Our new goats arrived!

When we first moved in, we had only 2 goats, Harriet and Butterbean. As Harriet is starting to get old in goat years, she is not as active as younger goats and Butterbean seemed a bit lonely (and he was really getting a bit too fat and not building muscle). We wanted to get another goat or two to add to the flock so Butterbean would have someone to play with and get a bit more exercise. After searching the local area for kids (i.e., baby goats) and coming up empty, we contacted a local farmer who was looking to downsize her flock. (Click continue for the rest of the story and goat headbutting videos!)

We settled on a group of 3 goats, Ruby and her grown kids, Rascal and Rosebud (See Our Animals for pictures and their basic backgrounds). Rascal is a friendly goat and we hope he will be friends with Butterbean. They were delivered from off the back of a pick-up truck and we kept them in a separate pasture from Harriet and Butterbean for a couple of weeks so they could adjust to each other and see and smell each other through the fences.

Once we felt they were ready, we opened the gates and let them meet face to face.

There was a flurry of activity as the goats sorted out their new social hierarchy structure.  Here are some photos and videos of the action.

Shortly after introducing the new goats.

Note that goats have very hard heads and they are designed to hit each other. No goats were physically harmed during the above.

The goats are still getting used to each other, but the headbutting has calmed down significantly and now they mostly co-exist together peacefully. The new goats tend to stay close to each other and Harriet and Butterbean tend to stay close to each other, but we hope they mix together a bit more as time goes on.

All 5 goats hang out in the pasture (with the cows in the background).