Goat roping, Gracie’s party, goat sales

Almost as soon as we got home Friday evening we loaded up what large cages and kennels we had and headed to meet Bro Daniel at the home recently purchased by one of his daughters, so we could get the goats she inherited with that purchase. Mama and I were not sure what to expect. Bro Daniel had told Mama that the goats were larger than the ones we had so neither of us knew if they would fit into the kennels we brought with us. As it turned out, all four of the goats were just about the same size as our Myotonic goats, so, if we could catch them we could get them caged and hauled home. Catching them was a challenge but we managed to lead them into their normal pen and slowly but surely cornered and caught them.

The oldest, Sugar, was very easy; she was very calm, loved to be handled. Of the four, she was the only one without horns, so we took a length of rope and improvised a collar by which Mama and Mrs. Wycoff could lead her to the truck. Once she was loaded into one of the cages we concentrated on the other three. Two of the three gave up pretty quickly. Their horns made a convenient handle to drag them to the truck. They were small enough that we put the two of them together in the largest cage/kennel we had. The last one was the most panicked and the fastest of the four. It took all five of us to get hold of her. After she outmaneuvered Victoria three times, she ran herself into a corner near me and I got enough of a hand on her to make her loose her footing. Once she was down, I got hold of one of her horns and Victoria and I hauled her to the truck; walking her on her back legs with both front legs in the air. That was the only way we could keep hold of her. She had to be stuffed into the smaller of the cages we brought, but we got her into it.

We spent too much time with the Wycoff’s looking at the houses once the goats were loaded and it was getting pretty dark by the time we got to the farm. I had decided in advance to offload the new goats in the old pig pen. Our plan was to run them with Solomon for a couple weeks to see if he would breed them. When I backed the truck up to the fencing of the pen all we had to do was put the goats on the other side of the fence from the back of the truck. Height-wise it worked out perfectly They are nice looking goats; probably a pygmy goat cross but we do not know for sure. Obviously, they have not been fooled with too much recently. We are trying to schedule a lady who does hoof trimming for get their hoofs doctored one coming weekend – they need it badly and it is a bit more than Mama and I are capable of doing ourselves. Mama will soon have all of them tamed down, but for now, they are wary of us – except for Sugar.

Saturday afternoon, I dropped Mama, Yilin and Cheyenne off at Gracie’s birthday party. I cannot be exactly sure, but I think it might have been the first birthday party they have ever attended without their parents. They had a good time there, but I went to the office and worked for an hour to make good use of the hour or so. I needed to wait in town so Mama and I could go to Denton to run a couple errands when she could make her exit from the party. Victoria took the girls home after the party and managed the evening feeding for us. It was a good weekend overall and depending on how we parse out the goats we were given, it may have been a profitable weekend in the long run.

On Saturday a gentleman called Rick to see if he had any female goats for sale and he told the buyer that he did not but he knew someone who did. If that contact works out, we may be able to sell Kia and Yukie this week. At the prices Rick suggested, we will make as much off of the two little females as we made off of a bred cow.

That would be nice.