Goat update

We’ve had the goats for 7 months. I can’t believe it has been that long! Lula Mae and Chloe add so much humor and joy to our lives, not to mention milk, that it makes them worth the effort.

Lula Mae & Chloe in January

 

Our first half-gallon day!

Lula Mae (the mama goat) is an anxious, finicky goat that is more serious than playful. She continually barks orders at her Chloe or me—if I’m nearby. She’ll let me milk and boss her around in the barn, but as soon as we are in the pasture, she thinks she is the boss. She scolds me for getting out of sight or lagging behind. In case you haven’t seen it, just watch this goats screaming like human video now. And yes, ours really do sound like this.

Here Lula is feasting on some grain (which she gets because she is milking). Her soft undercoat from winter has almost entirely disappeared.

The ducks' bodies may be boats, but mine converts blackberries to milk!

Chloe is the opposite of her mother. She is playful and stubborn. She is 1 year old and acts even younger. She still runs at full speed and jumps all fours(!) onto Lula’s back to reach a high blackberry bramble or just to hitch a ride.

Since our goats have so much to forage, we only supplement their feed. They get 2 different kinds of hay and Lula gets grain. A few months back however, we took Lula Mae to the breeder and due to some ovulation complications, left her there for a few weeks. Chloe was alone and distraught. Mr. Bee and I spent hours trying to comfort her. But when our presence didn’t alleviate her distress, we, like any normal goat parents, turned to food to bribe her. She refused handpicked blackberry leaves, rejected all produce, and even stopped letting us hand-feed her hay. So we tried grain. The sweet, high-calorie grain that Lula eats to make sure she is able to produce milk. Well, Chloe loved it. For those few minutes, she’d stop crying and seem to truly enjoy herself. And after a feeding she seemed somewhat calmer.

Chloe crying through the fence

And thus, we fed her. Sometimes in the milking stanchion like we do with Lula. Sometimes straight out of our hands or from a bucket. A little for breakfast, a snack here, a pity snack there and a hearty dinner.

 

By the time Lula came back, it was clear that we had created a monster. A very large (10 pound over healthy weight) monster. With Lula back, she stopped crying all the time but became obsessed with grain. She was an addict, desperate to get her fix and willing to try everything from coy looks to outright defiance to taste that sweet grain again. Milking Lula Mae became a test of strategies to Chloe from vaulting over the milking room walls or attempting to squeeze between the gate that separates the milking room from the rest of the barn. Often it resulted in Chloe getting her head stuck somewhere, when inevitably her now rollie pollie body refused to fit through an opening. It was a rough transition.

"Who me?" Chloe trying to get into the bag of feed

All this to say, Lula Mae is pregnant and should be kidding this summer. Hopefully she will have two babies (most common) but we will have to wait and see. It’s intriguing to feel little hooves stretch the sides of her belly. Chances are, I’ll be the one “on-call” when she delivers so I have to start reading up on goat labor soon!
 

Chloe is off grain and down to a healthy weight again, but still obsessed. Occasionally she’ll take advantage of a partially latched gate to squeeze into the milking room to steal Lula’s serving. Hopefully, she’ll be thrilled when we breed her next year and she can eat grain twice a day to help her babies grow. Sigh.

Her old self again, but always hoping to earn a treat with that grin.

The goats have done an excellent job clearing out our invasive blackberries and salmonberries. Their paddock used to be so thick with vines that we had to cut a clearing around the barn so they could get out! Soon, I will take you on a tour of their barn and pasture. Maybe I'll even show you Mr. Bee's homemade cheese!