When we last left our Goatie Epic, Mister Hornpipes was adopted by that handsome, caring Sheltie Collie, Mister Bagpipes, and terrorizing, I mean living in the house.

     Meanwhile out in the barnyard, on another very cold below zero night, Cecil the Quarter Horse as the barnyard announcer ran ‘round announcing the birth of a new goatie kid, Mussette.
Since the day Hornpipes moved into the house we had moved psycho Nettle into the other pen with a calf, where oddly enough, she settled down. She still didn’t like contact but we could at least be in the pen without her bouncing off the walls. She never bothered the calf and used to sleep next to her. We gave Thistle the other pen to herself and in the wee hours of January 30th, a week after Hornpipes was born, she had a baby; a nanny. To tie into our whole highland band we were getting we went with Mussette, a French version of Bagpipes, for a more “dainty” little lady.

     Mussette looked very much like her mama, only 100 times cuter and she was very bashful. Thistle, thank God, was much more reserved and caring than Nettle. We watched her constantly, but gratefully there was no need. She only had the one kid to care for, and though she still did not like too much contact she did tolerate you being close. Before Nettle had flipped out I had almost had Thistle befriended, but that sort of undid it. She took excellent care of Mussette, but as she got older would be more overprotective of her baby.

     As soon as weather permitted we took Nettle to the auction barn and sold her.  There was no way we were keeping that nut around any longer. We planned as soon as it got warmer late in February, and when the kids would be of a better size, to bring Hornpipes out and put him with Thistle and Mussette. That idea however didn’t take so good. Hornpipes had been living in the house for 31 days and it was the end of February. We tried the three of them together, but Thistle was not cooperative, so we moved her over with the calf and she got visitation and feeding times with Mussette.

     After Hornpipes, the energetic escape artist, and bounced his way onto the couch and up the wall and so forth, we figured he was plenty big and healthy enough to be deported back to the barn. He and Mussette were put in the pen together and we made then hay and straw forts for warmth, that they soon figured out how to maneuver all around and on top of. He at first was real interested in this new toy called a goat. See I guess he thought he was a puppy. She just thought he was incredibly weird, still does, and she had to teach him how to be a goat. Thought she never has quite understood why he wags his tail all the time, especially when he’s eating.
     Dad and Bagpipes, ahem, of course not me, decided that they didn’t want to sell Hornpipes being that they were so fond of the little guy, so we had him wethered as there was no way we were keeping a stinky billy. Yech. He was quite the attraction at the vet’s office. A friend, after hours, helped us out and all the staff took turns coming out to see him. He didn’t have any idea what was going on just relished in all the attention.

     Thistle never quite settled into being real friendly and in the Spring we sold her to another farm that had a lot of goats, where I am sure she was happier. Hornpipes and Mussette have been together ever since. And that’s the tale of two goaties. They both just celebrated their 4th birthdays.

     Milking that old crazy nanny goat was impossible, she was always flighty and now she was just plain crazy. So we had to feed the little guy cow’s milk using a small pop bottle with a very small nipple. 
     He found his voice soon enough and when he was hungry or had to go he’d let us know by screaming. Bagpipes went over to the barrel, budged it so it moved, and Hornpipes quit yelling and listened. Then Bagpipes went to the door, dinged his bell, and we let him outside. See when we first got Bagpipes we got a hunting dog bell and hung it on the door. Dad rang it once and let Bagpipes outside, and from then on he dings his bell to go out.
He was telling Hornpipes, ”Hey kid, when you want out, you just do this.” So we gave him one of Bagpipes’ other bells by tying it to a string and then tying the other end to a dowel rod that sat over the top of the barrel. 
     Hornpipes nosed it and it rang, I picked him up and sat him on the floor. He looked at me, backed up in his tracks, I put down some paper towels and he took care of his business. From then on he was potty trained. From then on too, even though he always went on newspapers or paper towels our house smelled like vinegar because at least nice a day I would mop the whole kitchen floor to disinfect it, just to be on the safe side. 
     Bagpipes helped me feed the kid and let him out, he watched over him, and taught him all the tricks he could. Bagpipes used to eat around his bowl in a circle; one piece at a time; making effort to first pile the pieces together, then pull on back and eat it, while wagging his tail. He taught this to Hornpipes, who, to this day, eats in a circle while wagging his tail. Of course I think Bagpipes picked up some of that goat stuff as he doesn’t make the effort to be so dainty in eating anymore. :0)
     Hornpipes soon grew a bit bigger and more energetic. The cut on his neck abscessed and we put Iodine on it to disinfect and clean it out, until the abscess broke. Then we put Rawleigh’s salve on it to heal; and for a while he sure smelled pungent. It worked and he healed up quickly and nicely, you can’t even tell he had a cut there; unless he decides to shave his beard someday and there is a scar on the skin.
      Hornpipes thought everything about his “Daddy” was fascinating, from his ears all the way to his tail and especially his whiskers. Poor puppy, the goat was coming out in Hornpipes as he tried chewing on his whiskers. Bagpipes even tolerated Hornpipes walking all over him and sniffing in his face. We used to put the baby-gate up and let him run around the kitchen. Sometimes we would stick  a couple of Bagpipe’s toys in with them, but a round bell was always Hornpipes third favorite toy, the first being Bagpipes and the second being his bottle, which he’d like to drag if he could. He grew to have an obsession with his bottle, and with every new calf I am graced with I have to debate with Hornpipes on who gets the bottle. 
     Hornpipes also learned how to zip and unzip coat jackets. It was something to chew on of course, to start with and as his ears had days since turned from droopy lop ears to standing up it made the most interesting sounds. Zipping became a fun pastime, and while it is still funny now, sometimes he can be a pest.
When the little stinker first figured out how to escape the baby-gate and bounce off the walls inside the house we knew it was gonna have to be deportation time soon. Luckily we had another birth in the barnyard….but that’s a ”tail” for another day in Hornpipes and Mussette.

