Les Chevres

(click on photo to see it enlarged)

I thought it was time for a post about our menagerie.  We have four very personable goats that help us keep a handle on the weeds and to just generally entertain us.  It has been suggested, on numerous occasions, that we could start our own goat cheese enterprise.  Um. No.  Once you meet Josephine, the likely source of said goat cheese you would understand why.  I don’t think she would take kindly to any such thing.

We became goat keepers quite serendipitously.  Since we live on a fairly large piece of property we threw the idea around now and again as an organic weed control.  While at work my husband overheard someone talking about the goats they had so my husband approached him and asked how it was, having goats.  "Well," his coworker said "as it turns out we would like to get rid of our two goats and you can have them if you want."  So, without giving it a lot of thought we loaded up the trailer one hot Saturday last August and drove out to get them.   

The two goats in question, a male and female, were loaded up in the trailer and off we went.  We christened them Napoleon and Josephine.  We aren’t entirely sure of their lineage – we’ve been told possibly Nigerian Dwarfs.   

We fenced off about half an acre for them and my husband and one of his friends built a goat palace for them (Le Manoir aux deux Chevres).  They adjusted quite nicely to their new surroundings.  All went along swimingly until Napoleon went into rut.  Boy goats are extremely pungent when they are in rut.  We didn’t mind, being newly annointed goat farmers and all, but we got repeated emails from our neighbors about the smell. 

We put an ad on Craigslist and within 20 minutes the phone started ringing.  Most people were very up front and said they planned on eating Napoleon.  !!  The fourth or fifth call was from a woman named Laura who was looking for a buck for breeding purposes.  She and her partner had a number of goats, horses and other animals.  Napoleon would be living with a small harem of lady goats.  This sounded like a splendid life for him.  As it turned out, Laura said, they had a small pygmy goat named Delilah that wasn’t doing well in a herd environment and maybe we could arrange a swap.  Napoleon for Delilah. 

So Napoleon went off to his exile and we now had two sweet smelling female goats. 

But Napoleon had one last task before he left his beloved Josephine and three months later my husband went out, as he does every dawn, to greet the goats and where there once was two, now there were four. 

Meet Antoinette and William (one day old):

So our little herd had doubled.  The babies are teenagers now and almost full grown.  Each goat has a very distinct personality.  Antoinette is very shy but inquisitive.  William is goofy and friendly.  Their mother, Josephine, is friendly but she is also the boss of the pen.  When William and Antoinette were younger and if they wandered too far away from her she would scold them and they would both come running.  Miss Delilah, picked on in a herd, has adjusted to the addition and holds her ground well enough.  She is very sweet and tries so hard to be loved.

(Photo mosiac starting in the upper left hand corner and going clockwise:  Miss Delilah.  Josephine.  Goat treats.  Belle, the goat herding cat.  Baby goats.  Miss Delilah.  Miss Delilah eating.  The goat palace.  Sign (which needs to be updated).  Josephine.  Mama and her babies.  Antoinette.  And William in the center)