Goats Need Exercise

My kids love to show goats at the county fair.  The biggest problem they have in getting them in shape for the fair is exercising them.  The goats don't want to run like they need to.  All they want to do is eat grass and wander.  Today we had an ingenious (maybe) idea.  We had an old set of stairs lying around and decided the goats could use that as exercise equipment!  After all, I have been told that exercising them wins the show!

As soon as we put the stairs in and made sure they would be sturdy enough the goats had a ball running, jumping, climbing and playing on them.  It was a constant game of "king of the mountain" and climb-n-slide!  

We have about a month before the fair so I guess we will see if they make a difference or not, but it can't hurt.  (Except for the small cut one received in all the commotion that we had to wrap with coban).  We also upped their feed ration today hoping for better results by fair time.  The feed we have been using is Kent Goat Kid Developer. It is an 18% protein complete feed, so nothing else is required.  They also have Kent goat mineral available at all times. I am hoping that the increased feed and increased exercise will make for muscle packed goats!  

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New Additions To Our Family

We have 2 new additions to our family!!  No, it's not goats as we are still waiting as patiently as possible for them.  We do, however, have 2 new bottle calves.  We weren't really looking too hard yet for the kids' bottle calves for the 4H county fair, but we got a call that a local farmer had one and a week later another call.  We went to look at them and we can't ever say no unless there is something clearly wrong with them!

The first calf is a twin of a heifer that the mother didn't want at first.  When momma finally decided to take her, she wouldn't drink -only from a bottle.  Big farmers don't have much time to bottle feed a bunch of calves!  Lucky for us!  She is all black and a cross between angus and simmental.  She is huge for a twin and doing very well!  She was born on 3/4 and already eating a little Kent calf starter feed.  She will be my daughter's to show at the fair and she has named her Stella.  This is my daughter's first year at the fair, so she got first dibs.

A week later, we got the second call.  Twin angus calves born to a momma that had only enough milk for one.  She is also black and smaller than Stella.  Her sibling is a bull so she will most likely be sold eventually.  She is about normal size for a twin.  She is also doing very well in the barn.  Hopefully these girls will be buddies!  This calf is my son's to show.  He had kind of a time showing his 2nd year bottle calf last year at the fair and wanted to go back to bottle calves at least for this year!  Last year it was very hot and dry and his cow had been cooped up at the fair for a couple of days before the show.  When she got to go out of the barn for the show all she wanted to do was eat grass!  She kept heading for the lawn but he did very well keeping her in line.  It was just a little more work than he intended, I think. 

The kids are enjoying feeding them and "playing" with them and as soon as weather permits they will start the halters on them in the yard.  For now, I may have jumped the gun on spring a little as today is very cold and oh so windy :(  It is the first day of spring, though, and hopefully mother nature realizes that soon!!!!

I had planned to post some pics of the new girls today but chicken out of staying outside long enough to photo them.  I did chores as fast as I could!  I will post them soon, though.  They are cuties!

As always, hope everyone has a great day!!