I really do adore my goats. Even with the things I do without so I can have them & the great amount of work involved.... But sometimes, just sometimes, they make me wonder why I bother...
For instance.... This week, I facilitated a goat rape.
Sounds bad eh? Well it *is* bad!
Star, a Lamancha doe, came in season Monday night. All the typical signs... Excessive tail wagging, very talkative & batting her eyes at the boys ect. ect.
Get Tonka out, put him in the doe pen & as he casually walks up to her, she starts screaming & bolts across the pen.
After failed sweet wooing attempts, Star's bolting/screaming/bucking action ended Tonka's "lets go romance her" mode, and instead he just starts chasing her around & around, blubbering like a fool...... He tires after a bit, and Star bolts to the fenceline & starts this pitiful baby talking to Austin (The new Alpine buck) through the fence.
Tail wagging, loving on each other, licking each other's faces, then she stands for him even though he can't get her through the fence.
Clearly she chose her man, and it wasn't Tonka.... Much of this chasing, crying drama continues & each time she runs to Austin seeking comfort.
The love connection between them is sweet, but too darn bad, because I bought her for the sole purpose of keeping a Tonka daughter from her.... I have no interest in Alpine/Lamancha mutts.....
So I have to force her.... Caught her, held her collar & yelled at Tonka to "hop up".... She threw a huge hissy fit, screamed, jumped & hubby stared on in horror "I can't believe you're FORCING her, this is just wrong.."
To which I reply: "Stop watching & come help!"
Star fought quite a bit, leaped straight into the air, tried pushing me down & even bit me.... Hubby wondered if we could be charged with facilitating a goat rape....
I think I emotionally scarred hubby & Star.
Due to the fight, we had some miss fires & ended up wearing liquid baby goat..... Not to mention being that close to the action got several healthy smudges of that dried urine paste/gel that bucks wear......
At that point, hubby gave up & went inside to shower.... I don't think he'll come anywhere near the goat pens for the rest of the breeding season...
Next morning I tried again as she was still in heat..... The night before we tried to have her facing Austin through the fence while Tonka got the job done but that didn't work. Tried that tactic in the morning & thankfully it did after a brief temper fit.... Her and Austin talked, neck hugged & groomed each other through the fence while Tonka tagged her 3 times....
God I hope she took as I don't wanna go through that again!!
Then, last night, Austin tried to kill himself! Here is a pic of him standing on our fence.
Don't think I could have a stronger goat fence.
Tonka has been down right evil to Austin ever since the Star fiasco & Austin won't fight back...Tonka may be dealing with some resentment over not having the emotional end of his and Star's affiar & is taking it out on Austin......... I think Tonka must have bullied him into a corner, and in panic, Austin tried to jump the fence.
We found him hanging by his back leg.... It was woven through 2 of the top panel squares & he was about 2" off the ground. He was limp when we found him, leg very swollen & we guess he was there for at least 1/2 an hour.
Was soooo thankful hubby was home to help as there was no way I could have got him down myself (Hubby lifted, while I worked at untangling). The way the leg was woven through the fence I really thought it was broken.... Can't explain how it isn't broken as a bone shouldn't be able to be in the position it was in & remain intact, but I apparently I had a lil luck on my side. He's sore, but after some TLC & banamine he's moving around & trying to put weight on it. This evening he was sniffing the girls & seemed put out that Star's love for him has seemingly died out...
Right now he's living with the girls as he's in no shape to keep up with Tonka.... Hope he fully recovers as I havent even got to use him on the Alpine does yet....
All in all, fun goat week!
Oh, and after we got Austin settled, hubby sat out with me while I milked.... Mid conversation he snapped his head around & took off running in the dark.... His 1 ton that recently blew the engine (which I'd like to add, happened 2 weeks after a $4,000 new transmission... Can't talk about that for fear of blood pressure complications) which has been out of gear, with the brake locked & parked at the front of the property started rolling away, right towards our neighbor's new fence!
It smacked into a pile of fencing stuff we had so hubby was able to catch it before it hit the fence.... Was just an all around, awful, weird night!
On the plus side, if all my work with Star was successful, I'll have Lamancha babies in February!
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Breeding drama & suicidal goats...
