New Addition to the Herd!

Well when I woke up this morning the last thing I expected to be doing was lifting a pygmy goat into the back of our Discovery and taking it home to the herd, but I guess that’s farming for you!

We went up to visit my Aunty this morning to visit her and have a trip up to the yard to see the horses and trim the goat's feet etc. Just general weekend tasks... We stopped at her house and she told us that her landlord had driven past our field the other day and noticed our two little pygmy goats. He had been in touch because he had had two nanny pygmies himself, but sadly one had passed away just the week before. With goats being herd animals and needing company he was looking to rehome the second one so she wouldn’t be alone anymore. He asked if we would like her to add to our herd and she of course said yes! The plan was to pick her up sometime in the next week after clearing out the horse box (which the goats currently go into at night time) however, we had a think and decided to give him a ring to ask if we could collect her today. He said that we could come over in an hour so we had a quick cup of tea (necessary!) and then popped down to the yard to put horse rug down in the back of the Land Rover and grab the goat lasso and head collar. When we were loaded up and had transformed the Discovery into a goat transporter – we just emptied the back and put a rug down – we headed off to pick up the new goat. We met her and spoke to the owner and then he helped us load her into the car. It was only literally down the road so she was in the car for less than 5 minutes but she did really well in the car. We unloaded her when we got back to the yard, introduced her to the boys over the fence and now she’s settled for the night separately from the boys until the morning where they will hopefully meet each other closer up and will start to make friends.

She is a 5-year-old nanny pygmy goat and she is just about the same size as the boys if a little bit bigger. We have called her Beattie (short for Beatrice) as we are sticking with the royal naming theme – we now have Will, Harry and Beattie after Princess Beatrice! She seems to have a lovely little temperament and I hope that she is going to be very happy and spoilt in her new home!

Stay tuned for more updates on little Beattie, rest assured there will be lots of photos on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook so make sure you are following me!