All is good on the goat front (well aside from Pickle not being pregnant of course). The relationships between the Dairies and the Boers is definitely less bullyish and there have been times when all five have been in the same half of the field shelter, happily sharing hay racks and lying space. Curds and Pickle are still top of the pecking order and are not averse to reminding Onion, Garlic and Pepper of this fact but, on the whole, all is fairly peaceful. They continue to go out each day to the field shelters and the Boers even venture out onto the field itself at times. The land is not that soggy at all and where it is, they tend to avoid it anyway. We are due 24 hours of rain at the weekend mind you so things will probably change.
We still separate at feeding and nighttimes – we think this has helped to get things more harmonious and at the moment we don't see any reason to test the boundaries here and re-introduce stress.
Our next task is to continue to try to get Pepper to be just a little bit friendlier. He is still quite shy and does hide behind the girls if he thinks we are getting too close. The best we have been able to achieve is a back rub which he vaguely tolerates before he realises he should be running away and not pretending he is actually enjoying it!!!!