Goats or guinea pigs?

Pharmaceutical companies are putting human genes into goats to use them in laboratory experiments, according to an article published in Salon.com. To stop this mad science please sign the petition here. Thanks - Coco's Mom

midnight goat wrangling

Today was the first time i have ever moved my goats at midnight. O man was it an adventure!!! Mom and Emily were having fun catching the females. Well actually on a few occasions the goat got the best of them. Poor Emily got knocked into a fence and got her toe stepped on by my fatty Tana, but in the end we successfully moved them into another pen all together. - Coco

New Kid In Town

This is Pickle. The girl goats are part of my breeding program, so I got Pickle, a male, to show at the Ventura Fair. Pickle is already getting used to me; my goal is to do well in showmanship and win Grand Champion again ~ Coco

Reunited!

By some miracle, our babies were located - nearly 30 miles away! Thanks to all the members of the community, the police, the school, the feed stores and every individual who was concerned and put the word out!
Yesterday we were able to have them picked up and reunite them with their moms. Biscuit, Ciara and Izzy are alright - they were a little sick having been taken from their moms at such a young age, before they were weaned: whatever they were being fed made them ill and dehydrated, and they appeared weak, dirty and very scared when we first saw them. But as soon as they heard their moms they perked up, and were eager to eat!!! The moms though were a little skeptical as they didn't recognize the babies' scents, so we had to coax them together. The poor moms, too, had suffered during this time as their milk kept coming in: their udders were full so they had to be milked often.
Luckily everything was fine when we left - we are fortunate the babies and their moms weren't separated any longer than they were.
All the goats are at a private farm now for safe-keeping (thank you!) until the High School farm can be secured. - Coco's Mom

Kid-napped!

Late Friday Feb 8 or early Saturday Feb 9 someone broke into Carpinteria HS grounds, and into the student farm and stole the baby goats.
Stolen were Ciara (20 lbs, female), Biscuit (20 lbs, female) and Izzy (25-30 lbs, male). All three are de-horned.
These babies are just 4-5 weeks old and not weaned - they need to be with their mothers.
The thieves targeted the babies, cutting the chainlocks at the back of the school and the perimeter of the farm. They left the mothers - who have since been taken away for safe-keeping.
Please help us find our babies! Thank you.

Jan 28

Biscuit (l) & Ciara (r) at 4 weeks.

Jan 21

This past week we castrated the one male goat Izzy. I have never seen it done before and it was my advisor’s first time doing it also! We took a rubber band and put it at the top of the testicles so that the circulation is cut off. It is easy and painless. It is better doing this at a young age because there is no blood flowing to them, but when they’re older there is a chance the goat could die. The reason we take them off is so when we show them they’re calm and easy to work with, because they don’t have testosterone. The animal doesn’t know the difference and it is easy and painless which will help them live a happy life.

Jan 17

Today we gave the babies their first shots. They also got some vitamins in their systems which is a good thing so they don’t get sick with all this cold weather. After all that was done we de-horned them. It is better to de-horn them at a young age because it won’t hurt them as bad as it would have if the horn tissue was already hard. We de-horn them because their horns get long and can cause injury to another goat or themselves by simply getting caught on a fence.

Jan 2 - Babies at last!

The first time I heard the babies cry I ran to the pen to see how many there were. There laying in the shavings were two baby girls who we named Ciara and Biscuit. Shortly after being born they were already up and walking around quite clumsily. We cleaned the pen right away so that the smell of newborn babies was not lingering in the air because coyotes could come and get them. To protect the new babies I had to wear gloves so I didn't get my scent on them because if I did their mother Tana could reject them. Once the gloves were on I had to spray their umbilical cords with iodine. We must have gone to the farm about ten times that day just to look at them and make sure they were healthy.