Boomer's jungle gymn

Boomer's new pen shares a fenceline with the girl's pen.

Several people have asked me for updates on Boomer. He's doing great. He spent most of January with Finesse, Fiona, Greta and Gypsum. Toward the end of the month, they went back in the girl paddock and little brother and Nibbles came to live with Boomer in the pen next to the house.

As the month went on, it became obvious that young rams need something to keep themselves entertained. Boomer was starting to explore the noises that a house makes when you bash it. Ram, the verb, is based on ram, the noun. And Boomer, like many rams loves making noise by ramming things.

So yesterday, Lena and I fenced off two paddocks for spring seeding and made pens for Dapper Dan and Boomer up in the woodlot at the top of our land. Mouse and Dan are settling in together like an odd couple of old bachelors. Boomer, on the other hand, is running back and forth between flirting with the girls and showing the trees who is boss! Nibbies and LB are just trying to stay out of his way. 

All the girls are now sharing a pen. There are still two fiber wethers in with them, George and Mr. Bones, but they are fairly quiet and low ranking, so they aren't pushy at the feed trough.

I seeded the far east paddock last week with perrenial rye. Today Lena and I are planning on tightening up the fencing we did yesterday, trimming some hooves as needed  and seeded and packing the two new paddocks. We are planning to broadcast the seed and then tamp the ground by rolling a smooth log over it. I'm hoping to pick up a rye grass/bermuda/chickory/clover mix of seeds at the Co-op this morning to plant.

We've already disbudded Harley and Henna. I left my little dairy goats with horns last year and rediscovered that dairy goats should not have horns. My trusty Rhinehart 30 disbudding iron had kept the horns off literally hundreds of goat kids before the move to Arkansas. It didn't survive some of the more primitive conditions of our early years here. So, as soon as Harley and Henna were born, I ordered a new one from Valley Vet Supply. I've been doing business with them since I lived in Fort Collins, Colorado, o'so many eons ago. It arrived in 3 days and now, we don't have to worry about this generation of little girls getting their heads stuck in the fence!