This year we have goats

We try to purchase some sort of animal each year and this year it is goats.  They are very cute and have provided endless hours of entertainment.  They have traveled to Calgary with us in the back of our car. We have been bottle feeding them for the past two months.  The McCues were here one weekend in March and we headed off to the auction.  We came home with six goats and seven rabbits.  The goats were about a week old, one of them blackie (who was the only goat with black on it and who was the smallest goat I have ever seen, but the kids all wanted it because of its color) was almost dead when he arrived.  The kids had it the house, in their beds wrapped in a blanket trying to revive it.  Unfortunately Blackie didn't make it through the night. We also lost two other ones, but now I know what to do with goats and the three left are thriving. 

                                              They were tiny.

                                           They lived in the greenhouse for the first month of their lives.

   

Yes they do come in the house.

One day I found Rose out on the step with a three goats, she was sitting there singing and talking to them. She has no fear.  It is funny when other little kids come over and won't go near the goats but here she is wrestling them down to the ground.  She likes to grab one of their legs and pull them where she wants them to go.

    Rose and Margaret had  goat in a playpen one day for about an hour, it was great entertainment.

        It has been fun to bottle feed them, the kids usually are the ones to do it, some days they grumble but they have been pretty good.

   This was the funniest day ever,  the McCues were visiting and I don't know who thought this one up but they decided to make the goats soccer jerseys.  So Caroline and Conner cut up old t-shirts and glued numbers on their backs and voila soccer goats.  They added little ankle bracelets and hats.  The goats actually kept them on for quite some time.

 James and Margaret have one of the goats on a leash.

    Here is Miss Margaret in all her glory.  Jenny-Lynn commented on how Margaret treats animals, if it not doing what she wants, she just hits it. This little goat was basically dragged around by the leash, it eventually learned who was boss.

   
                                           I have put an end to goats in the house but they do frequently come inside. I guess that is the great thing about not having any carpet.   Their favorite place to be is our front porch and they have taken over Stella's domain, all three of them sleep under a little shelf right beside the front door.  It makes a terrible mess on our front porch.  We have tried to put them in a fence, but they keep escaping.   We've had lots of fun with them.