Tessi and Tori, our 2 goat kids, needed a series of vaccines at ages 1-month and 3-months. Our local vet did a on-site farm visit for the first round of vaccines at 1-month old but all of her farm-call openings were booked at the time for the 3-month shot.

So, we took them to the vet’s office in the nearby town instead. It is only a 10 minute drive away.  As the kids hadn’t been weaned from their mother yet, we took their mom along as well to try to limit the amount of screaming and crying.

Treat, Tessi and Tori visit the vet.

They were mostly curious to be in a new area with new things to chew on and new rooms to explore.

Treat looking at the exam table.

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As long time readers already know, we bought 2 goat kids and their mom from another farm earlier this year. But, it was a harder selection process than you might think.

There were a lot of cute goat kids running around – it was very hard to pick!

Many of the smaller goat kids were wearing sweaters to stay warm as it was unseasonably cold in mid-April this year.

Goat kids in sweaters.

More goats in sweaters:

More goat kids in sweaters.

In addition to the ones in sweaters, many of the slightly larger kids were running around the barn, chasing each other and getting into all sorts of typical goat trouble.

A bunch of goat kids.

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As we have been married for at least a few years, we occasionally get comments or questions about when we are having “kids”.

Well, that time has finally come – and it’s twins!

We picked up twin goat kids from a local farm last week! They were just born in mid-April. Their assigned names are Testarossa and Torino, but we have taken to calling them Tessi and Tori. Tessi has a white spot on her forehead and Tori has a white spot on her side.

Tessi and Tori cuddling together.

In addition to the twins, we also brought their mother along. Her name is Treat (her home farm has been using food themes for many of their names – other goats from that farm include Applesauce, Lasagna, Taffy, Cabbage, and Poptart). That farm is now using car names also, such as Testarossa, Porsche, Audi, Delorean and Prius.

Without their mother, the twins could need bottle feedings every few hours. With their mother present and taking care of them, they need a lot less supervision and help. However, we hope to spend a lot of time with them and play with them frequently so they get used to people and are easier to handle when they grow up.

Goat kids Tessi and Tori with their mother Treat in the background.

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Both of Harriet’s horns had already broken off before we bought the farm – long time readers will remember that Harriet was one of the 2 original goats that came along with the farm from the prior owners.

However, the prior breaks did not completely stop the horns from continuing to grow. Pieces of each of her horns are still growing slowly. The remnant horn growths are called scurs.

Unfortunately one or her scurs was growing but curving back towards her head and was close to touching her skull. It needed to be cut or removed to prevent the horn from pushing against her skull.

We asked the vet to perform the procedure as we hadn’t previously cut or removed a horn ourselves (though we did deal with the aftermath after another goat broke off a piece of his horn). The vet’s initial plan was to just remove a small portion off the tip of the scur so it wouldn’t be touching her skull. Given Harriet’s advanced age and slow growth of the scur, it would have been unlikely that the horn would grow enough to touch her skull again.

Harriet’s horn.

However, not everything goes to plan. While the vet was beginning to cut the tip of the horn, the entire horn scur broke off!

The vet had already numbed Harriet’s head all around the horn so Harriet was not in immediate pain. But we needed a way to seal the horn and stop the bleeding.

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A local charter school hosted a farm animal day during their day camp over the summer. As one of the few farmers in the area raising fiber goats, we were asked to bring one of our goats to show and explain to the children. That meant another chance to transport one of our goats off the farm.

When preparing to transport a farm animal directly in the car outside of a crate when you don’t have a pickup truck or trailer, it is important to have the right set up so everything goes well and doesn’t ruin the inside of the car.

In our case, we used the cargo area of our Subaru Forester. Here is a picture before goat preparations.

The cargo area before goat preparations.

First, we placed a waterproof tarp over the entire area, folding up the sides where necessary so any fluids remain trapped on the tarp. Then, we installed the temporary pet barrier so the goat couldn’t jump over the back seat. Finally, we placed towels on top of the tarp so it was more comfortable and absorbent if necessary.

After preparations.

Finally, you just need to add a goat…

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The goats have had free run of the 3 biggest pastures since late September – able to go in and out of the pastures whenever they felt like it.  When the new tenant cows arrive this spring, we will need to rotate the goats into different pastures opposite the cows. While this isn’t a problem in terms of the amount of grass they will have available to eat, it does present an issue with trying to feed them a little bit of hay over the summer while the cows are here.

The outer barn has ample space to spread out hay in various locations so all of the goats can feed at once without fighting over it.  Once the goats are rotated off of the pasture with the barn to the other pastures, there are many fewer places to spread out the hay.  We decided to design and build a new homemade goat feeder to feed them their hay.

Here is a video of the goats testing out the new goat feeder:

Unfortunately, the first test was only partially successful. The goats successfully ate some hay from it and were not able to knock it over or lift up the roof. However, they began to eat pieces of the wood off of the feeder itself around the corners. We had to remove the feeder from service until we can make some small tweaks before trying again.

Click through for a more detailed description of the goat feeder.

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