Extremely busy day, now what to do with Hera?

Well today we picked up our 5 month old Nubian Lamancha cross dairy goat Aega. Sweet thing she is being coloured beige and white and has a sweet temperament. I got her home and took her to meet the others in our little flock. They were quite interested in her, though Moose the goat butted her a couple times when she got too noisy. They look like it may take a few days to get her used to them and vice versa before they will accept her into the flock.

So we left her in the field with them while I took Davin to his first Pony Club session where he learned some groundwork with the ponies and got to ride bareback for a bit with me leading the pony. He was scared up on the pony at first, and likely none too comfortable as he had gotten “the runs” just before we arrived there so he spent the first 20 minutes of class in the bathroom. Unfortunately he didn’t make it to the bathroom in time and got his underwear dirty so he had to do the class with just his jogging pants on. But he was a trooper and quickly forgot his crampy problem once started working with the ponies.

I was very impressed with how well he listened to the instructor and he followed the directions really well for his first time working with an animal his own size. He was of course at the end of the night really wanting to get back on and ride some more as one of the little girls his age there vaulted onto her horse from the ground right in front of him. She really impressed him with that power move and he wanted to immediately try it out, but the sun was going down and we had run out of time, so next week it is.

When we got home, it didn’t take us long to realise all hell had broken loose. In fact a complete disaster. I heard Aega bleat frantically from the front of the house outside the goat field which was wrong. She had gotten out somehow? So I went and got her and then Darren realised something was running around in our sheep field. It only took a minute to see that it was Hera. It was past full dark at this time which made it much harder to figure out what was going on. We caught Hera and her head was bloody. We expected the worst that all the flock was dead or injured at that point.

We caught Hera and locked her in a bathroom with Zipper and started to piece together what had occurred. I was really surprised that Hera sat when Darren demanded she sit so I could catch up to her and clip a lead onto her. We figure that Hera had been so excited with the new noise of the baby goat bleating for its mother that she vaulted herself up onto the kitchen cupboards and forced her way through the screen and partially open kitchen window. At that point she hunted the animals. The baby Aega got away, but both Gordi and Meat had blood on them. Meat’s throat was all bloody and it looked like Hera had a grip on his windpipe. He had some lacerations there but seemed ok despite it. Gordi had some lacerations on one of his front legs, and Neither Moose nor Spotty had any damage. I think Moose the goat had attacked Hera back since Hera’s face was bloody and she had a gouge by her eye.

Lexie on the other hand stayed in the house the whole time and didn’t follow Hera out to cause chaos. What a good girl! I’m not sure what we are going to do with Hera but she has lost her running off leash privileges forever now. The dog pen has now become a top priority to finish over the weekend. I briefly thought about giving Hera away but then decided it would make Lexie very upset to lose her buddy, so some strict training is in order.

For the night now, we have bedded Aega down in the pen I brought her home in on the truck, in the shop with the other critters. At least she will be safe in there and we can try her tomorrow in the field with the flock again. Hope she has a more peaceful less scary end to her evening now. The rest of the flock is now bedded down in their favorite trees in the corner so all is back to normal now. It’s been a long day now, so pics will have to come tomorrow.