New pasture opened

Darcy has been really ill the past couple of weeks, so I've been pretty tied up with that, but I wanted to post about the new pasture we've opened up. Our tenant Shon is pretty good with fencing, so we've hired him to fix our existing fence and fence in some of the woods behind the pasture. Last week, we officially opened the gate to the new pasture area.

This wouldn't be pasture for a lot of species, since it is packed full of ligustrum and wild blackberries, but these are favorite foods of goats, so they're just pleased as punch. One advantage of having woody browse available for goats is that woody shrubs are full of tannins, which act as natural wormers.

I'm just tickled pink, because the rye grass finally came up and the goats have all the browse they can eat in the new part of the pasture. The fence line has also been straightened out, which results in probably 1/4 more area in the old part of the pasture. Steve and I basically just drove in a bunch of "T" posts the first time and sort of hung the fence off of it...not the best fencing job known to man.

On another note, I've managed to sell Symbol's babies already (they leave next week), but I haven't even advertised Darcy's babies yet. Because she had so much trouble with her health, I was afraid they wouldn't grow as well as Symbol's babies. I supplemented them with cows' milk and gave them preventive coccidistat, and I think they're likely to be weaned before Symbol's--should have advertised them first!