Fitz and Fly

I love goats.  They are charming and fearless and in your face and in your lap.  My Angora goats are all of those things but they are also very hairy and currently covered with sand burrs.  They will be sheared soon.  They are wonderful but not quite as kid friendly as I would want.  I wanted to get a couple of goats for my grandchildren to play with.  The goats would live here with me since my son and his wife live in a subdivision that I'm sure would look dimly on a goat in their back yard and my daughter and her husband have plenty of room and since they live out in the country, no deed restrictions but they don't have goat proof fences.  So the goats would live here.  I wasn't looking for more Angora goats, just some kindly loving goats that the kids could enjoy.  My timing was perfect because my friend Nancy, who has dairy goats, has her spring kids to disperse.  As is usual with dairy herds, the female kids will stay with Nancy ultimately to be bred and milked.  The male kids are sold to other dairy breeders to be herd sires, sold as pet goats or sold to be cabritto.  Nancy had several male kids this year that she just loves and needed to find homes for them with a guarantee they wouldn't end up as dinner.

So we met at Nancy's to look at the goats.  My daughter and grandson were there along with my husband but the others weren't able to make it.   I had decided on two goats and here is Max getting to know Fly.  OK.  So Max is really playing with the goat halter and wasn't really all that interested in the goat but I know he will love Fly.

This was Nancy's "F" year for kids.  All of her kids have names starting with the letter f.  Fly and Fitzgerald and Flea and Fiona, etc.  Nancy hales from Connecticut and is a huge Boston Red Socks fan.  Her current herd sire is named Boston so many of his kids are names for Boston Red Socks baseball players.

Fitz is quite a bit taller than Fly although they are very close in age.  Based on their extended families, both will be fairly large when they are full grown.  They are already large enough to fend for themselves with my other goats but like all new livestock that arrives here, they are under quarantine for a month or so. \

Fitz and Fly were not terribly happy with being grabbed out a pen of all their friend's, given a CDT shot, wormed and stuck in a goat box on the back of my truck.  Nor were they happy about being grabbed out of that box and deposited in an unfamiliar pen with just each other.  They had already been weaned so fortunately that wasn't an issue.  They have been here for a couple of weeks now and have gotten used to the schedule here.  They are eating kitchen scraps out of my hand and continue to be more and more friendly.  It's all good.