Taking Dym Home

In my last blog post I talked about some of the difficult decisions I have to make on the farm when it comes time to reduce the size of our goat herd. We do this so that the amount of pasture we have will support our herd because less crowded conditions are less stressful to the goats and do make for healthier, happier animals.

One of the goats that found a new home this year was a Nubian doe named Dym. It is never easy to let one go, especially a goat as friendly as Dym but I know she is in a wonderful new home with a family that will give her lots of care and attention. Mandy had bought a Boer wether from us back in 2006 and gave him such a nice home that I contacted her about if they would like to add a Nubian like Dym to their family with the condition that if they ever decided in the future they no longer could keep her that I would take her back. She is a special girl and I did not want her to end up at a sale barn. There is only one other goat at her new home which I imagine suits Dym quite fine since she really does love to be the center of attention.

We took Dym to her new home south of Wichita about three weeks ago and it was a little bit more of an adventure than I had planned. Dym is a very tame and easy to handle goat so I figured we could just put a tarp in the backseat of our little red car and haul her that way instead of taking an uncomfortable and gas guzzling truck.

We had planned on driving Dym up to her new home on Saturday. Jamey had taken a vacation day earlier in the week to make sure we got our hay put up before it rained and his job was not very supportive of it so he unexpectedly had to work Friday night. So right from the beginning we got a late start. It was not a bad drive at all though and the miles went by quickly, maybe a little too quickly for me.

Dym did so well in the car, just like I knew she would. Honestly, she rode better in the car than most dogs I have known! She looked out the side window part of the time but most of the way she just held her head between the front seats and over our shoulders. That is just like Dym, always wanting to be a part of things.

We saw lots of hay fields on the way up there. I guess we were not the only ones scrambling to get hay baled after all the rain in July. Not long after we went through the last town before our destination we started hearing an awful...thud..thud..thud. Oh no, what a wonderful time to get a flat tire! The road we were on did not have good shoulders so we quickly pulled into the end of a driveway in front of a well manicured lawn.

Jamey checked the trunk...no spare, not even a donut. Apparently Jamey had taken it out in order to have more room to haul things in the trunk and it did not get put back. I had just assumed it was still in there for the trip. OK, plan B, fix-a-flat sealant to the rescue! Nope, that didn't work either, the can wouldn't even spray right. Geez, talk about unprepared, no spare and a defective can of Fix a flat. There was obviously no Boy Scouts on this trip.

This was about the time the owner of the house came out. He was nice enough to quickly help us air up the tire with his portable air compressor. He didn't seem to be the slightest bit surprised or even curious as to why we had a 130lb goat in the backseat. We had both saw a tire shop back in town just a few miles away so we headed back but the car only made it about a mile down the road before the tire went flat again. Drats!

One thing we DID have was a cell phone! So we called Mandy and she was nice enough to drive out to where we were. Luckily we were only a few miles away. While we waited, I got Dym out of the car and held her off the road, along side the ditch while Jamey took the flat tire off the car. Strangely enough lots of people slowed way down at the sight of a goat on a leash beside the highway but no one stopped to ask if we needed any help. I can't judge them too much, they could have been afraid that us AND our GOAT might need a ride somewhere! hehe

It did not take Mandy long at all to pull up in her handy SUV and she was nice enough to give us and the goat a ride to the tire shop! Tire now fixed, and with some much appreciated help we did manage to get Dym to her new home. A pretty, country place with a walnut grove and some new friends, a Boer wether and two cute little miniature horses. I sure am going to miss that goat but she could not have went to a better home or a nicer family and that makes it easier.

A Hopeful Heart

I don't think I have taken as much time as I should in the past to look for the special little things in life. I am trying to change that and to take the time to appreciate all the beauty in the world around me. Like a beautiful sunrise, morning dew shining on the grass, or the way the tree leaves rustle in the wind.

I do know one person who knows how to appreciate the special little things in life and in the heart of nature. In fact she has a wonderful and interesting blog called Random Hearts dedicated to it. Clytie was kind enough to feature a picture of a goat I raised on her "Guest Heart Thursdays" blog post yesterday. This goat's registered name is "Chance's Hopeful Heart" but we always called her Heart for short. Can you figure out why? Heart was not alone on Clytie's blog this week, you should really check out the other animals with heart on her blog.

And what about Heart the goat? She is doing well, Heart and her two young kids went to live in a wonderful home and now belongs to a couple of the nicest people you could ever meet, sisters Deb and Dee. Who also own Heart's two younger half sisters as well, so she went to live with family you could say!

I do still have some of Heart's other sisters and one of her doe kids from 2009 on the farm. This is an old picture of Heart's doeling taken last year when she was a kid. I can't believe I don't have a more recent one. I had not even planned on keeping her last year but she has turned out to be such a nice goat. She isn't going anywhere now!

Heart's mother Hope is also still on the farm, you may remember her as the alfalfa loving goat.... definitely not her most flattering picture! So I promised Hope the goat I would make it up to her by posting a much nicer picture of her on the blog, one where she isn't stuffing her face with alfalfa anyway. Three generations of great goats, Grandmother Hope, Daughter Heart and now Granddaughter....shoot she still needs a name! I am terrible.

