My neighbor, Gary Backlund, came by at 8:30 am to meet Pia, our new lamb. We had a coffee and a short visit, then went out to the barnyard to check out the animals. It was a beautiful mild summers morning with clear blue skies. The goats that had been let out earlier but were still hanging around the barn. This should of been my first clue that this was not going to be normal day.
We went into the barn and met Pia, then let her out of the stall. This is where things started to go downhill. Pia bolted from the barn and ran straight to our Angora goat, whose tail went up and her stance indicated that she was less than impressed with this new arrival. Pia acted like this was her mother, possibly because the goat was white and it was soon clear the goat was not having anything to do with this small woolly thing. She went up on her hind legs and attempted to butt Pia. Soon the other goats got into the act and they were all trying to drive off Pia. Thing really got out of control when Gary and I got involved in trying to save Pia. Between trying to drive off the goats and catch Pia who did not want be caught it was a comedy of errors. We finally cornered Pia, who calmly slipped through the boards of my new fence into the other pasture. It seems that Babydolls are smaller than I realized.
Gary and I ran around finding and putting boards on the fence to close the gaps while at the same time trying to protect Pia from the goats as she insisted with being right with them, With the fence temporally secure we drove Pia into the pasture and closed the gate. Problem solved.
Not so fast, the little lamb immediate started balling and ran around more distressed with being alone than with being butted. A new plan was needed and Gary suggested that we put one goat with the lamb and keep the other two outside the small pasture. Gary being an old goat wrangler and with myself doing some fancy gate work we were able to get the gentlest goat in with Pia. With hay in the feeder and water in the bucket things settled down.
With things in order for the moment, Gary said his good byes and left. I went in the house and had a second coffee and reflected on how things went this morning. I came to the conclusion that there may be more to this sheep business than first met the eye.
We went into the barn and met Pia, then let her out of the stall. This is where things started to go downhill. Pia bolted from the barn and ran straight to our Angora goat, whose tail went up and her stance indicated that she was less than impressed with this new arrival. Pia acted like this was her mother, possibly because the goat was white and it was soon clear the goat was not having anything to do with this small woolly thing. She went up on her hind legs and attempted to butt Pia. Soon the other goats got into the act and they were all trying to drive off Pia. Thing really got out of control when Gary and I got involved in trying to save Pia. Between trying to drive off the goats and catch Pia who did not want be caught it was a comedy of errors. We finally cornered Pia, who calmly slipped through the boards of my new fence into the other pasture. It seems that Babydolls are smaller than I realized.
Gary and I ran around finding and putting boards on the fence to close the gaps while at the same time trying to protect Pia from the goats as she insisted with being right with them, With the fence temporally secure we drove Pia into the pasture and closed the gate. Problem solved.
Not so fast, the little lamb immediate started balling and ran around more distressed with being alone than with being butted. A new plan was needed and Gary suggested that we put one goat with the lamb and keep the other two outside the small pasture. Gary being an old goat wrangler and with myself doing some fancy gate work we were able to get the gentlest goat in with Pia. With hay in the feeder and water in the bucket things settled down.
With things in order for the moment, Gary said his good byes and left. I went in the house and had a second coffee and reflected on how things went this morning. I came to the conclusion that there may be more to this sheep business than first met the eye.