Back on September 7 we got our first Nigerian dwarf goats, Bailey who was 3 years old and had 2 sets of quads in her kidding history, and Imogen who was 4 months old. They came from a farm where they were treasured and loved and we were so excited to bring them to our home! We got them home around noon on Friday, spent a lot of time with them that day and the next morning. We came in from the pasture around 11am on Saturday. When my husband went out at 3pm, they were gone. No sign of them anywhere. My two nieces came over with their little ND buck, who was a very noisy little guy, hoping to entice them to come out, and one of my nieces is an excellent tracker. There were no traces of them anywhere but the pasture, no goat poop, no nothing except big, deep footprints in the gravel on the side of the road right next to the corner of the pasture fence, and the fence was lifted up at the bottom. The goats were gone. Our rather substantial investment had disappeared.
Fast forward to today: As of this morning, we had our three mini-Mancha doelings, two ND does and two Shetland ewes. One big, happy family. Around noon, my husband came in the house and told me to get my shoes on and come outside. I was worried that something had happened to one of the animals but he said it wasn't anything bad, so then I thought he must have gotten an elk or a deer and it was in the back of the truck. I walked out there and there were our two ND goats that we lost back in September!!! They had been at the neighbor's for two months before she decided to see if they belonged to anyone. I am grateful to have them back, and grateful she brought them back. They seem to be OK, but they were obviously overfed. They were the only goats over there with her horses so I'm reasonably assured that they didn't catch any diseases. I'm stupified that she had these goats "show up" at her house and she didn't ask around about where they came from. I'm highly doubtful that they wandered over there, it's about 1/2 mile on a busy 50mph road and there were zero goat berries between here and there because we looked everywhere there was to look. I seriously doubt this lady is the one who took them, but there are enough people around her that I wouldn't trust and I wouldn't be surprised if one of them took them and just made up a story to tell her about where they came from. We've had enough issues with people who live there in the last several years that I feel somewhat justified in doubting total innocence on their part.
Without further ado, I would like you all to meet Bailey and Imogen, who will be renamed with botanical names like the rest of our ND herd, our two goats who were lost but now are found.
We're going to need a bigger barn.
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