Gimli on the job

  Gimli, our new dwarf buck, has been out with the girls a few weeks now. When he first got here, we ordered a breeding harness for him. A breeding harness is a slightly indecipherable contraption that has a place on the chest for attaching what amounts to a large crayon. It sits right between the front legs of the goat or sheep and leaves a colored smear on the back end of any of the females that the male...ahem...services. The harness we ordered was made for smaller sheep and goats, but I don't think the creators had dwarf goats in mind when they made this thing.

It took some maneuvering and a few zip ties, but we eventually got the thing securely in place on Gimli's small but very sturdy frame. We chose a yellow crayon because we thought that would be the most visible color on all our various girls' rear ends.

That lip curl is goat talk for, "Damn girl, you so fine!"

Eve was the first to cycle into heat almost immediately after we released Gimli to the girls. By that evening, Eve was sporting a bright yellow butt. We tried our best not to make fun of her tramp stamp.

The following day, Gwen was ready to get into the action, but Eve was still madly in love with our blue eyed boy. What followed was a whole lot of goaty weirdness that involved all three of them jostling each other around and doing things for which I really wish I hadn't had a first row view!

At this point, we are fairly certain that Gimli has had his dwarven way with all the girls except Gertie. He tried is his best, but that big, old lady was just not having it from some pipsqueak of a buck!

At some point, I even saw her mounting him! I'm pretty sure my trying to explain to Gertie that that was not how things were supposed to work in the goat world fell on deaf ears.

The next step is to send off pregnancy tests in a few week to make sure everyone is in a motherly way. Boy are we going to have our hands full come January!

Gimli and Gertie tango

  After he had spent his week in quarantine, it was time to let Gimli out to meet the girls. I let him out of his backyard pen and walked him out to the goat yard where all the goats had just finished breakfast. That crazy boy took one look at the lady goats and made a beeline for Gertie, the biggest, gnarliest, oldest gal we have out there.

  It was love at first sight! Snorting, whooping, peeing, humping, tongue waggling, bug-eyed love. Goat boys are truly ridiculous in their courting rituals.

  Those two started circling like a top, Gimli trying his best to get to Gert's -ahem- business end, and Gertie doing her best to thwart him. And thwart him she did. That girl has obviously been around the block more than once.

 I was busy taking pictures and when I lowered the camera I realized we were surrounded by every other goat in the herd. All this foolishness attracted quite the crowd.

  Amelia even secured herself a front row seat and got comfortable. I tried calling her a pervert, but she didn't seem to care.

  Eve, on the other hand, seemed slightly perturbed at having to watch her mother being courted so lewdly. She eventually pinned her back and walked away saying, "Mom! Ewww!!"

  After about 10 minutes of circling, Gertie decided she had had it, hooked her horn in Gimli's collar, and held him there until he agreed to settle down. I assure you this was no accident. I've seem Gertie use this tactic on Eve when she was young and being too rambunctious. Gert is not a dumb goat.

  The hanging seemed to snapped some sense into Gimli because he stopped chasing tail for long enough to pee all over himself and run around sniffing every other girl in the place, all the while making silly whooping and spitting sounds. I'm telling you, goat boys are ridiculous.

  After watching all that craziness with Gertie, I decided to do something about Gimli's horns before he put someone's eye out. They turn straight out the side and are rather pointy. I didn't have any tools out with me so I improvised some padding using wadded up paper towels and guerrilla tape. This has actually held up really well.

  Gimli never did succeed in wooing Gertie that day. Hopefully he will have better luck with the other ladies!

 

Blue Eyed Boy

Look we what got yesterday! 

  We finally found a suitable boyfriend for our lady goats. We have been looking for just the right buck to bring on the farm for quite a while now and yesterday we think we found him!

 We needed a male that was small enough to safely breed with our mini goats like Gwen and Eve but big enough to physically breed the larger, taller ladies like Thea and Elanore. This handsome dude is a 3 year old Nigerian Dwarf. His previous owner was calling him Willie after a character on Duck Dynasty. He's a sweet boy with beautiful color and a great build. He's a little on the large side for the breed and he has experience breeding full sized goats in one of his previous homes, so we think he is just the boy we were looking for!

  When we went to meet him, he happily took corn from my hand and stood still for us to attach the least. He was a little reluctant to walk with us to the car but hopped right up into the crate when he saw it was filled with hay. He happily munched on hay and alfalfa cubes on the hour drive home.
  In his last home, the poor little guy really didn't have access to any greenery so the minute we got him out of the car he started chomping down on grass.

  Big Onion brought him over to the "garden" in front of the house. Really it's just a flower bed that we don't maintain very well at all. Why waste time, money, and energy growing flowers when you can be growing goat food? He took no time at all to start chowing down on huge mouthfuls of everything in front of him.

  We have decided to call the little guy Gimli after the dwarf in Lord of the Rings. I think the name really suits him. I mean, would you look at that beard?!

  He also has blue eyes which is not something we were specifically looking for, but if we want to sell his kids (and we do) the blue eyed babies can often fetch a higher price.

  For an adult buck, Gimli has been incredibly sweet so far. He walks well on leash and likes being around people. For these reasons, we suspect he was a bottle-raised baby. I may be a bit odd but I don't think he even smells bad. Of course all of this could change once he meets the girls and goes into rut.

  His first meeting with the dogs did not go so smoothly. Barley was being a bit pushy so Gimli dropped his head and gave him a little push back. I guess Rialey did not appreciate some new upstart of a goat threatening her friend so she ran in to defend Barley, circling with big barks and nipping at the goat's sides. Luckily we were able to diffuse the situation quickly, and no one was harmed in the scuffle. I'm sure it will take some time before Gimli will feel comfortable around the dogs, but at least he learned to have a healthy respect for them from the get go.

  He will stay quarantined in the backyard pen for the next week so that we can get him cleared of parasites and make sure he isn't carrying any obvious illnesses. He is already causing a bit of a stir amongst the lady goats. Gwen was the first to catch a whiff of him. She spent the next several hours pressed against the backyard fence and making little goat love calls. I even caught her backed up to and peeing through the fence! The hussy!