Well we got the goats. The doe is as tame as promised and she is awesome on a lead. She will let herself be milked and you can mess with her front feet without ANY protest. Her back feet will be more of a 2 person clipping job, but that's it! We put her in the horse stall and the first--two seconds later--thing she does is get her head stuck in the stall door! We covered the gaps in welded wire but the horns gotta go. We have a lot of chicken predators--hawks, possums, raccoons--but fencing will keep big dogs--and the rare coyote--out. Plus I plan to get a great Pyrenese to patrol and protect the poultry, rabbits, goats and the meat cow in our plans. I need a Pyr because of our EXTREMELY close neighbors that could easily get bitten by just walking out their own door by a stranger-aggressive dog; they're supposed to be more people friendly than Anatolions and Komondors. I hope I'm spelling these right!
The buckling is about five months and she doesn't let him nurse anymore so that's good. She's still very attached and if gets out of sight she calls him back--it's cute! She is also very likely bred back--breeding date sometime between July 1st and today. Don't you just love people who keep great breeding records? Ugh. Anyway I'll be watching to see if she starts showing or if she isn't bred. The buds on the boy are too big to disbud by a lot. I have a vet to cut off the horns. It'll be tough but I'm doing it soon so they'll be all healed up before any new herdmates show up. I wish they'd been disbursed but that was a fairly small setback in some awesome goats!
Now I just have to build a milking stand and oh yeah fencing! And I have to get their shelter all cleaned out; it's probably full of wasps and snakes! The brush out there is such that I won't be able to see the goats for a week or two until they munch it down! Haha!
Thinking about Greek names. I like Toula or Hestia for mom, Nikki or Orion for buckling. Any input??
In other news the rabbits we butchered are DELICIOUS! I can't believe how much of a difference 2 weeks made in flavor. Wow. I sold my last silkie chicks and have hatched 6 keets so far under a broody. Our bators should hatch soon. About 30+ silkies due in three days and 30+ guineas in 10 days, 10 turkeys and a handful of Australorps. Then we refill with Australorp eggs and start again! Also the quail eggs need to be incubated. I want some quail chicks to sell before fall comes.
I'd like to make up for my failed garden with chicky sales!
Also keep selling TONS of fertile eggs. Our hatching rates and pretty, healthy chicks/poults/keets keep people coming back for more. Repeat customers always boost the confidence.
Tomorrow I can focus on tomatoes again and call the lady about picking peas 