Sometime in the night or early hours Nettle went crazy, as goats and some animals do, and killed the little girl. I saw immediately when I entered the barn on that cold January day the nanny kid lying there, with her neck cocked back. Nettle had caught her under the neck with her horns and broke her neck, possibly throwing her into the wall. When I went in to find the boy he was nowhere to be found. The girl’s body was cold and stiff, which meant it had been at least a few hours even though it was a very cold morning.
I searched all over for the little boy with no luck. Then I pulled my flashlight out and started looking in every nook and cranny. I found him under my saddle that had fallen on the floor. Near as I could figure was Nettle had killed the little girl and tried to kill the boy too. She had picked him up and flipped him in the air, but luckily she accidentally threw him over the gate and he landed in the hay and straw on the ground. He was shivering so, it was quite cold, and we had just had another night where it was -35°F.
My dad wasn’t home from morning milking and chores yet and I couldn’t just leave the poor guy there, so I picked him up and unzipped my coat. We had about 2-3 feet of snow at least everywhere, more in drifts and the wind was a pretty strong, with winter gale-like force. I tucked the kid inside my coat layers, but the only problem was I couldn’t walk with my two canes and carry him at the same time. So I left my canes at the barn and just kinda held my elbow out for balance as I held onto him. He was starting to stop shivering, and was quite warm in my coat, so he had no idea what was going on. There was enough snow on the ground, so when I lost my balance it wasn’t too bad, we didn’t fall over. Luckily Dad had just arrived and was opening the house door. He couldn’t hear me over the wind, so I had to carry junior all the way down there.
I told him all that had happened and we came up with a makeshift plan. We first stuck the little guy in the bathtub and closed the shower doors. We knew that he couldn’t stay out in the barn anywhere, it was too cold; the days were bad enough but the nights were extremely harsh. He would freeze to death on his own. He was too small to be in with the calf and Thistle was due anytime for her babies; and we knew for certain he couldn’t be in with his mother. So he was going to have to stay in the house till warmer weather.
Dad went back to the barn and retrieved this big white barrel we had for corn. It was made of plastic and about 4 ½ feet tall and nearly 3 wide; so plenty of room for a little pocket sized Pygmy Goat Kid. Dad cleaned up the barrel and brought it and my canes back. We stuck the barrel in the kitchen, right next to the register so he could get extra warmth. We also gave him a bath of Baby Soap and a tiny bit of dog shampoo just to make sure he didn’t have lice or anything; since we don’t need them in the house. We also found that he had a huge gash on the underside of his neck where the nanny’s horn had cut him.
Meanwhile Mister Bagpipes, our Sheltie Collie, thought this whole thing was the best thing since sliced roast. I don’t think an oversized “puppy” had ever turned his head so much. (Now granted Bagpipes was 4 at the time, but he’s still our puppy.) He adopted the kid and so we decided on the name Hornpipes; which is an African version of Bagpipe: appropriate as Pygmy’s originate from Africa.
And this is how Bagpipes became a “Daddy” to a little Pygmy Goat Kid, named Hornpipes.

More to come in Bagpipes and Hornpipes

In October 2006 my dad bought me two Nanny Pygmy Goats from a friend and neighbor for my birthday. We had been looking for a young kid to raise since our last Pygmy, Cagney.
We had mentioned to our friend that we were looking for a nanny (girl), so we could raise and train her, make her really friendly. We had no luck finding one, well an affordable one, and really did not have the money to spend for the only ones we had seen advertised that were over $100.

My cousin got a call from our friend that he had found four adult nanny goats and bought them, and asked if we would want one or two because they were pregnant. So we made the long journey to his farm, which is a whole 3/4 of a mile as the kestrel flies. He had these four nannies in with his young billy, who was really friendly, but the nannies were kinda flighty. One did come up to me, she was the smallest.

