Billy The Goat
We have a new kid. His name is Billy The Goat. First name
Billy, middle name The, last name Goat. Billy is only about three
weeks old. Our neighbor found him wandering around lost at the
laundromat. There are wild goats on the island and Billy was
probably abandoned by his mother. Now he has a whole family
of surrogate mothers. It's a good thing he has so many mommies
because he requires constant attention and a bottle of milk every
couple hours.
Eventually, when Billy gets older, we plan to put him out in our
macadamia nut orchard. There are parts of it that are very steep,
rocky and difficult to mow. It's difficult to get the mower
through there but a goat should have no problem. Goats can easily
damage coffee trees but should do an excellent job of keeping the
macadamia nut orchard clear. At least that's the plan.
For now, Billy has a small pen near the house. He sleeps in a
small dog kennel. When he's not asleep, he likes to stand on top
of the kennel and bleat repeatedly until we let him out of his
pen. As far as he's concerned, if it's not feeding time then it's
play time. Play time consists of following us around and tasting
everything. Goats like to graze. They nibble on everything
within reach. Christmas decoration seem to be a particular
favorite this time of year.
Billy doesn't seem to understand that he's a farm animal. He's
not happy unless he's on the porch with us and he will come right into
the house if he has a chance. He's not house trained so he goes
right back outside as soon as we catch him. It's amazing how fast
a baby goat can be.
Billy had a rough day on Saturday. It's important for goats to
get disbudded and castrated while they are young. Neither
process is particularly pleasant, for the goat or the farmer, but both
processes are important if you want an adult goat that isn't aggressive
and dangerous. Our neighbor had both the disbudding iron and the
elastrator but we had the privilege of actually performing the
procedures. Disbudding consists of using a red hot iron to burn
off the horn buds. The horn buds fall off and, if the procedure
was performed correctly, don't grow back. Castrating consists of
applying a tight rubber ring to the base of the scrotum which cuts off
circulation causing it to atrophy and eventually fall off. As you
can imagine, both procedures are a bit delicate and require the goat to
be restrained properly. It took three of us but I'm pleased to
say that we seemed to have done everything properly and Billy is
recovering just fine. He was walking a bit stiff for the first
hour or so but now he's right back to running, jumping, climbing and
eating everything.
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