Our New Goats and Goat House

Our four new goat arrivals made it to Pure Water Hollow safely on Saturday! We loaded the mama and three kids into my old Ford truck with the cage we made back in October for the pigs. The cage is still holding up fine, but I decided to cover it with a tarp to make it less stressfull on the goats. We don’t know much about goat breeds, but we were told that the mama is an Alpine and she was bred with a Boer, so the kids are half Alpine/ half Boer. We know that Alpine is one of the milking breeds, so we are glad about that possibility.

The day on Saturday started early as we still needed to put some finishing touches on the goat house. We just about got it finished Friday evening, but I still wanted to paint it before the goats got in. Saturday morning was perfect weather for painting and all the children helped. I hoped it would be dry by the time we got the goats moved in. It did dry quicky in the sunshine and 80 degrees!

Little Joe was the first goat to be able to check out the new goat house. This picture is a front view. We recessed the opening back a couple of feet so we could put a salt block or something under the roof. Right now we have what they call a "goat block" that has all sorts of good things in it other than salt that Little Joe seemed to love. We made enough room above in the loft to store a bale of hay.




I also bought a hay rack for them and put it on the back of the building:




If you are wondering about the color we chose, we actually did not choose the color. Instead we chose the price! It is from a mix-match that someone did not want to buy. Our Lowes puts those paints out at very reduced prices. We bought the paint last year sometime just because it was so cheap. It was a 5 gallon bucket of a quality brand exterior paint for around $15. If we chose the color in the same paint I think the bucket would have cost $50 or $60 dollars. The goats did not seem to mind the funky color!

We took pictures on Saturday right after we got them unloaded and they were not to sure about things yet. They had just endured a 30 minute truck ride also, so they were not in an overly playful mood. I will probably take some better pictures later, but this is a record of their first few moments with us.

Here are the three kids looking at us:




From left to right they are "Tiny Tim", "Little LuLu", and "Big Jim". They were six weeks old on the 25th.

Here is a good side shot of them. You can also tell better how much smaller Tiny Tim is than his brother and sister:




Little Joe did not know what to make of them at first:




He actually head butted the mama at first:



Pretty soon they made up, though:





We were a bit concerned about Little Joe hurting the mama with his horns, but actually the mama won the top spot. Now if she wants Little Joe to leave, she just looks at him a certain way and he trots off. We have seen her licking him, also.

Here is a better picture of the mama. We are calling her "Mama Belle":




I think she is very pretty. This a better shot of her head. Little LuLu got in the picture with her:




And here is one more picture of them with the goat house in the background. By the way, we still have to finish the roofing on the goat house. We were going to do it Saturday, but decided not to spook them anymore than we had to.




I think we made a good trade for the new goats. It was very exciting getting some more goats and we are happy for the Lord’s blessings. This was a bit sooner than we planned, but it is all working out and we are thankful to Him.

4 comments
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sheryl on March 26, 2007 at 8:22 am
Your new goats are cute and I like the goat house. Good job and I like the color too. What a great deal on the paint. Good luck with them. Have you milk the mama goat yet? Sheryl
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LittleHouse on March 26, 2007 at 2:32 pm
Hello! I love your new goats! The kids are so cute and I love the names! I really like the structure of your goat house! It is neat that you made a little loft to store hay! That is a great idea! Also I love the funky color of the goat house! We can't wait to visit you next week! Have a wonderful day!

Love,

Mary
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Melanie on March 26, 2007 at 6:02 pm
What a great house!! My Dh is actually out working on our goat house right now. We are hoping to pick up our Nubian goats this weekend if he can get it done. A 2 hour drive, but at least they will be in a livestock trailer. 2 milking mama's and one baby.

We certainly have a lot in common, glad you found my blog and excited to see how our goats compare as we learn about these creatures!

Blessings

Melanie
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Meme on March 26, 2007 at 11:24 pm
I think the baby is too cute… I do not raise goats but if I did I would of never thought to do that for the hay…. I will keep that in mind; you never know what tomorrow holds, goats or not..lol Debbie