The cold weather we mentioned yesterday is also better for the goats: out of all the animals, goats suffer the worse with sore feet if they spend too much time in mud and wet grass. As you can see in the photo, we created a rough walkway for them (from some old scaffolding planks) so they can go from the barn to their field shelter without touching the ground, but we still want to make a woodchip path for them. We have now found a local tree surgeon who has said he will be able to get us some woodchip: we just have to wait for him to be doing a job in this area!!!
The temporary planks have meant we have been able to get the goats to go a bit more since the rains stopped although we are not always sure they are happy with this arrangement. Truth be told, things are a little tricky with the goats as Pickle and Curds are still rather 'bully-ish' with the Boers and at times they can be quite nasty in shoving them out of the way or not letting them in or out of the shelters and barn. Goats can be very thuggish and their pecking order VERY defined but after ten weeks together, we had hoped things might be a bit calmer. The other issue is that the Boers do tend to scream when they are not so happy: sometimes the screams are for something ordinary such as 'we want our food', but screaming cos Pickle won't let them back in the barn is not so good!!
We have been trying various strategies to help them mix but whilst some days are better than others, when the thuggish behaviour kicks in, it is as thuggish as ever!
None of this of course is borne out by the photo which shows Curds really snuggling up to Pepper. The reason: Curds was in season again today! Pepper once again showed no interest, slightly worrying, although we are not sure he could reach her anyway plus we are happy for her NOT to be pregnant as her kids would only be for eating. Curds herself has been suffering a little from sore joints and feet so being pregnant is not perhaps in her best interest!
Pepper’s breeder felt Pepper could be 'off the boil' because he mated with the other three at the end of October and so his job is now ‘done’ but also that he may be 'off' mating cos both Curds and Pickle have been a tad thuggish with him. He is of course only young!! Pickle is due back in season in the next week so we will see what happens there but in anticipation of there being no interest once again, we have another billy lined up via a friend!!
It's fair to say that our goat-keeping programme is not quite running to plan.. yet.. although with Curds being all lovey dovey, today has actually been the calmest day for a while!