It’s been a bountiful year for acorns. They bounce off of my car, they drop on my head, they scrunch underfoot. The goats know where the oak tree is and where the acorns roll.
Pip munches.
Goats have small mouths. Unlike horses, they can’t open wide and grab a big treat. An acorn just barely fits. However, Caper has figured out how to bite, crunch and swallow.
Notice that the boys are dragging leashes. I don’t like them to eat too many acorns, I’m afraid that the diet is too rich for the wethers (wethers are neutered boy goats, and they are prone to bloat from overeating and to getting urinary calculi.) I use the leashes to lead drag them away from the acorns, and also keep them from my rose bushes. The boys say that they’d be happy to do the pruning. But I don’t think they’ve read any gardening manuals. I tell them that roses aren’t supposed to be trimmed down to the ground, but shouting “no, no, No” doesn’t have an effect on my hard-working goats. Leashes are a necessity.
How I wish we had a Pip and Caper! Although, I do think we have the next best thing. We raised a week-old fawn this year that was rescued from dogs that had killed her sibling. China is now five months old and living outside although she still has her bottles, apples and carrots every morning and evening. She’s just begun to eat acorns and it’s so funny to see the acorn go into the front of her mouth, munch–munch–munch, then half a shell shoots out one side of her mouth and the other half out the opposite side! She likes for me to hunt acorns with her so I pick up a handfull and she will nose around them pushing some out of my hand– she can tell if they are wormy or not without cracking them. I’ve always thought she looked very goat-like, she was raised on fresh goats milk because the vet said that was the closest thing to her mothers milk, but now that you’ve mentioned it, I see that her mouth is not the same as Pips. China’s is quite a bit longer and she’s able to open a little wider. She loves to lick the cats and sometimes after a vigerous bath China will get a few cat hairs in her mouth and she will do a sort of hack-yawn-belch thing that is so funny to see. Then she’ll go right back to the cat cleaning. She particularly thinks the cats have very dirty feet and will clean their feet until they take off– some don’t mind the other abolutions, even seem to enjoy the ear cleaning but they don’t much care for the foot thing. We’re thinking of getting two little girl goats. Perhaps in the Spring. I wish we’d gotten them this Spring, I know China would rather have goat buddies than fickle cats.
Terry a bumper acorn crop is an understatement. I’ve almost rolled on those things and broke my neck a couple times this fall.
I actually took a corn broom and sweep up three-five gallon buckets full yesterday on the bare ground around the chicken coops.
My two ducks I believe were the most gratefull they seem to have the most difficulty walking on them.