Seven goats is too many. Too many for our pasture and too many to overwinter.
We haven't had any luck selling Cocoa (the buck), Blackie (the whether), and Svetlana (the mama) via Facebook or Craigslist.
Sale barn prices have been good, so we opted to bring them to Jackson.
We went back and forth about taking Svetlana so many times. She is the best looking goat we have, but she is a bully and tends to hog the food / push all the other goats out of the way. She had triplets and raise them all without supplement, but if any goat is going to find a way out of the pasture it's her.
To complicate matters, Freya, one of our new goats, died. G went out to the shed and there she was, curled up peacefully. No clue why she died. You can have a vet come do a necropsy, but those are expensive.
Our best guess is that she got parasite overload or acidosis, which can happen from overeating on grain. I think it's more likely that it was parasites.
The goats have been eating pumpkin which is a natural dewormer. I read online that if they get dewormed but it's not strong enough to wipe out all of the parasites, only the weak parasites die, leaving space for the stronger parasites to take over. This can cause a sudden death when the strong parasites fill those gaps.
So, to sell Svetlana or not? In the end we decided that we want to have nice, non-mischievous goats in our herd, and we settled on taking her.
G brought the work van home and we loaded them up in our doghouse and dog kennel. It works surprisingly well. 😆
Of course, this week's sale barn prices were not as high as past weeks. But that's the game you play with the sale barn. We both wondered if hunting opener played a role in the lower prices.
Now we are left with three goats: Gerda, Sage, and Brighita. The goats are already jostling for the position of new boss goat. I had wondered if Brighita would take over for her mom, but it appears as if Sage is going for the title. Gerta is attempting, but I think Sage will win out in the end.
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