One Thing Leads to Another

Sunday morning. After taking the dog for a walk down the beach and having breakfast, I turned my attention to the things I wanted to get done. Top of my list was taking the net off the hay in the goat paddock. Now, a little backstory is required here.

I have a hay ring that I am now using in the goat paddock. It’s designed to be used with horses not goats. It’s a brilliant design - made from poly pipe so it is light and easy to move, while being safe for injury prone horses. It’s basically a circle of poly pipe that you flip over a big roll of hay. The hay ring incorporates a net, that stops the hay getting chucked everywhere and slows down the consumption rate of greedy horses. It also has a roof that stops the hay getting wet. As I said, brilliant. (It’s like this one.) As I also said, designed for horses not goats. But I decided to give it a try with the goats because it’s so much easier to put a whole roll of hay out in the paddock rather than to constantly top up supplies in small hay nets.

The goats adapted to the hay ring remarkably quickly. I gave them a couple of steps and things to stand on, and they happily stood on these things and leant forward to eat hay. So far, so good. Then the hay roll got a bit smaller and they leaned in a little further to eat. Then it rained. The hay was fine. It stayed dry. But, and I might have mentioned this in previous stories, goats don’t like rain. When I say they don’t like rain, I mean they hate rain. Or at least my goats do, especially Cinnamon. She really hates rain. She sprints for the shelter at the first drops. Being a smart goat, when it rained as she was standing at the hay ring eating, she quickly realised the quickest way out of the rain was to get into the hay ring. So in she jumped. Bonus - she could stand there under the roof and eat the hay. So she did so. All well and good. And quite cute when I looked out the window and saw her. But goats being goats, Sesame and Ashcroft also decided it was a good idea to get into the hay ring to eat the hay. I haven’t seen them all in there at once, but between them they are spending a fair amount of time in there. Two things are happening. Firstly, they are pooing and weeing on the hay, and therefore (understandably) don’t want to eat those bits. Secondly, the level of the hay is getting lower and I am worried they will get tangled in the hay net and hurt a leg as they jump out. Hence, the first job on my Sunday list was to take the net off the hay ring. In itself this is a realtively easy task - just untie a knot and unwind the rope that attaches the net to the top polypipe rail. Easy.

Cinnamon sheltering from the rain in the hay ring. (Apologies for the photo quality - it was pouring rain!)

So I walked into the goat paddock with the intention of doing just that. The first thing I noticed was that Cinnamon and Sesame both had very full udders. I’m not milking them a lot now, just enough to keep them comfortable and give me enough milk to make a bit of cheese - about once a week or so. I decided I would milk the goats before I took the hay net off, so I headed up the milking shed to set things up for milking.

Two young girls who live up the road are mad about my goats. They are keen to come down and learn how to milk and care for goats. So on the way to the shed, I figured I may as well message the girls’ Mum and see if they wanted to come down to milk. They did. But they were in the middle of making a cake so was it okay if they came after they’d finished that? Of course it was. Anyway, on getting to the milking shed, I realised the feed bucket I use while milking was out in the temporary paddock where the goats had been grazing a couple of days ago. I went to get it, and noticed that they had pretty much eaten out that area, so I should move the fence to give them a fresh patch. Then I could give them some fresh grazing and browsing after they had been milked.

I took the bucket back to the shed and went back to move the fence. I decided to put the goats in an area near the chook pen and netted orchard, so went about setting the fence up there. A branch of one of the nectarine trees was poking out through the netting. Goats love fruit trees. I knew that if I left that there, the goats would nibble the end of the branch, then keep eating, nibbling a hole in the netting and carrying on. I had visions of the goats in the orchard eating my fruit trees. I got my loppers and went into the orchard and cut the branch, plus another couple for good measure. (Okay, so I pruned the nectarine tree.) I dumped the cut branches in the area I was planning to move the goats to, but while I was in the orchard, I noticed that one of the chooks was looking poorly. I made sure she had easy access to food and water and was in a spot where the other chooks wouldn’t bully her, then carried on setting up the temporary goat fence. I had almost finished that when the girls from up the road arrived with their Mum. I still wasn’t ready for milking. They waited for me to finish setting up the fence and then helped me get things organised for milking. We brought the goats into the shed and startd milking. Both girls wanted a turn, so I showed them again how to close their fingers gently but firmly to squeeze the milk out. Small hands on the teats. Concentration on young faces. Pure delight as milk squirted into the bucket. Sesame was patient and the girls are picking it up remarkably quickly.

Cinnamon’s turn. She’s not as patient as Sesame, nor as easy to milk. But that was a good lesson for the girls - to see how different the two goats are. After both goats were milked out, we put them in the new temporary area and I showed the girls how to strain and bottle the milk. They tasted the milk and were surprised to find out that the milk from each goat tasted different. Cinnamon has richer, creamier milk. There were lots of questions. Sometimes it takes longer to do things when you have help! But the kids are great and I love their enthusiasm, so no complaints. Plus, they are lining up to be good back-up milkers for my back-up milker when I go away. They asked more questions then headied home in the drizzling rain.

After they left, I went back into the goat paddock and took the net off the hay ring. It took me about five minutes, but somehow the whole morning was gone.

See you outside,

Jill

Cinnamon, looking innocent.