The goats have weathered the weather so far so good.* Our goats are angora goats, with nice thick curly fur. Imagine a cross between a sheep and a poodle -- they look sorta like that. With the snow as deep as it is, they spend most of their time inside the barn. On sunny days they step outside to catch a few rays, but not for very long.
We have plenty of feed for them. Not knowing how much two goats would eat over a winter, I ordered 100 bales of grass hay and 20 bales of alfalfa last fall. It's January now, and we still have well over half of the bales left in the barn. During the summer, the goats will be eating mostly fresh grass (and weeds), and should hardly touch their hay. So some of this hay will no doubt stretch through to next winter.
They have a heated water bucket (thank heavens for that - much better than chopping ice and hauling water), and get grain about every other day. I have to feed it to them in two separate pails, otherwise Dawn (the older and dominant goat) won't let Eve have any grain. They always have hay or alfalfa available, and the stuff they don't eat gets pulled out of their manger and makes a warm bedding on the floor.
I can't wait until spring to see what these two little weed-vacuum cleaners will do in their pasture. I hope this experiment in livestock and weed control is a success. It will make it easier to convince my husband to upgrade to a cow at some point in the future ...
*If my goats were neutered males, I could have said "our wethers have weathered the weather" . Ha ha ha ha! Ha ha. Hmm. A little goat humor there. Ok, I guess you had to be there...
2 comments:
Can you tell yet if one is pregnant? I forgot which one was on her honeymoon last Fall!! They both look kinda round from your picture!!
Dawn (the brown one) is supposedly pregnant. No, I can't tell. At this point they are both well-fed and fluffy, so I can't really tell. Due in late April!
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