Two-month-old goat kids
Guess who's two months
old today? That's right, our twins are growing up!
(Warning: R-rated
information follows.)
Unfortunately, two
months old for a buckling means Punkin has become a cantankerous and
randy teenager. The endless headbutting is annoying but manageable.
However, his other MO --- endlessly humping his sister --- is more
problematic. He's already reached the stage where he gets an erection (and
licks the stream of his urine --- delightful), meaning that he could
possibly knock his sister up.
Unfortunately, my goat mentor says two
months old is a little dicey for weaning. Our kids have started really
eating solid food in the past week, but their rumens probably still
depend on receiving a mixture of milk and greenery. So this week we
hope to figure out a way to separate Punkin while still letting him
have daily nursing visits with his mama. Yes, I'm well aware that much
screaming is going to ensue --- I just hope I'm not the one who ends up
throwing the biggest tantrum.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Those two sure are cuties! It's unlikely he could get your doeling pregnant because she won't even start coming into heat until mid fall at the earliest. But I know how annoying it can be, our 5 week old buckling thinks humping is the funnest game ever!
Thanks everyone for your thoughtful comments! To answer a few questions: Punkin is supposed to become a neighbor's new stud, so we can't band him. We'd planned to give him to said neighbor in lieu of weaning him here, but the neighbor has health problems and can't take him yet. I suspect Julie might be right and Aurora wouldn't get pregnant so early...but it's hard to be 100% sure. This comment (plus scare stories elsewhere on the internet) certainly seem to suggest I'd rather be safe then sorry.
That said, after less than a day of tethering, I realized that one of our pastures is Fort Knox enough to keep Punkin in. So I put him there and his mother and sister in the adjoining pasture so they can talk through the cattle panel. They're still not thrilled, but are much happier than when truly separated.
Thanks everyone for your thoughtful comments! To answer a few questions: Punkin is supposed to become a neighbor's new stud, so we can't band him. We'd planned to give him to said neighbor in lieu of weaning him here, but the neighbor has health problems and can't take him yet. I suspect Julie might be right and Aurora wouldn't get pregnant so early...but it's hard to be 100% sure. This comment (plus scare stories elsewhere on the internet) certainly seem to suggest I'd rather be safe then sorry.
That said, after less than a day of tethering, I realized that one of our pastures is Fort Knox enough to keep Punkin in. So I put him there and his mother and sister in the adjoining pasture so they can talk through the cattle panel. They're still not thrilled, but are much happier than when truly separated.