takes me ages to think of things to amuse you ..

This is Lampshade:

And with his friends ..

We do not know what happened to little Lampshade but we found him one morning with a bad injury to his lower back where all the skin seemed to have been ripped off.  A clean injury but quite nasty - possibly he had been sleeping under something and had got caught.  We will never know.

But the following morning we found him with exactly the same injury to the other side of his back.  Very odd ... We cleaned him up and put lots of cream on the wound but he would not leave it alone.  Only one thing to be done ... hence the name.  Poor little Lampshade.

The wound is healing nicely now but he has to stay in his collar for a little while yet.  He has figured out how to eat and drink with it on and so seems perfectly happy.  He shares a pen with a few other 'special needs' babies.

As it has been quite chilly in the barn, especially at night, David rigged up the spare patio lamp so that the special needs pen keeps warm and cosy.  The light reaches into most of the other baby pens as well so everyone gets the benefit!

So that's Lampshade.  Who or what are the Chocolate Drops?

Well, our lovely simple Marcie goat had the two most gorgeous chocolate brown girlies.  The photo doesn't do them justice - they are just so beautiful!

As is the case at this time of year, the joy of the new arrivals is sometimes balanced by the trauma of poorly mums.  We sadly lost Klarah, one of our beautiful big Mary goats.  Struck down by a nasty illness, she had been fighting her corner and was doing so well.  But on Friday night she took a turn for the worse and it was clear that she was going downhill rapidly.  One of the emergency vets came out to put her to sleep and so we tearfully said goodbye to our lovely girl.

Our current invalid is Patty goat who has looked utterly dreadful for a few days.  Nothing obviously wrong with her but she has not been eating or drinking at all.

Wrapped up in her warm coat, she has been just lying around not taking much interest in anything.

But the good news is that she stood up by herself this morning and has been eating and drinking little bits and pieces all day.  Hopefully, we have turned a corner and things are getting better for young Patty.

And finally - the obligatory cute baby picture ..  A little girl delivered to Trixie goat a couple of days ago ..

Students and the story of Little Rubbish

Well it's been mightily busy on the kidding front since I last wrote to you.  We have had two fantastic vet students come and go .. Beth stayed with us for a week whilst Lizzie managed 2 weeks of very long hours.

Lizzie took some great photos so I will be using many of them on our blog.  She managed to get a great one of Beth being taken for a walk along the wall by Wispy who had decided that someone else's hay rack looked considerably more tasty than her own ..

And I took a shot of Lizzie with that naughty little Husky daughter ..

Whilst Lizzie managed to take an unintentional selfie of herself and Ginger!

So here are some of Lizzie's collection of pics .. general shots in and around the goatie barn at kidding time ..

Foolishly, she decided to take her lunch out into the field to enjoy some quiet time with the goats.  Needless to say, those goatie girls had other ideas ..

And we also managed to get an amusing little video of one of the kids snoozing.  Reminded us of one of those commuters who is falling asleep on the train on the way home whilst trying desperately to stay awake ...  So tired, I can hardly keep my eyes open ..

And finally for tonight - who is Little Rubbish?  Well, big old Florence goat had 3 little kids.  Number 43 is a fine young man but he steadfastly refuses to drink milk from a bottle.  Or a teat.  Or a bowl.  Or a jug.  Or a bucket.  In fact, he absolutely refuses to drink milk from anything at all.  We nicknamed him Rubbish Number 43 ..

In desperation, we took him back to mum to see if he would feed from her.  But Florence refused to have him anywhere near her - she stamped and kicked and bit his little bottom!  So, we took him over to dear old Auntie Wilma who decided that she would give him his breakfast.  Good old Auntie Wilma.

But a few hours later, Wilma had changed her mind and would not let him feed again.  We tried a few more of the goats who might have been amenable to feeding a foster kid, but sadly none of them would have him either.

Finally, I spotted a white goat called Maisea who seemed to be watching our little chap with interest.  I walked over to her and put Number 43 down - he immediately ran over to her to feed.  Maisea sniffed at him briefly and then just stood there while he filled up his little tum with lovely goatie milk.  Had we found him a foster mum?

Well, dear readers, it would seem so.  Little Rubbish and Maisea have become quite a couple. When Maisea thinks that it must be feeding time, she comes to the gate and calls to her little chap.  He calls back to her from his house and waits for us to pick him up and walk him over to the main goat area.  There he runs over to Maisea who then stands contentedly feeding him.

Lucky Little Rubbish!

Mums at rest ..

Just a very quick post for you ..

Maggi and her little chap:

Serena and her babies:

Marigold with her little people:

And a trip to the vet for disbudding for a group of youngsters.  Check out those ears!

And our lovely work experience student Emily was getting plenty of help yesterday from the little escaping Husky daughter (known as 'Monkey').  She decided that she would climb on Emily's shoulder to help her with feeding the younger babies ..  Very helpful!

Ginger's new apprentice

Long time followers of our blog may remember our escaping goat Ginger.

And the fact that when Husky was a baby, she also used to climb out and follow Ginger around the barn ..

For several months now Ginger has been on her best behaviour but yesterday, for some reason, decided that it was time to get up to her old tricks again.  Out she comes and we keep on finding her wandering about in the barn.

And someone else has decided that this looked like fun.  A small brown person can now be found climbing out through the gate to join her Auntie Ginger.

So who might this little person be?  Well ... you may not be surprised to know that it is the first kid of 2015.  One of Husky's triplets.  Oh yes indeedy ...  As I have said before - it would seem that bad behaviour is genetic.  Looks like we are in for some entertaining times ahead!

Goatie births have continued in earnest this week with over 30 babies appearing.  Fortunately, we have two vet students working with us - both Beth and Lizzie have spent time with us before and so it is really good to have them both back.  They know exactly what to do, where things are and are familiar with our daily routine .. makes life so much easier!  They have both been brilliant this week and are working really hard to help out.

At the end of last week, I took 10 of our little chaps to their new home at the Museum of Kent Life.  Every year they have a selection of our kids there for bottle feeding and to teach the public visitors about goats.  They are always a really popular attraction and we took them there in preparation for a busy Easter weekend.

They were thrilled with their new house and everyone was bouncing around with their new humans, only stopping briefly for feeding time!

Back at home, quite a few of the Mary goats all kidded at the same time and so we put them all in one large part of the barn together.  There was brief chaos as everyone had to sort out which baby was which but eventually everyone settled down quite happily ..

And dear old Maggi goat was very proud of her new son, although he is a completely different colour to her with those very odd ears!

And finally .. a couple of little bouncing baby videos for you. Enjoy!