Dogs

There's a dog that's been hanging around on our property, stalking the goats through the fence and barking.

The neighbors get one chance, then mister doggie goes bye bye. I don't have the patience or the time to deal with someone who can't keep their dog away from livestock.

It's a surprise I admit, people out here have been really great, at least in my general area, about keeping their dogs on their property or having dogs that don't go far and have yet to bother us. I think this dog is new. Well, it won't be around for long I think.

Thank goodness we're getting a Pyr. Sure, she's still just a little bit but she'll grow! And when she's mature, we'll probably bring her home a companion she can train. That way we have a working pair.

We're going to need it, as our herd continues to grow. I can hardly wait until the fencing is complete and I have all the room in the world (it seems) to expand.

I trimmed hooves today, and poor Hallie! I quicked her. I felt so awful when the blood welled up. I barely got her, but its the first time I've quicked an animal in a long time. I put some quickstop on it and it stopped bleeding in just a bit, but poor baby.

I fed her some oats out of my hand while she was on the stand waiting for the blood to clot. Hopefully she won't hold it against me. Seems like everytime I catch her, I'm doing something awful to her! Like deworming, vaccinations, hoof trims.

Today she was far easier to catch. I just put out some grain and grabbed her collar when she rushed in to get her share with the others. She's coming along quite well I think. She has a nice bit of flesh over her ribs now and is looking good.

Baby dearest decided to show the other kids how to get out of the pen, so I had to spend a while wiring a piece of chain link across that panel to put a stop to the escapades. The last thing I need is little unsupervised babies running around right now.

It's been nice for the last few days so I cleaned the goat house and put down new bedding. I hope they appreciate it before they turn it back into dirt.

The dang feedstore kept trying to sell my poor husband goat feed today. We've never bought goat feed from them, though they know we have goats. We usually just buy hay there, and get our grains at Tractor Supply. Today I had him pick the oats up there since we were out and I needed hay anyways, and they asked him about five times if he wanted a bag of goat feed with that!

Tomorrow a lovely young lady is coming to look at Hope's boys. I've had an amazing amount of interest in them, and it's filling up my waiting list. Thank goodness I will be having a ton of does kidding out next year, with good fortune.

A Future Guardian

Sorry, but no post on the whole goat scandal I recently delt with. I am trying to worm a bit more information out of the person in question, so I'll have to wait a bit longer. But no fear! It's coming soon.

Instead, tonight I'll introduce my future Livestock Guardian. She was born recently here, to a Great Pyrenees dam and a Great Pyrenees/Anatolian sire, both excellent guard animals.

Without further adieu:

Isn't she just a gorgeous little thing? She'll, with work and luck, grow into K-n-S Farm's Guardian, caretaker of the herd and watchdog. We really look forward to having her here and working with her, and having some peace of mind when it comes to the herd and their safety.

How many of you use LGs? Are they canine or equine or other? Have you had good or bad experiences with them?

I've used a donkey before, way back in the day when we had meat goats. He was mean and grouchy and hated everyone. Not the best experience!

In other news, our current bottle-baby, Baby (I know, real original right?), has discovered that she can leap out of the fence. How you ask? Well, we have cattle panel, and on all of them except one, the entire panel is covered with wire with smaller openings, to prevent escapes. On one panel, it only goes partway up. Well miss smarty pants learned to leap right over that part and out of the hole in the panel.

Too clever for her own good. She's turning into a right spoiled little thing, something I've tried to avoid but seem to be failing at! She's our first bottle baby, we've avoided them in the past but she was too cute to pass up, especially when my favorite doe failed to give me a doeling to keep for the second year in a row.

Baby stays outside with the other goats, but does get a little house time after being fed in the evenings.

I look forward to having her grown up and running about the house...sort of.

Keep checking back for more!