Hope as a three year old.

Pictures From Sundae's Mom

We have been raising goats here on Shiloh Prairie Farm for quite awhile. I greatly appreciate and want to thank every person who has taken home a goat or dog from our farm, without their support we could not continue to do what we do here on the farm.

One of these wonderful people is Sundae's Mom. It is always a little hard to let any animal I have raised go, but bottle babies are especially difficult. Sundae was a bottle baby we had born on the farm in 2007. She was as sweet of a little goat as there ever was and would come running every time she seen me, begging to be picked up. Sundae was certainly a cute baby, with her extra long basset hound ears and little determined chin. Jamey named her Sundae because when she was born she had a chocolate colored head and markings on her little white body that reminded him of a chocolate sundae. I guess he was in the mood for ice-cream that day and Sundae should feel lucky she did not end up with Chunky Monkey as a name, but since I do get to name more of the goats than he does I agreed with his name for her. So Sundae she was named.

As is the nature of a farm, you just can't keep them all no matter how cute they are, and they are all cute. Summer was coming to an end and we had the prospect of a long winter ahead, it was time to cut the herd back a little. Second only to losing a beloved pet and raising one's own food, one of the most difficult things to do on a farm is deciding who to sell to keep the herd numbers in check and the farm going.

These are the decisions one must make with their head and not with their heart, which is something I admit I often struggle with. When cutting a goat herd back, my head told me it made more sense to let the weanlings go and keep the does old enough to breed that fall. Sundae was one of those weanlings that year. I also had to consider the fact since she did not have a mom to stand up for her in the goat herd she was being pushed around and pushed out of the shelter by the other goats, so a home in a smaller herd might be what was best for her. I had to add her name to the list of goats to sell that year.

I put Sundae on the sale page of our website along with the others on my difficult list and advertised that we had goats for sale online. A lady that was starting a Boer goat herd emailed me about Sundae not long after I put her on our website and asked for front, side & rear view pictures; I gladly obliged. Several emails and a phone call later the arrangements was made for the lady to pick Sundae up on a certain day. I didn't have a definite time but she said she would call when she was close, by late that evening it became clear the lady must have changed her mind. I am only human and I admit I was a little peeved to be stood up, left hanging by the phone all day with not even the consideration of a phone call or email.

I never heard from that lady again but a few days later I saw an ad online from another lady looking for a couple Nubian bottle goats for pets. Sundae was weaned by this time, but she was a former bottle baby and still had all the lovable sweetness of one. She also wasn't a Nubian, though she wasn't quite a fullblood Boer either so it was possible there might have been a little bit of Nubian in her background somewhere, her ears were certainly long enough! I took a chance and emailed the lady, whose name was Rebecca. At first I did not think she was going to be interested since Sundae wasn't exactly what she was looking for. I am always a little cautious of selling goats as pets to just anybody because you never know if it is just a fad for them that will fade to leave the poor goat with a long and lonely existence, tied up in a barren yard neglected somewhere. That is a much worse fate than a quick & considerate death for a meat goat destined for the freezer in my humble opinion. Not that Sundae ever had any risk of that since she had so expertly wormed her way into my heart with her happy little bottle grunts and milk mustaches.

As it would turn out I did not need to worry about Rebecca, she had other goats and sheep, as well as experience with raising them. Rebecca did decide to come out to the farm and take Sundae home. Over the years we have had some truly wonderful customers buy goats from us, all people you just know would take great care of any animal they own. Rebecca was however the first person to actually bring a small photo album of her other animals to show us. I really enjoyed that and when I saw the picture of an obviously very loved and spoiled sheep welcomed into her home I was never so happy to have been stood up in my life. I knew Sundae was going to a really great home with a kind and special owner. Maybe it was a little bit of fate that Sundae ended up going home with Rebecca in the end, but I am so glad she did.

Rebecca has been kind enough to send me some updates on Sundae over the last year and a half. She recently sent me a couple pictures of Sundae, my how she has grown! Thanks for the pictures Rebecca!

An Email From Sundae's Mom!

When you raise animals and they go to new homes you often wonder how they are doing. Every once in awhile their new owners will send me updates on the goats they have got from me and I always love getting them. One of the best for doing this is a very nice lady named Rebecca from Oklahoma. Last fall she bought a young doe kid named Sundae from us as a pet. Rebecca has been very happy with the goat she got from us and has sent me several updates on how Sundae is doing and has even sent pictures. I happily got another nice email from Sundae's "mom" a couple weeks ago and she updated me on how Sundae is doing and sent me some new pictures of her. Rebecca's email is copied below:
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Hi!

I just wanted to let you know Sundae is still doing wonderful. I think she is so pretty. She still loves Annie & Belle. They are all 3 always together. She is very protective of them if one of the other goats pick on them Sundae will defend them. They all 3 come in the house every night to get treats and get their special attention. They are spoiled rotten. Here are some new pictures I took of Sundae thought you would like to see how big she has gotten.

Rebecca