This year has started out with plenty of excitement in the goat house, and I’m glad to say that I have more adorable baby goat pictures to share with you! (Yes! More babies were born!) But first… I realized I never introduced you to the original herd we brought home in May of 2022 last year and I really need to back up and do that first before showing you the new additions. Since then, we’ve gotten to know each of the goats quite well, and I love how different all of their personalities are.
Goats are happiest in groups, and we knew they’d have a better transition to their new home with buddies. We started our herd last year with five goats, two guys and three gals. There were two mamas in milk, and the rest were babies. We got them all from the same place (grateful for the source we found because the goats were so loved and cared for), and kept all the original names they came with, since their names suited them. I’ll start out by introducing you to the girls that came to live with us last year.
First is Oak, pictured above. Oak is the one goat you have been introduced to already, and she’s made her way on the blog more than any other goat we have. A big reason for that is because she loves people more than any goat I’ve ever met. (She’s always the first to come up to strangers.) Whenever we are nearby, she is by our side, and when I have the camera she is not shy in the least. She’s quite hilarious in fact (remember the holiday photo shoot with the wreath?) Oak is easy to love.
When we brought home the goats, I thought Oak was the most beautiful of them all (shh… don’t tell the others), with her brown eyes and her coat that looks like the most beautiful deep honey color to me. She also has a beard that I love on her. (It doesn’t really show in this picture, but you can see it in the wreath post I linked to in the previous paragraph.) Oak kidded for the first time last year, having a single daughter, who came to live with us as well. This year she kidded for the second time, and had triplets.
Oak will affectionately nibble on your clothes, zippers, or anything in the vicinity. She gets jealous when we pay attention to any other goat. She loves attention, and treats (she’s also been known to shove the other goats away from the food), and wants to be the center of our world all the time. She is also the queen bee of the herd, there was no question who the boss was right off the bat. We all adore her, and also have to push her away at times so we can give attention to the other goats. (She would climb up onto our laps if we let her.)
Next up is Solstice. Solstice was the other mama goat in milk. She didn’t have any of her babies with her when she came to live with us, her babies were sold, and I feel like the transition to a new home was harder for her than for Oak (who had her baby with her.) Solstice grew up with Oak (her half sister), so I was grateful she had some familiar companionship. Solstice was not as outgoing as Oak in the beginning, more quiet and shy I’d say (and she is still pretty shy around people she doesn’t know), but after spending so much time together, she’s warmed up to our whole family and these days she absolutely loves getting attention from all of us.
When you milk a goat twice a day for a long period of time, you can become in sync with each other in a way where you can sometimes anticipate each other’s movements. I feel like Solstice and I got to know each other well, we learned to trust each other, and there was a quiet understanding between us. Solstice is very eager to please, and is the goat who will stand perfectly on the milking stand and not move her legs at all, making it so I’ve never had to worry about spilled milk with her. (Unlike Oak, who moves her legs around a whole lot more.)
Solstice has blue eyes and a tan coat. (This isn’t my favorite picture of her, but it’s one of only pictures I had of her from early on.) In the beginning, Oak was the goat who loved garden treats the most, but now Solstice loves them just as much. She is sweet and sensitive, and she also loves affection, and to be brushed and pet. I have a soft spot in my heart for Solstice, I love her dearly. When I think about all of the goats we brought home last year, we couldn’t have started out with a herd that we loved more.
And finally, Patchouli. This picture of her cracks me up because it looks like she is bored and has way more important things to do than have her picture taken. Patchouli was Oak’s only daughter and stuck to her mom’s side like glue. She had a wild spirit and took longer to warm up to us than the others. B was the one who really got her tame. He worked with her every single day, bringing her on the milking stand to eat and eventually be brushed, and they became buds.
Unlike our other goats, she was born without horns. With her blue eyes and light colored hue, she looked more like Solstice’s daughter when she first came, than like Oak’s. With her constant place by her mom’s side, it was pretty obvious who her mom was though. (And since this picture was taken she has also grown a beard like her mom!) She nursed for so long, that she was almost too big to even reach under Oak and it was pretty funny to witness.
She was used to being the center of her mom’s world and wasn’t so happy when all her new siblings were born this year and she suddenly had to share her mom’s attention. She’s still pretty disgruntled about it. She can be sweet and love treats and a certain amount of attention, but also has a wild side and likes to do things on her own terms.
Here was a quick snapshot of the three of them, through the fence one day. The ladies all had similar coloring, with their brown and tan hues. (Reddish as well, for Oak and Solstice, which they got from their dad.) If you look in the girls’ yard these days, though, that has changed with all the colorful babies that were born this year! I love all the browns, but it’s also fun to have more variety now. I can’t wait to introduce you to them all. I hope you enjoy reading the goat posts as much as I enjoy writing them!
Leave a Reply