A Downside to having Goats

In 2002, the empty lot across the street from us was purchased and the new owner built a beautiful two-story house on it. Unfortunately, this altered the flow of the underground springs in our area and brought a lot more water into our basement. To mitigate this problem, I cut a French drain across my front yard. I trenched all the way down the driveway so the water collected could dissipate out behind the garage. While I had the trenches cut and open, I decided to tie the downspouts on the house together and placed PVC pipes running over to closest trench. More piping was set on top of the gravel bag before I filled it in. All the flow from the downspouts was connected into the six-inch outflow pipe that ran to the “Back Forty”. Finally, I dug a drain pond to catch all the water so it could soak into the ground and not create a problem for my neighbor down the hill. All that worked fine until I got B&C.

You see, goats like to dig holes and lie in them during the summer. This helps them stay cool in the heat. When they do this, they toss dirt in all directions. Sometimes that direction is straight over the outflow from my carefully designed drainage system. Come winter and the rain, the draining water can’t escape into the pond; it runs into a bunch of dirt instead.

Today, I checked on the goats to make sure they were handling the rain. Even after almost six hours of light but steady rain, the collection pond had only about an inch of water in it. A quick look at where the outflow should have been visible told me I had some digging to do or the water would soon back up into the goat enclosure.

Fifteen minutes of manual labor with my “shit shovel” and I had the outflow open. B&C don’t know how close they came to having their world get even muddier than it is currently.

Ed Rovera

Rain in Oakland!

Started raining about 4AM this morning and was heavy enough to hear in the downspouts by 5 o’clock. That’s the good news.

Now for the bad news. I knew B&C would be upset; they hate getting wet. Only thing they hate worse than being wet is having muddy hooves.

I went out around 11:30 to check on them. Bonnie was hunkered down in the bottom condo as I expected. Clyde, however, was out munching on orchard grass. I’m guessing that bale will be effectively gone by tomorrow afternoon. They get alfalfa next. Maybe having the sweeter fodder will take some of the sting away from being cooped up in the enclosure. Maybe. Hard to tell. Best I can do, though. I can’t magically dry out their grazing land.

Ed Rovera

New Eating Arrangements.

Clyde has taken to up his nastiness toward Bonnie by butting her away from the nightly trough of rations. To combat this, I’ve opted to feeding them from two different containers. Clyde is still a jerk, but he lets Bonnie eat in peace most nights now.

Ed

Wildfire Fuel Suppression System

It is March now. That means no more alfalfa until the Wildfire Fuel Suppression System (WFSS, or WooFaSS) cleans up the vegetation so the Oakland Fire doesn’t give me grief. These pictures show a couple of the patches in the area where they have started grazing the sweet grass tops and flowers. The light green areas used to be the same dark green as the surrounding grass, but B&C have started to eat away at the green leaves and stems, leaving just the pale undergrowth. As that gets more sun, it will green up as well and become the goats’ second course.

 

I estimate B&C will finish my “back 40” in about a month, six weeks, tops. Then I will move them over to my neighbor’s back yard and let them graze over there until they have cleared her space. Jackie’s yard is larger than mine, with more trees and ivy. The goats absolutely love ivy. OFD will start their inspections in mid-May. Hopefully B&C will have eaten enough to pass Jackie’s property as well as ours.

 

Ed Rovera

 

A Peaceful Dinner -- Almost

I’ve started feeding B&C in separate bowls because Clyde has taken to butting Bonnie away from the trough of rations. By giving each one half a scope of goat rations they seem to eat slower and Bonnie gets more to eat. However, this is not a perfect solution to the problem. Whichever bowl is put down first, Clyde grabs. Bonnie, thinking that’s all they both are going to get, tries to push her way in. I then have to intercept Bonnie and show her the other bowl so she’ll go for that one. But Clyde eats faster than Bonnie. He’s a jerk and a glutton. This means he finishes his portion and then goes over to horn in on Bonnie’s food. I try and slow him down  a bit by scratching him while he eats, but it’s not always 100% effective. Still, I get to spend a bit more time with them, which they both seem to appreciate.

 

Ed Rovera