The second of my blowers is a blow/vac. They are also good to use when you are defrosting a freezer.
Angora Goats From Rescue
Ahhh, useful little thing!
That dog has bunches of hair! How is he in the Florida heat?
He stays inside a lot during the summer plus he has a pool to cool off in. In winter he is more active and likes to stay outside a lot. He is the third Belgian Tervuren that I have lived with-it is a toss up of who owns who with this breed
Back with mom!
"Gee, you guys stink"
"Oh yeah? Well you smell like humans!"
One of these goats is not like the others...
One of these goats just doesn't belong....
WOW! the difference is just amazing! These are the first goats i've seen that don't look like a goat they look like white poodles.
Are they soft and cuddlie?
That is truly AMAZing when you compare the 'before' and 'after'.
Oh Claire!! Ugghhh! You don't know what you're doing to me!! They are absolutely beautiful. I soooooo miss my goats! I've never had any 'fiber' goats; I just love their coats. She must feel so much better after getting her bath.
Sue ☺
They are incredibly soft and now that she is clean, that one is very, very cuddly! The ones who aren't clean yet are tempting to cuddle, but they smell too bad to get real close! Her clean fleece is so very fluffy and warm and so fine textured - it will be great for making interesting fiber in the spring. I want to learn to spin.
Here's a pic to show how cuddly she is! Goat kisses!
Ahhhh...she must think she is in heaven.
Love goat kisses!! She looks so content! And most likely very gratefull for the great care. Her feet must feel better being trimmed up too. No-one wants to where shoes that are too tight.
Wonderful bit of work there, Claire!! If you ever need a home for extra babies...(Goat kisses are wonderful things...)
Claire are you going to do the mama one last? Wondering if she will take it so easily (well it looks kind of easy from a distance} or do you tackle her next? Will the delicing? lousing? be done after all are bathed, thinking that all the lice will migrate from the dirty ones to the nice fluffy one. That's what I would do if I were one, woouldn't you?
The shampoo is special stuff that is supposed to have residual effect for several days. We are going to do them each night for the next 3 nights, then burn the bedding, and start them outside with the other goats. We have a spray for follow up application in a couple of weeks. I am hoping that will take care of it. The shampoo did the delousing. We could still see some in her fur but they were all dead.
We actually planned to do the mama one tonight. She will probably be tougher and she will need a lot more clipping because she is sooooo matted. Then we might do both the other babies tomorrow night. She was not at all difficult to bathe - she took it very well. She bleated now and then but overall it was easy. The hardest part was leaning over the tub to do all that shampooing! It took about 45 minutes to get her clean. And then about an hour for drying.
Claire, if you can, you might try sitting on the edge of the tub with your feet in the water. That's how I bathe the Queen of All She Surveys. It would utterly kill my poor back to do it leaning over the tub the way I used to. It's a real mess, but easier.
You're just raking up all the animal-shaped jewels for that crown!
(Pic of Queen Brigid -- can't get one of her in the tub as I'm solo...)
Queen Brigid has a very royal presence. She is delightful!
What a difference!
So last night we did the adult female goat's bath. And what a great time she had. She absolutely loved it. She kept laying down in the tub!
She was really patient and completely docile about it.
Final belly rinsing!
And the drying took forever and a day...
I don't think the kids recognized her this morning!
O I bet she was in heaven! I can't even imagine how horrible they must feel in the dirty condition. Look how prettiful she is now! ^_^
Old goat, New goat!
Dahlia - she's byooootiful! I just love them all. I am so happy to give them a better home and help them feel better. :-)
I'd bet that goat would give you the moon if 1) you wanted it and 2) she had opposable thumbs.
If she gives me a lovely fleecy coat every year, I will be thrilled to pieces. :-)
Now i want and angora goat!
Oh Harmony, they are just perfect little ladies. They don't butt me with horns, and they gently eat out of my hand without ever biting my finger by mistake. They will sit in my lap if I pick them up, and I really feel they are appreciative for what has happened to them now. You would love them to bits! I could just sit and pet them all day long - so soft and curly and touchable.
Claire I'm sure there is a HUGE statue of you in a secret goat place now.
LOL....thanks for the sentiment - if I ever find the secret goat place, I will let you know!
They look so much better now:]!
Dominique
Ahhh, happy sweet-smelling goats!
Claire are they common or rare i've never seen one before?...... Do they cost more than a pygmy goat?.. I'm just curious about them........
(notice the sly attempt to get info as i act as if i didn't want one)
coveting and more coveting.
Very sneaky information gathering mission, Harmony! I will pretend that I don't know that you want a whole flock of them to play with.
Well, they are certainly one of the less common goats. A couple of reasons for that are (1) that they are not particularly good for meat goats because they are smaller and not bred for meat, like boer goats and (2) they are not known for producing a lot of milk. This is in part because they are not bred for it, but also because they tend to only have 1 kid at a time, sometimes 2. This is one of the reasons we are not sure if the babies actually belong to the mom goat, because it would be very unusual to have triplets in an angora goat. So, overall, since they are neither good milkers nor good meat goats, they tend to be less common because they are not a big income producer. That said, they make wonderful fiber and if someone is willing to shear them and take good care of the fiber, it can be sold for a good price to fiber artists etc. We do not have them for income purposes. We just wanted to give them a good home, but we also want to have some of the fiber in time. Kelly wants to make me a spinning wheel and maybe I can blend it with llama fiber and make some interesting wool to sell?!
As for their cost, to be honest, I am not sure. Since these were from the shelter, they were a fixed price, like any shelter goat. That is why I do not know, although I suspect they might be a bit more expensive because of their rarity.
I think they are very valuable goats just for the cuddle and sweater factors alone!
Thanks for the info Claire my DH and i just fell in love with the cute little goats we saw at the auction i think they were Nigerian (sp?). We were thinking in the spring of cross fenceing a place and getting some. They would be pets and i would like them to have babys and we would sell those.
But now I'm just loveing these OH Decisions, Decisions i will be dreaming of little snuggle goats till spring.
The Nigerian dwarf goats are oh-so-cute also, and very cuddly. That is what Opal is. We have two female and one male Nigerian. They are gentle too, although I guess not all of them are - it depends how they were raised.
One thing to consider --if you want an intact male (necessary for the baby goat part!) then you will need to have 2 areas, because once the female is pregnant, and as she nears birth, you have to separate them. Sometimes the male will begin to mount her again when she is close to birthing, and that can be bad for the babies. Also, they sometimes are not nice to the baby goats. Plus, he would mate her again right after her giving birth, which is hard on her to be pregnant all the time. And, he could mate with the little babies as soon as they are mature, which is long before they should be bred (and you would not want to inbreed him to his own babies anyway). And on top of that, intact male goats stink, a lot, because they pee on themselves all the time. It is a habit of male goats to make them attractive to the females. And no, I cannot explain that!! I'm just glad I'm not a goat! So you would need a separate area for him for while she is pregnant and after she has the babies, and for the babies until they are 18 months old, so all around, it would be good to find out if there is a farm in your area that offers a stud service of a male of whatever species you might get. Usually it is $25 a week around here to have your female goat stay at the male goat's place. This is for a max of 3 weeks because that is their cycle length. Then you can take them home and have the babies later and not have the hassle of the intact male and needing a separate pasture and everything. Just my 2 cents!
Here is Opal, one of our Nigerians.
And here is Lotus.
And our intact (smelly) male, Ramses.
