Rockstar serves his groupies

Upon his arrival the girls were in a lather of goatie hormones.  Such a handsome boy, with cologne to die for (if not to die from).  Rockstar’s grooming was perfect, he was encrusted in urine; he had peed all over his face, goatie beard, and down his front legs, even into his mouth, an amazing feat!

Yeah, he is a real cool dude.   Like a true star he swaggers between his groupies flapping his tongue, while the shameless hussies wiggle their tails rapidly under his nose and brush up close to his magnificent presence.

A couple of the girls will try to get his attention by squatting and urinating so he can place his nose in the urine stream.  This is so wonderful he raises his head, curling/rolling his lip to detect the pheromones that tell him she is ready to be mated.  

Now the party starts. He begins dancing with a lucky girl by kicking one of his front legs forward along her side and singing; well it is actually more like a blubbering and hollering, but hey, he is the star, who am I to criticise his musical talent. 

The girls swoon, they love him. He is Rockstar!

Rockstar

Jagger was my first buck and predecessor to Rockstar.  I had no idea of the bucky ritual when they are in rut. All I saw in my paddock was my buck doing his best impersonation of Mick Jagger from the Rolling Stones. He was strutting around the paddock stage, lips curling, tongue flapping and belting out his interpretation of ‘I can’t get no satisfaction’ to the girls. 

Jagger 

There is no other smell to compare to the eau de cologne of buck. It is possibly the worst stink you could ever encounter and this is even before they start urinating over themselves for rut.  Imagine an acrid stink on steroids!  The buck has a scent gland behind his horns that produces oil. I am sure the oily particles float through the air permeating the very pores of your skin, rendering clothing unfit to wear, wedging in the sinuses and making your eyes burn. Don’t even think of touching him even with a finger the smell will not easily wash away, but for some reason the does think it is the most divine aroma and go mad for it.  

After the does stage door date with Rockstar I now have 20 wide loads all due to kid anyday.
Yippee more cute kids! 

This girl still had six weeks to go at the time of the photo. I am betting this lovely wide load is having triplets.

I was normal three goats ago

I saw a T-shirt on Pinterest with the slogan, ‘I was normal three goats ago’.  I have never seen anything so apt for myself.  It is no secret I shamelessly love my goats. My hubby begs me not tell people that. He reckons it makes me look loopy; too bad, it is far too late to save my reputation, everyone has already formed that opinion of me. 

This love didn’t happen straight away. Goats are just goats, right? A herd animal that hangs out in the paddock. My son describes them as meat walking on legs. I tried to think of them that way until after we picked up our first 20 pregnant goats.  I then observed how intelligent, social and trusting they were and how each had such a distinct personality.  I found myself secretly naming some of them. Black Betty was bossy and brash, Woolly because of her long coat, Cleopatra walked like an Egyptian, Muriel...well she looked like a Muriel! 

I was told from the beginning not to name my herd goats, certainly not the males, who on anyone else’s property would have a short destiny.  A name forms an attachment.  Well, I am sorry, it doesn’t matter if my horned ones have a name or a herd number I still become emotionally connected with them. They all have their unique personalities which I know like the back of my hand.

My boys with no names - ha!  Number 1 Son, Big Boy, Cheeky, Diesel, et al.

Traits are passed on to their kids, I will be doing husbandry on a goat and comment to him or her (yes I talk to my goats too) how their hooves or personality is just like their mum’s or even their grandmother’s.  My hubby looks at me strangely asking how I could possibly know who their mother is from our large herd. I look oddly back at him and state ‘how could I not know!’, then reel off mum’s herd number. Sure enough when he checks the back of the ear tag for their mother’s number I am always correct. 

The true passion for my goats began with the fist kidding on our property when I hand raised three kids. I was now to discover not only could a goat be intelligent, trusting, packed with personality, curious, at times infuriating and strong willed but also how loving they can be.

Coffee, Victor and Rose were all born the same day.  Coffee and Victor’s mother birthed quads. She had decided she could not raise four babies so she was tossing the smallest two through the air trying to kill them. 

The gentleman we bought the does from had advised me not to interfere with the whole kidding process.  I watched doe '# 3' trying to rid herself of these two and thought "Surely he doesn’t mean for me to simply allow her to kill them?" Coffee was the runt but oh so determined.  Each time he was tossed away he went back to her trying to get milk.  So I marched in there and rescued them. Stuff not interfering! 

Another doe had also given birth to two kids not far from this scene of potential murder. I observed she was not bonding with one of the kids. Rose was curled up under a bush, not cleaned up after birth, totally abandoned by her mother. No matter how many times I took her over to her mother the mum would move her other baby away leaving Rose alone. 

Rosie not long after birth

Rose is sometimes in a world of her own.  I believe Rose was mis-mothered because she had a tough birth, lacking oxygen for a short time and did not move straight after being born. A goat mother will perceive this as something seriously wrong with the kid, abandoning it for the stronger of her babies. 

I rang my husband to tell him we had three new additions to the family.  The old cubby house in our suburban backyard had a temporary fence erected around it and saw renewed life as their weekday manor house.

Then eight weeks later Otis joined the lucky ones.

Yes I was normal three goats (+1) ago.