Benny and the pets

We have goats, pet goats.  They are such funny creatures and very smart.

Technically only one of them is ours.  This is Benny, he is the boss.  The other goats and pet sheep that are in the paddock with him are his harem.  Even though he Lords it over them, he misses them dreadfully when they go off to shearing.

He looks a bit ratty in this photo as it was coming into warmer weather and he was losing his Winter coat.  

We got him as a 3 day old and hand-reared him.  We got another goat "Joon" at the same time, but she ate something poisonous when she was 2 weeks old and died.

Tessy and Joon

Our cat Tessy has always helped to look after the orphan lambs and goats.  She loved to play with them until they got too big for her.

This is Nellie.  We adopted Nellie from a neighbour.  Nellie was a naughty goat who lived in town, she thought she was a dog and used to jump the fences to play with the town dogs.  Goats are very nimble and agile and it is hard to keep them contained. 

With all the trouble she was getting into our neighbours asked if we could look after Nellie. 

Nellie is now a good goat and idolises Benny.

Below is Krysta (Isabel named her after the fairy in "Ferngully").

Krysta was also given to us by a neighbour.  She used to eat through her rope and jump the neighbours fence to eat the fruit trees.

Krysta is still a naughty goat, she tries to boss the other pets and she still escapes the paddock to eat the spilled grain under the silos.

Our little lambs are not so little anymore.  They occasionally come up for a scratch and a pat, but mostly they ignore us and keep on eating.

We are debating on how many of them to keep. If you ask our daughter it's all of them, but we have to be practical and think of how much feed is in the paddock and how many mouths are feeding on it.  Their fate will be decided next year at market time.

Enjoy life

Ann
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