Two more goat kids left for their new homes today. Pistachio and Almond have gone to live with a family just the other side of Chulmleigh. They are to be pets for eight year old Isaac who we knew was going to be a fab new owner when he turned up meet the goats on Monday, complete with notebook and pen and a head full of questions! This now means Sorrel is kid-less: great news as we can now really focus on giving her a bit of TLC: getting her dried off and back to a good weight. Both she and Coriander have been having periods of separation and staying inside 24/7 in order to both keep the kids from suckling and to restrict their diets to just fibre (thereby encouraging less milk production). Both of them now have much better poos (more solid) but Sorrel is still incredibly skinny. Of course, in trying to dry her up, we have not been able to give her too much food. Coriander still has one kid left but even with the short separation periods, he is not as interested in the milk as he was and Coriander herself is very reluctant to allow him to feed.
Neither of the goats were that impressed at being away from the rest of the herd. Coriander cried pretty much all the time and we had to wonder at the impact of the stress she was going through set against the strain on her body to keeping feeding one kid.
Our plan is to start to feed them both up now, to keep our fingers crossed for solid poos and to try to sell the remaining kids!!!