Sometimes it takes me a while to come to a conclusion that was probably blatantly obvious to everyone else. Today I had such a forehead-slapping moment, an epiphany, a why-didn’t-I-think-of-that-earlier idea about the animals and the pastures.
Originally, the plan was to create three pastures. The alpacas could be alone on one, and the goats could be separated into the other two. Because some of the male goats are still “intact,” [the commonly accepted parlance for still able to be dangerous around does, as in 1+1=3], they, at least, had to be in a separate pasture from the numerous does. Add that to the nobody-likes-to-be-alone nature of goats, and the some-are-smaller-than-others reality check, and you have our original idea to split the goatsand sheep more or less evenly between two pastures.
Driving home this afternoon, however, I decided we were doing things the hard way. [Note: I have plenty of time to think when I'm driving home because I never drive straight home. There's always somewhere to stop "on the way." "On the way" at our house means "not totally in the opposite direction." So today, "on the way" meant driving from Allen to Poole Feed in Wylie, then up Hwy 78 to WW Feed, then over by Lake Lavon to pick up a Craigslist score - an 8 foot hay feeder made especially for goats -- then on into Farmersville. It's amazing what you can get in the back of a Suburban!]
As I as saying, driving home I had this epiphany. There were only 2 little goats that we had to keepreally had to be kept away from the others. So why not put those two little goats, plus a couple of playmates and the alpacas over on the small pasture, and move all of the rest of the goats over to the big pasture? Ken concurred, so that’s what we did after I made it home. Because there is a pen between the pastures with a gate on both sides, it was pretty easy to trap the selected goats and the alpacas in that pen while we opened another gate and drove the herd from the small pasture to the large pasture. Once the small to large move was done, we opened the pen gate to make the large to small move.
This arrangement gives the large goat herd lots and lots of grass and lots of places to wander while still keeping the bucklings away from the does. It also puts a more reasonable number of animals on the small pasture and, best of all, it saves me having to put up a 330 foot electric fence!
Tomorrow, we solve the problem of the 5 new-to-us chickens roosting on the rafters above the main corridor in the barn. I’ve already used up my epiphany alottment for today!
Isn’t it amazing when something comes to you like that? I finally arranged my electric fence so that the Jacob sheep are separate from the alpacas, and all the alpacas are together. (Glad that worked out!) My feeding chores have been chopped in two, as far as the time it takes to do it all.
That’s the way the farm has always been for me, Mary. You do stuff “the hard way” until the little lightbulb comes on, and then you adjust. I wish those light bulbs would come quicker and more often, but we just can’t force them.
It’ll keep getting better and better!