I just have to say.......

[jill.costello]

My goats are LIARS!!!!

A little background: I have a very pregnant female horse who grew up in a "show home" and learned to dunk her hay into her water bucket bite by bite as she was eating it. Now that she's an outside girl, she still walks her fat rear all the way to the water trough to dunk a mouthful here and there.

Soooooooo, today I hear SCREAMING from the goatie yard, which is behind our big workshed about 30 yards from the house. I throw my precious morning coffee at the sink, and bolt out the door in my pjs and barefeet. There are THREE of my 4 goaties with their HEADS stuck through the cattle panel, all in a row. They ignore me, because the object of their undivided attention happens to be my big fat fatty mare, who also just HAPPENS to be dragging large tufts of gorgeous alfalfa hay right past the goat yard on her way to the water trough.



I felt like a Nazi bopping them on their thick skulls and yelling "NO! No 'falfie for you! No! Greedy, alarmist, spoiled rotten fat goaties!"

Ohhhhhh, the things we do when no one is around......

[Jcran]

"The Goats Who Cried Hay"- old hat here...my buck is a typical guy (no offense out there but boy does that stereotype cross all species boundaries)...he is constantly complaining that there's not enough clean hay in the feeder, I didn't give him enough grain at each feeding, he needs a new girlfriend, on and on and on. Oh, it may SOUND like bah, bah, bah, but we goat moms KNOW these things.

[jen74145]

Heehee, thanks for the laugh. I have the funniest mental image now, lol.

[Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians]

The last of the fencing from the hurricane is getting done right now. The new fence posts are in but the wire is not attached to it, "just leave it no way will the March kids find their way out this far"....Had a full goat day today so the kids didn't get fed until after dark, there were only 2 of the 8 in the barn to eat, so I went out, the rest were hollaring for me...yep they were out in the woods pen on the other side of the new not yet stretched wire. I had to walk down to the end of the 13 acres to find where it was on the ground and lead them around the opening (they certainly couldn't figure this out on their own course then they all run back to the barn straight way, I had to follow the moonlight down the fence line! Left me out in the woods! Chickens! Vicki

[Jillis]

Originally Posted by Jcran

"The Goats Who Cried Hay"- old hat here...my buck is a typical guy (no offense out there but boy does that stereotype cross all species boundaries)...he is constantly complaining that there's not enough clean hay in the feeder, I didn't give him enough grain at each feeding, he needs a new girlfriend, on and on and on. Oh, it may SOUND like bah, bah, bah, but we goat moms KNOW these things.

Maybe he needs a companion?

[Jcran]

Oh, he's got three girls with him right now...he just wants "hoochey girls". These three matrons have had their fling and now just tolerate him. He is 9 months old, and 175 pounds of teenage boy I think once he hits adulthood and "mellows out" he'll be fine, but right now he simply wants attention.

[Corky]

They were not fibbing!! They were tattling!!
Horses should not eat alfalfa hay anyway. Way too rich for them.
I do know how it feels to hear those goats screaming! My heart jumps up into my throat!
Mine have never given me a false call yet. I worry when I am not home because DH does not talk goat so he can't tell one cry from another. I sure can. In the Spring I am always running to rescue a kid from somewhere you would never believe they could get caught in. Like inside one of those tall v shaped hay feeders. I have one between two goat stalls in the barn. It got in there by running up the back wall of the barn and vaulting into the top of the feeder. I was milking Mom at the time and she didn't like that. She had all four legs caught in the bottom of the v. Try lifting a 45 lb kid out of that while untangling the feet.

[goatlover270]

It is funny that you posted that..Made me think of how my story on the farm here goes!
I have many kinds of animals here and have this one donkey (a jack) he has just turned two. The terrible twos. He at first got along with the goats, as he got older, no he tried to be mean to them so we seperated him into a place away from goats.
He didn't like the idea that the goats get the section he wanted, so now everytime the goats get over there out of his sight or they get out of pasture and roam the dead end road we have, he tells LOL! It is the funninest thing, they know they can do things he can't do. He just cannot stand it.
You were talking about how you thought something was wrong,....
When the billys are out there and all of sudden I hear this blood curdling scream from one, It never fails I go running Only to find that one of them is screaming at another billy, because he got in his way of being able to talk to a nanny
What we won't do, for the safety of our kids. I am a big worry wart anyway LOL Always checking something that don't seem right.
One of you said Hoochey LOL Too funny. Reminds me of a nanny that I got from my friend. Old Snowflakes,.. Oh my what a goat!!! Even when she was preg. she would still tease the billys, to them... too weird.
Just had to share that, animals are always making us laugh.
God Bless !

[Dee]

Reminded me of the time I smacked three smiling pig faces with a dead chicken. No, No, No! You do not play with chickens

[farmergirl]

One of our 4 young roosters, who just found his "voice", was crowing when I turned in just before 2 a.m. and he was up and crowing when I got up this morning at 8:30 a.m.. Ah, the joys of teenage livestock! Another funny...when we first brought home one of our new heifer calves, she was really missing her momma and took to bellering at the cows pastured across the street from us. One night I was out feeding all the critters and realized she had given up bellering! I was so proud of her...until she heard one of my horses groaning as he pooped, thought it was a moo cow calling to her and bellered right back at him
I tried not to laugh at her, but it was pretty dang funny. The horse just looked back at her with a confused look on his face.

[jill.costello]

Originally Posted by Corky

Horses should not eat alfalfa hay anyway. Way too rich for them.

Uh, Corky, I'm not sure what part of the US you're from, but feeding Alfalfa hay to horses in moderation is one of the best types of forage available.

Yes, there is some Alfalfa hay that is produced for dairy cows that can get VERY rich (the richer the better for a good milker!), almost 25% protein, and NOT for horses, I agree. But there is a huge market for fresh, clean horse Alfalfa. I grew up in Wisconsin, (the dairy state), and yes, as horse-owners, we had to be careful what fields we bought our hay from, and which cutting we bought at which level of maturity.

But, after feeding Alfalfa to my horses for over 20 years with no problems, I know it's "richness" has significantly reduced my grain bill over the years. And they eat up their portions with no waste.

-Jill

[dbarjacres]

Way to funny! Just imagine what your mare was "telling" those goaties! hehe "Looky what I got, hahahaha". Little tattletales.

Vicki, good thing you didn't get lost having to go that far out to get your girls!

And Jill is right about the alfalfa hay for horses. Some people, especially if they got brood stock or "active" horses, feed straight alfalfa as well. Even my donkeys get some alfalfa in moderation, less than 15% of their daily ration, but I think it adds extra nutrients, versus the "icky", dry timothy they eat otherwise (It's good clean timothy, but just looks so blah!)