A Day of Clipping

One more new skill under our belts. Shaving goats. I bet my college professors can’t to that. Goodness, what have I become?

Our dear friend Bryn came down for the day to help us shave all of our goats (actually just eight of them, didn’t shave the four “babies”). She brought her aluminum stanchion which is much easier to move and her own pair of clippers. In other words she came ready to get it done.

Michael and I used our stanchion and clippers so we were able to tackle two goats at a time.

Michael and I started on the “adolescents” and Bryn started with the bucks.

Here is Oreo, she was our guinea pig. We quickly found out that the adolescents still had their very thick winter coats ( I actually thought they were just a bit on the plump side) Some people call it cashmere. What ever you call it all I know is that it was very thick and very difficult to get clippers through.

Mouse had that same thick coat. Look at all that hair.

Ditto with Ramblin Rose. The nice thing about Rose was that she was very easy to work with. No fussing at all.

On the other end Bryn was wrestling with the bucks. First of all if they don’t want to get on the stanchion……they don’t get on the stanchion. Your talking about goats that way close to if not 100 pounds. And they are stubborn. Between Michael and Bryn they managed to get each one up there.

Sometimes when you shave goats their hair grows back a slightly different color. I’m curious to see what they look like when their hair grows out.

Bryn started with Woody. I love Woody but what a girl he was. Just a big baby. Fussing the whole time.

Here is a picture of what Calvin and Surfer Joe looked like before getting shaved.

Calvin was next. Talk about a baby. How embarrassing. Bryn was great with him though. But really, with all the machismo during rut season who would have ever thought he was just a girly man at heart.

Calvin

Lastly came Surfer Joe. Now he was a buck. Just stood there and took it like a man. He was so well behaved that Joshua practiced shaving him. A great goat to end the clipping for Bryn.

Joe getting a haircut

Both Halle Berry and Brown Sugar had lost their winter coats. As a matter of fact we had decided we wouldn’t shave them because their hair was so nice and short.

Then we changed our minds. We figured that the place was already a mess of hair and it was going to be a hot summer so why not clip them as well.

I did Halle Berry first. What a great doe. She didn’t give me any problems at all. Even when she was done with her snack she just waited patiently. I tell you, that goat will do anything for food. She is our resident foodie. She even ate a bite of Michael’s dill pickle.

Brown Sugar was not so easy. Actually, not easy at all. That didn’t surprise me since she isn’t easy on the stanchion when milking. Oh well,she had very little hair to trim.

After being clipped, they need to have sunscreen applied to their backs , necks and heads. Here is Nicholas trying to spray Woody.

It only took one goat for us to learn that you spray them while they are still held in the stanchion.

Here are the three adolescents enjoying their new summer coat.

On a side note, take a look at Joshua’s face in this picture. We asked him to pick up some of the goat hair. I love that boy but man does he have a weak stomach.

Here is Nicholas. He was working on his supervisory skills.

It took us about three hours to get it all done and cleaned up. Not bad for beginners. The nice thing about learning a new skill is when you realize, “OK, that wasn’t too difficult. I can do that again.”

If this homesteading thing doesn’t work out maybe I can go to barber school.

Learn something new today.
Karen