My friend reminded me the other night during our beautiful luminary walk that I hadn’t written about our goats lately.  Thanks for the reminder!  Here goes…

As we stepped into fall this year, we decided that this year was the year to try breeding.  After all, last fall we went into a share with a male goat, Alex, another Alpine goat.  He lives here locally at another goat owner’s place along with his whether friend.  There were just a few things to do to get ready:  1.  Mentally prepare ourselves for a goat herd, 2.  Watch our girls’ heat cycle to know the exact moment that was the best time to expose them to Alex, 3.  Go visit Alex and figure out the process for when we bring out girls over to him, 4.  Put our girls on a diet!!

We started mentally preparing last year, or at least I did.  Nick seems much more quick with transitions than I am.  “Do I really want more responsibility?”  “Tilly and Venus will appreciate the extra company; they are herd animals.”  “Maybe this will calm down Venus, the alpha daughter to her mom, Tilly” were the main thoughts running through my head.  In the end the latter two thoughts dominated and the extra responsibility became another ‘given’ in my life.  (I am a Taurus, and I guess responsibility and slow transitions are part of my make-up in this life.)

We also had to enforce a strong de-worming regimen for a little while.  Venus seemed to be a little more infested than Tilly, but this wasn’t hard to manage with my herbal knowledge and wherewithal.  And, the girls really enjoy eating the dry herbs too.  It seems like a treat to them, which is helpful!

September came and a short window of possibly ‘heat cycle’ came for them.  One morning on our way down to feed them they were a little extra talkative.  They ran around the field a little more than usual as well.  I jotted down notes in our barn goat journal to keep track of the date and their actions.

About 20 days later, in early October, their symptoms or actions reappeared; they were more talkative, feisty and their tails were flittingly moving around.  I had been taking them out into the open grassy field for walks each afternoon and this one particular day, they took off running close to the road.  “Tilly, Venus, come back”, I motioned my hand for them to return to me.  They looked up and ignored me.  “I hope they don’t go out into the road”, was my first thought, “They are my kids aren’t they”?  I started walking away back towards their fenced area and kept calling them.  Finally, after I was about 200 feet away from them they looked up, saw me moving away, and came running to me.  I walked them around and back into their fenced area.  We didn’t continue our walk that day, needless to say.  Their hormones were strong and I couldn’t ‘control’ them, but could I ever really?

We called our friend, who owns Alex and went over to meet him.  “He pees on himself as part of his do…”, he shared as we were meeting and smelling his stench.  “He looks like a monster; now I understand all of the myths and legends about goats being monsters”, I thought.  I never quite understood the ugliness I’d seen until that moment.

A Saturday in November, we’d planned a trip off island for a day of respite and went to Bellingham and up close to Mt. Baker for the day.  Prior to catching the ferry we fed the girls and noticed their actions again. “I hope they’re still in heat tomorrow; if not I guess we’ll wait until December”.  We had a wonderful off-island day of restoration.

We crossed our fingers Sunday morning as we approached the goat home of two.  Prior, I called our friend to let him know.  “Bring them on over if they’re in heat.  We want to catch them in time”.  That’s what we did.  As I fed them a little bite to eat, Nick prepared the back of our small red dodge farm truck with straw so their ride would be as comfortable as possible.  We leashed them, and walked them into the truck-canopied bed.  They jumped right in curiously and we took off on our little field trip to meet Alex.  If ya want to know more about the experience, email me and I can give more details.  But let’s just say that nature took it’s course well that day.  I’ll keep ya posted!

Cheers, Susie