So I asked our friend, in a very sucking up tone of voice, really milking it, "Since it's my birthday today, do you think I could buy one get one free?"

"Uh, no, I don’t think so Lis."

"Well actually since they are both pregnant, it's kinda like buy two get two free, maybe even three or four, right?" Hee, hee, sneaky me.

We chose a muddy brown one, the smallest, who had a white spot on her nose and gray and white hair mixed with the brown, almost giving her a purplish tint in certain light. The other looked more like the other pygmies we had, black, but she was much bigger. She had some white on her nose too. Both nannies had horns, which was something new as all of our previous nannies had no horns, however this new adventure did have some advantages...handlebars...and aided in getting them in the truck. Whew when we got them in the barn did they let loose and turn wild, literally bouncing off of the walls. Goats are weird by nature, but they sure could move for being pregnant.

 We named the brown one Thistle and the black one Nettle and they had their own pen in our "Baby Barn" so named for all the calves from our "Baby" line that have been raised there....but that's another story. They unfortunately never did friendly up, though I kept trying. They also didn't show any signs of birthing those expected kids. October passed with no kids, so too did November, then not even Christmas kids, and so too it was looking like January was going to pass by. I was kid-sitting that day, human kids that is, for longer than usual. There was a major snowstorm that day too, so I could not take the children outside to the barn. My horse, Cecil, started running and prancing around the whole pasture. The kids and I always had the windows open to watch the critters and he kept running up the fence line closest to the windows. We took pictures and opened the window to talk to him, but I did not know till they went home that he was trying to say, "The goaties are being born, the goaties are being born."

Nettle, the black nanny, had given birth to two little black kids with white freckled ears and noses, a nanny and a billy. The little girl's ears were gray and white and point up and outward. The little boy's were a bit darker shade and drooped downward, and boy did he make silly faces. He was more sleepy and she was so curious. He, being a typical little boy, kept being mischievious and would crawl underneath his sister. We played with them that night. She’d stand up in my lap to be petted and wanted to bounce around, till she got comfy, and then she’d fall asleep. He however would fall asleep right away. We moved Thistle over to the other pen with the calf as she did not look ready to birth, but she could still get close and see them. We tucked them in for the night without knowing the tragedy that would occur.

     Cecil and I were reminiscing the other day about the first time we met.

     My old horse, Cocoa, had died of old age in March of 2006 and we missed her a lot. It was a lonely Spring ‘round the barnyard. Dad and Grandpa worked out a trade with this fella we knew who trained horses for hay. They asked that he choose a well trained horse for me, with a good personality and slow gait because of my walking issues. He brought him down one early morning in late May. Dad dad called and woke me up and said to come outside. So I hurried up, changed my clothes, and went out where there was a horse trailer. The man was riding him, bareback, and said that I could name him what I liked. They had a number of horses at his place.

     He was beautiful, his coat was copper red tones and his long tail cascaded with fading colors. And oh my goodness was he tall. Now granted I was used to my old swayed back mare and then the neighbor's tiny Morgan by comparison. This horse was built with muscle and height. He would have made an excellent horse for John Wayne; a tall horse for a tall man. Of course I did not yet know his character; he could have made a good horse for Victor McLaglen or Slim Pickens too. :0)

They both told me to play with him and see if I liked him and he liked me and how we got on before I would decide. Of course I think I loved him in the first instant. I first went up to him for the old trick my dad taught me of blowing a breath onto his nose. He let me pet him a bit, but then his curiosity took over and he realized that he had a huge pasture all by his lonesome; lacking the 50 some horses from his previous pasture. And *sniff, sniff* hmm apple trees. (I did not know at that time how pleased he was to have apple trees.) He meandered around for a bit.

     It was a bit warm and I thought I would put him to a test. My dad has always been the final decision on what puppy we got. He always sat the puppy down, told it to stay, then walked away, turned, and called it by the name he chose. The puppy always came.

     I got a bucket and sat in the shade of the largest apple tree, eating some yogurt for breakfast. After I finished I saw he was at the farther end, supposedly ignoring me. I called him, "Cecil, come here Cecil." He picked up his head from eating and slowly came over to where I was, but when he came over he pretended that he was not interested, however I knew he was as he was watching me out of the corner of his eyes...checking to see what and who I was.

     So I thought, two can play this game, I have done it before. I turned away, where I could just see him and pretended to ignore him. It did not take long till he was moving into my sight. So I turned again and this time he moved into my sight, quicker, and I was not allowed to turn once more for he got right up in my face. I did that old trick again of blowing a breath into his nose, and that was it; he drooped his head into my lap and arms for a horsey hug and after a minute gave me a kiss on the cheek. He still does that to this day, though sometimes he makes faces too.

     By the way Cecil was my great-grandpa's name, and boy does he live up to it. :0)