Got Goat?

Why, yes.... yes we have!

It all started when I was informed one Clover Kids meeting that the Southern Iowa Fair will now be letting kids younger than 4Hers show bottle babies at the fair!  This is a big change and an exciting opportunity for younger children to be able to participate!  Up until now, only kids in 4th grade and older (4H age) could show.  But now, Clover Kids could, too!  (For those of you who don't know, Clover Kids is kinda sorta like a 4H Jr. club for kids Kindergarten - 3rd grade.)  There are a few technicalities to get through to make it an official Clover Kids show class at the fair, so this year will be just an open class.  But official Clover Kids class or not, I was excited at the news!

The restrictions to what can be shown are down to a bottle calf, bottle lamb or bottle goat, all born after a certain date.  Now, being in the family business we're in, you'd think we would immediately jump to a bottle calf.  Right?!  Well, fortunately, we haven't had any babies that were orphaned yet this year!  Which is great news for the calving business, but not so fortunate if one certain little lad or lass should be looking for a bottle calf.  And we certainly aren't going to hope for an orphan!  Keep those babies on their mamas!  Nor are we going to head out looking for a bottle calf to buy.  Have you seen the calf prices?!  Ca-RAAAAzy!  Plus, we're kinda partial to our own stock and don't necessarily want to go off the yard to bring someone elses' stock back.  (That's really the whole point of why the county fairs started anyway... to show off your own stock.  My, how far we've come from the good ol' days!  Sad, really.)

PLUS, we're around cattle all the time and doing something else would be fun.  PLUS our kids are rather small and even a bottle calf baby with a little age on it would jerk them around pretty rough. SO.....

...with a few right time, right place questions, we found ourselves a bottle goat!  TWO bottle goats to be exact!  (That we had to go off our yard to purchase something that was not our own stock... I realize I just contradicted myself.  But it's what the world has come to. Sad, really.  And since we don't own goats, that was the only way to get one... or two rather.)

I call this picture "Helping build the pen: A lesson in wire snipping".

I call this picture "Helping build the pen: A lesson in wiring panel to post".

I happened upon the lesson in the middle of Josh explaining to Caleb that when one tightens wire around something, say a fence post, one should always tighten it clockwise.  Then when (if) the next guy comes along to untighten it, he automatically knows to go counter-clockwise to loosen it.  When I chuckled at Josh's preciseness, he said it was a universal rule that everyone knew.  I guess I learn something knew everyday!  I always thought tightening was tightening, clockwise or counter-...  But Caleb will grow up knowing the correct way of righty-tighty, lefty-loosey.

Sarah, while she showed a little (and I mean a little) interest in the panel arranging, post placing, wire snipping and clockwise tightening lesson, was more interested in playing in the doghouse.  The doghouse was a house we built for our first of three (or four?) dogs that just didn't work out.  So now, now it becomes a goat house!

While we had to splurge a little on the baby goats, the rest of the set up cost us nothing more than time and effort!  We already had the dog...um, I mean, goat house.  And since it seems like half of a cattle farmer's job is fencing, we obviously had plenty of fence posts.  And the panels are 17+ year old hog panels from a hog lot we no longer use.  (Thanks to Papa Loren for donating them to the cause!)

Gotta love our sense of humor!  It would be another two days before we would have the goats, so the kids and I stuck Elsie in the pen for a laugh.  The goats have been in the pen for almost a week now and Elsie is still there.  (You do remember Elsie, right?)

More importantly in this picture, though, is Caleb bedding up the babies' house.

Pen built, Elsie placed, and house bedded up.    I'd say that's a job well done!

Finally Friday morning arrived and we were on our way fifteen minutes north to get out new adoptees!  You can't tell from the picture, but the kids are beyond excited!

After being introduced to the does (mama goats) and other kids (baby goats) and seeing the family's set of miniature cows (I want one of them, too!  SO cute!) on the Edgren farm, we were headed back south to home.  Caleb has his kid, the older of the two, named Oliver.

And Sarah Rose has her baby, named Godwin.

About the names, you ask?  Josh and I both named one, because if we had left the kids to naming them, we'd be stuck with something like Moose and Flood (the names of their favorite cats).  So I named mine Oliver, Ollie for short, which is totally a cute name for a goat.  And Josh named his Godwin, from Duck Dynasty.  Godwin the Goat.  I guess it works.

By the time we got back home, Josh had to stop at Grandpa's place to help with a cow having trouble, so it was just Caleb and Sarah and I left to introduce the babies to their new home.  This picture above shows just how little the kids ("kids" as in baby goats) were.  The little guy, Godwin, on the far left is smaller than our cat in the middle!

Godwin and the cat still aren't sure of each other!

Since they were still awfully small and the weather was going to be getting chilly, the kids spent the first three nights in a lovely cardboard box goat hotel in our kitchen.  They spent the days outside in their pen to soak up the warmth of the sun.  The babies have since been booted out of the kitchen at night, having taken their little hotel with them to the front porch.  Unfortunately, it's supposed to get cold tonight, so we're going to have to make some warmer arrangements for them than on the porch.

Within a day, Oliver was expanding his horizons.  He says hi.

We want the kids to be able to show the kids at the fair.  That's the fun part of it.  But a bigger reason why we got the kids kids was because I (and Josh, too... but I really pushed it) wanted Caleb and Sarah to have some responsibility to be accountable for.  Children learn best when taught young.  And Caleb and Sarah are learning what it takes to care and nurture animals.   Young baby goats are very similar to baby humans: they take frequent feedings (as in, at least one middle of the night feeding) and need some attention.  So the days of sleeping in (til anything after 7:00) are over as Caleb and Sarah are woken up early in the mornings to begin the day of tending their goats.  They are responsible for not only feeding them, but also getting them to the pen each morning, latching the gate, making sure there is food in the dish, and babysitting them during yard time. (Which is the cutest!  The kids (baby goats) chase and play with the kids (Caleb and Sarah) just like a dog would!)  Soon, we'll get a collar and leash and they will have to break the goats to lead.  I think it'll be a really good experience for the children to have!

P.S.  I was the one who did the middle of the night feedings and I'm SO glad goats outgrow that phase quicker than babies do!