Yes, I thought I’d sneak a photo of Margaret in yesterday’s blog post and see if anyone noticed. Many did. So apparently I’ve got some explaining to do.
First, I will confess: I’m smitten. With a goat. She’s the cutest thing on four hooves I’ve ever seen, and she’s got a personality to match. More to the point: She loves me. I’m not sure why, but she does.
A few months ago, we got Margaret, her twin sister Scarlet, and their half-sister Daisy to help us with weed control around the ranch. Margaret and Scarlet are four months old, and Daisy is a yearling. They are Nigerian Dwarfs, a miniature dairy goat breed. (Pygmy goats are a different, distinct breed.)
Somewhere along the way the three goats — Alayne prefers to call them "go-ats," using two syllables to say it — became pets, not just weed control specialists. I’m not sure how this happened, but it had something to do with Margaret deciding to adore me, and I couldn’t resist her charms. She bleats whenever she hears my voice, then comes running over to say hello. She follows me everywhere … down the drive, into the barns, and occasionally, into the house.
Yesterday, while our vet Dr. Brenda Culver was here, Margaret tried to climb into the tractor with me as I set off on a chore. I had to take her back and leave her in the welcome center with Brenda until I got out of sight with the tractor.
This morning, as I was getting in the truck to head into Missoula, Margaret tried to climb into the front seat. I had to hand her to Alayne to hold until I was well down the drive.
Here she is greeting me when I returned this evening:
By the way, Margaret won’t let Alayne catch her. She always stays one step ahead, just out of reach.
That’s because Miss Marker has spent the last several weeks chasing the go-at sisters away from our young aspens and cottonwoods in the yard around the house. Goats are browsers (no, not Web browsers but the kind that will eat just about any tree, shrub or plant), and one thing they love are aspen and cottonwood leaves. They’ll trim the limbs to the height of about three feet, which is about as high as they can reach standing on their hind legs.
After many episodes of Miss Marker running out and chasing them away from the trees, she no longer lets the go-at sisters have the run of the yard. She has revoked their privileges and denied them all rights, leaving one observer (no, not me) to describe this place as Goatanamo Bay. So now the girls have a fenced yard to themselves, but often during the day I will tie Daisy up on a harness and long lead outside our welcome center or by the corrals, and the three of them graze and hang out there. Having their big sister tied up will keep all three in the general area. At night they sleep in a barn stall. When we put them out on pasture on weed duty, we use electric fence netting to keep them confined and to keep them safe.
Now, you’re probably wondering, "But what about the dogs?" The dogs were at first fascinated when the go-at girls arrived, and yes, a few of them wanted to chase the sisters, but we handled it like any other introduction and taught the dogs not to bother them. Soon the goats realized that the dogs were either all blind, or wobbly, or so small, that they need not worry in any case. And now if a dog gets too close, the girls will simply head-butt them … gently but firmly, and sometimes rearing up on their little hind legs before they drop down to thrust their heads at the dog. When I say it’s gentle, it really is … they actually are only pressing their heads against the dog’s head. But the dog gets the message and backs off.
How confident is Margaret? Yesterday afternoon we went back to Widget’s House so Brenda could load blind Patti in her car to take back to the clinic for a follow-up procedure. Margaret walked down the drive with me, stayed at my side while I opened the gate to the dog yard so Brenda could drive through, and then walked along as we threaded our way through all the dogs. Travis, Trooper, Penny, the whole crew … they ignored her. "Oh, it’s that goat again." I often take the goat girls with me when I close up Widget’s House for the night, and they’ll stand in the middle of the floor, watching as I let dogs in and out of the building.
Margaret’s two sisters are sweet little things, too, don’t get me wrong, but they see me mostly as a provider of food, security, and a back scratch. For Margaret, I am all those and more. She will run over and look up at me like this:
I mean, how can you resist that?
Here’s Daisy, wanting to sample my hat this evening:
And here is a shot Alayne took earlier today, of Margaret and Scarlet being goats-on-a-rock:
These two are so cute together, and they go hopping and skipping and leaping through the air when they get excited and happy about something. It’s a routine I have to get on video one of these days!
So that’s the whole story. I heart Margaret.
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