Fancy and her Babies

Fancy is taking very good care of her babies.  When she jumped out of the pen and left them to go out and graze I feared I had a neglectful mother on my hands.  On the advice of my goat friends, I finally let the babies go.  They clung together and wouldn't leave the barn.  I don't blame them.  The walk up to the field is a nasty, muddy, wet climb with all this rain and run off we've been having.  The angora goats are so funny.  The moms will come up to the edge of the pasture, look back to the barn ands start screaming for the kids to follow.  The babies stay in the barn and scream their heads off, as if to say, come and get us, or no, we don't want to go out there.   Finally they come, dancing and bouncing along.  Fancy doesn't mind leaving her babies in the barn.  It gives her more freedom to roam the hillside with her sister, Matilda.  They stand on their hind legs and pick leaves off the apple trees.  When I noticed them doing that I realized who was getting to the flakes of hay I have piled on top of the hanging rabbit cages.  I put Fancy's babies back in their pen and let Fancy in with them when she comes back in from the field.  She can jump over the panels easily so it's no problem when I'm at work.  The corn I give her inside the pen with her babies is a great incentive.  Still haven't decided when I'm going to start milking her.  Some goat people wait two weeks or more to give the babies a good start.  I'm out of school in another week so I'm thinking I will start then.  I have a big job ahead of me with cleaning the milk room, which is full of junk, and hosing it out.   I have to pull the pieces of my milking stand out of the pile in the back of the barn and put it together.  I'm sure it will need some work.  I'm hoping Luke will be on the farm by then to help me with all this.  I'm very excited about my first dairy adventure.  I've been preparing Fancy for this intimate interaction with lots of petting and stroking of her udder.  I want to find a Nubian buck for Matilda, and, in time, Fancy's daughter Babette.  Bubba will be banded and play to his heart's content until I decide what to do with him.  I'm totally enthralled with my Nubian goats.  They are beautiful, sweet, mesmerizing animals.