Hey Ya'all!
@bluerthangreen is back, once again, after quite a long absence. I'm not go to rehash the woes of my busy schedule again, so I'll just get right to it:
In the midst of my crazy work schedule I was blessed to be able to take two separate trips out of the state of Arkansas with my lovely family.
- The first trip was to visit some dear friends in the Farmerville, Louisiana area.
- The second trip was back to the land of my birth (Wisconsin) to visit all kinds of family and friends. (I'll make a separate post about this trip shortly)
One of the reasons for visiting our friends in Louisiana was to procure a freshly weened gift:
An adorable Nubian/Nigerian Dwarf cross kid named Azura.
@allforthegood and I brought Azura back and introduced her to our older homestead veterans, the 4 Kinko/Boar cross goats that we’ve been providing room and board for over the past year plus.
Much to our surprise we discovered that our veterans weren’t very warm and welcoming to our newest addition to the herd.
Instead of being Billy Goats Gruff they were...
!!!Bully Goats Rough!!!
These no-good-for-nothing free loaders immediately began battering the poor little girl with their heads!
To add insult to injury, they also kept her from eating!
These beasties could all be laying down, far away from the feed trough, practically sleeping
and when this gentle little soul would timidly try to steal a quick bite the big bullies would storm over and head butt her away.
Even our female Kinko/Boar goat that we affectionately named “Little Girl”, who used to be the “butt” of the other three castrated males oppression, joined in on ramming Azura away from her food! I thought for sure she would have been more chummy with the new gal since "girls gotta stick together" and all. But, NOPE!
We had to bring her out of the pen area and feed her separately for the good part of the that first week she was with them.
If there is one thing I can't stand, that's injustice and bullying.
@allforthegood and I decided it was time to quickly convert our year long investment of feed into homegrown meat.
Fortunately for her (and for the fur wrapped meat bags) this torment only lasted for about a week. Before we left for our next trip all the herd seemed to be getting along much better. I guess the pecking order had to be firmly established first.
We hope to raise Azura up to breeding age and purchase a Nubian Buck to sire her. After that the Bluer than Green Homestead with be flowing with milk and honey…well, at least milk for now, honey bees are to be a future addition.
Thanks for Reading!
As Always,
Goats have a natural system to finding the leader of the herd. When an undisputed strongest goat emerges any other goats that try to join has to learn the social system and are often left out until they show that they understand their place within the herd.
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This rough housing happens every time we introduce a new animal to the homestead. The longest period we had was two weeks of the terrible behavior.
I don't know who this is harder on, them or us!
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Probably harder on us. Although not letting Azura eat was a little hard to take.
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We have been looking more and more into goats for our homestead, maybe next year. Thanks for the information!
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I'll keep you posted on how our goat Adventure goes. I'm going to explain my next article why we are switching over to Dairy goats instead of meat goats for now.
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Looking forward to it!
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I understand that goats are great for a homestead as long as your nearest neighbors are not so near.
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Fencing, fencing, fencing...
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Fencing is great, but what if you have close neighbors who don't like the noise?
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Most livestock are not welcome in city limits because of the nuisance factor. If I had a neighbor living with in less than an acre from my house then I wouldn't have them.
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Seems reasonable
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Poor baby! Thanks for looking out for her and showing the others who's really the boss!
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So are you really going to convert those other goats into meat? How much meat do you get out of one?
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Yes, and we'll find out soon.
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Aw, she's cute @bluerthangreen! Don't know if I could ever eat an animal I raised - best if I don't know the meat beforehand ;)
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Does the dog in the pen think he's a goat or is he there to kind of watch over "the herd"?
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Tygra is still a puppy, so he's in there to learn to coexist with our livestock. They bullied him too when he was younger.
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Goats! They can be pretty feisty with all that headbutting.
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Indeed!
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