Bossy Goat

A goat-raising friend said that he mixes diatomaceous earth with his goat mineral as a de-wormer for his goats. I've been chemically de-worming mine so far, which involves syringes and/or eye-droppers and more medicine on me that in the goat's mouth.

I did a little research on the internet, and it seems that there are other people who use diatomaceous earth for that purpose. Now, I don't know if my goats have worms or ever had worms and I don't really intend to try to find out. But I have read that goats have worms and that they must be de-wormed regularly or they could die a slow death - especially mothers of newborns. So I've been dutifully de-worming.

Tom and I decided to give the d-earth a try and I bought some little buckets to screw onto the walls of their sheds and stalls in which to serve the mineral/d-earth concoction. I quickly installed one in the empty stall after moving Hyacinth and kids to the pasture. Then I went to install one in Billy's loafing shed. What a project.

I barely made it across the field to the shed without Billy knocking me over. He is getting so aggressive. Not mean, just pushy and trying to assert his dominance. When I finally got to the shed and tried to install the bucket, Billy had his nose stuck in everthing and was climbing all over me. He's probably about 100 lbs. now and it's no small thing to have a 100 lb. goat pushing, shoving, and jumping all over you.

So I trooped back across the field, having to hold onto Billy's ears to keep him from ramming me, to get my rope out of the golfcart. I tied Billy to the fence and let him wrestle with the rope while I went back and finished my task. Should have done that in the first place. Good lesson learned.