Stumpy is Getting Trained

Welcome back!

Sometimes we send dogs to a school to be trained for work. We send children to school so they can learn, too.

Often we train the animals on the farm to do things ourselves. We don't send them away to school.

We need to train Stumpy, Echo's calf, to lead. We've been working on it this week. I'm hoping to get a video of it for you next week. I can't take a video while I'm training so I tied Stumpy to the fence. He is learning to be well behaved on a lead.

A lead is just a farm word for leash.

He's so cute!
He has a halter on, and he has a blue and green lead rope.

The lead rope is a special one that goes over his nose and around his ears. It's the best way to train him. When he gets good at leading we'll just clip a lead rope to his halter.

If he pulls really hard the rope around his nose gets really tight. He doesn't like that! He would rather follow me than pull back and have his nose squished!

River and Serenity, the goat kids, love to play with Stumpy.

It's so much fun to watch them play. I'll try to get more videos of them this week.

Did you notice the dark spots on the top of Serenity's head?

Here is a better look at River's.

Goats are usually born with horns. We don't like our goats to have horns because horns are dangerous. Imagine what would happen if your mother let you play with your friends while you were holding knives or scissors! Ouch! Someone could get badly hurt!

Every year when goat kids are born we have to 'disbud' them. That means we get rid of their horns when the horns are very, very small. They don't grow back. If they don't have horns they can't get their heads caught in a fence as easily. They can't hurt each other when they play. And they can't hurt people or children when they are playing.

It only takes a minute. They are up and playing with their friends as soon as they are done! Annie, Misty, and Clover are all fine! They were disbudded when they were about 5 days old, just like River and Serenity.

Cows are often born with horns, too. We will take care of Stumpy's horns in a few weeks. He'll be fine, just like the goat kids.

Echo is a wonderful cow.
My friend called her a 'fairy tale cow' because
she does things that most other cows won't do.
She lets the baby goats have a snack!

The turkey hen didn't want to get off her nest, even when her eggs didn't hatch.
Silly turkey!
So I put a bunch of chicken eggs under her.
We'll see if she can hatch out chicken eggs!
She started sitting on them last Saturday.
They should hatch in 21 days.

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Do you see the tape measure around Misty?
That's how we 'weigh' the goats.
But Misty and Annie are too big for the weight tape!

We have to use a regular tape measure to see how big they are around. Then we put the measurements into a special app on my phone and it tells us about how much the goat weighs.

These are the two places we measure on the goat.

These are Misty's measurements.

This is about how much Misty weighs.

These are Annie's measurements.

This is about how much Annie weighs.

An average First Grader weighs about 45 pounds.

Misty and Annie each weigh about the same as 6 First Graders!

The goat kids weigh much less. Serenity weighs about 20 pounds. River weighs about 18 pounds. They will grow for about two years and weigh about the same as their mothers. 

Goats and cows grow much faster than people do!

You might be wondering why we can't weigh a goat on a regular scale.

It's very hard for them to put all 4 hooves on a bathroom scale and stand still. We would have to get a large animal scale and they are very expensive and very big.

Most goat and sheep owners use a tape measure. It really does tell how much they weigh, which is often a surprise for people that don't live on a farm.

Someone did a lot of math and weighed a lot of animals on a big scale so they could figure out how to make a chart (or an app) that tells you how much a goat or sheep weighs.

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One of the best things about living on a farm is that children love to visit.
Here are my grandsons heading out to the barn to do the chores with Papa one morning.
Sometimes they come early in the morning, or stay overnight.
They love to help with the chores.
Their favorite chore is finding eggs.

I hope you have a wonderful week!