A New Arrival

The breeder at Cimarron Valley Ranch named her Honey Bunny.

With any departure, there needs to be an arrival.  Sunday night was the arrival of Honey Bunny, my third Nigerian Dwarf goat and only one with blue eyes and buckskin.  I put the dog crate in the goat yard and let Dottie Belle and Gypsy take a few good sniffs before I released Honey.  I have to admit that I was apprehensive about their reaction to a new "sister" and they proved that I should have been.  Sorry I don't have pictures of their first meeting, but it was too dark at 11 o'clock at night.  

 

Honey Bunny learned very quickly that I have goat pellets in the blue coffee cans.

 

Dottie Belle and Gypsy immediately sent a very strong message to Honey.  They ran in a circle around me and then stood on either side of me and had a stand-off with Honey.  Clearly communicating that Honey was not to come near me. It was quite amazing, but I could not let that situation last.  I stayed out there for an hour trying to make Honey feel welcomed and ease Dottie Belle's and Gypsy's jealousy or possessiveness.

Kennedy loves the goats.  The only animal name she says is cat.

They each have their own bin where they eat goat pellets.

She has beautiful blue eyes.

Gypsy's tongue is out like a dog's.

Of course I love all 3 goats.  But when Gypsy and Dottie Belle start ganging up on Honey Bunny, I remind them that they are $100 goats and Honey Bunny is a $350 goat.  My taste in livestock is getting more expensive.

But you just can't beat the personality of bottle fed goats like Gypsy and Dottie Belle. They just want to play with me.  They are more playful than most dogs.

But I finally gave up, because it seemed that my presence only made matters worse.  When I left they were chasing Honey around the yard and butting her.  I went in and googled, "how to introduce a new goat to a herd?" 
Site after site said you just have to let them work it out.  They have to establish the pecking order.  Gypsy has always been the alpha goat and it seemed that Dottie Belle was putting up quite a fight to remain #2. 


It is probably a good thing that Honey Bunny is 2 months older and a little bigger; otherwise she might get hurt. This is a great example of the importance of disbudding the goats.  I'm really glad none of the 3 have horns. 

Dottie Belle is trying to take the camera from me.