Gettin' Your Goat

This afternoon I found my way to a little town north of the Homer Homestead so that I could watch Farmer Ron get baby goats from a dairy goat farm. He only gets the bucks because his is not a dairy farm. Primarily, Farmer Ron has a meat goat farm, but doesn't raise the standard meat goat breeds such as Boers. Instead, he takes buck kids from local farmers of any breed and raises them to be a certain weight or age and then sells them at a market. Now, I like to think of this market as an auction in which all the little goats get sold to petting zoos, but as Seneca can attest to, we've been to a goat barbecue. I can't bear to think of these tiny little creatures like that, but I am a meat eater so I won't pretend for too long as to where the goats actually go. This is why I will probably have a dairy goat farm if I am ever lucky enough to have a real farm--the Homer Homestead is still just a chihuahua sanctuary with a White Husky thrown in so the neighbors don't beat us up for only having little desert rats.

On the way to meet Farmer Ron I drove through a tiny town called Lime Ridge where I saw a hunter back from a morning of tree stand sitting and beer drinking, with the craziest neon orange safari hat on. I wanted to pull over and get my picture taken with him right then and there, but was already late to meet my dad.

So, oh mighty hunter with the neon orange hat in Lime Ridge, Wisconsin, please wear that hat next season and I promise to drive through again. That picture would have made a great post, and I laughed all the way to meet Farmer Ron thinking about what I could have done with it. Oh well. On to the farm.

This is Bob's goat barn:

This is Bob carrying two little kid goats to us so that we can put them in their little travel compartments:



Dawn is holding one of the prettiest little goats here

If I could have snuck a goat home today it would've been Blackie. Yes, I named him and he was the tiniest little goat out of the fifteen that we took with us. Blackie was cute, quiet, and calm, unlike some of his little bin mates.





Blackie



Here's a little white goat trying to play with Blackie



Farmer Ron carrying a goat out to the "Goat Wagon,"
a blue Ford Taurus wagon.





Ready for transport




The little goats are content to lay in close quarters with each other.
That is Blackie in the top left corner laying on his little white brother
from another mother.




These must have the same daddy.



I was seriously in the back seat of the station wagon with four bins
 of baby goats. They were so cute. I could have curled up in a bin with
them and slept all day in the car!

Uh, Bob? Are you missing any rabbits per chance?