So, we were about to get a new hound, finally bringing new life to this household which has had far too much death in the past few years. So what more did we need, GOATS!

One of Saigh’s coworkers mentioned trying to figure out what to do with all their goats. Although they might raise many animals for meat, this co-worker was wanting to rehome as many of these kids alive as possible. So…how could we resist?

Especially as we want to make sure that Cimmeron or Iceman has company should something happen to one or the other.

So in November 2009, just a few days before we got Òrlaith, we got two 8 month old kids. Elína, who had been Ellen, is a doe with a lot of LaMancha, hence she has no ears (Cimmeron behind her actually does, but they’re hidden in this photo). Randvér, formerly Randy, is a whether (therefor not randy) with large ears we got to keep her company. We we went with Norse names due to Aaron’s patron’s affiliation with goats and, well, then we didn’t have to make much change.

We figure we’d probably not have a lot of luck “disposing” kids either, never bred Elína when she’s old enough. They were pets. And buddies for for both the Minis and Gleann; Misty and Saorsa also eventually bonded with Elína bonded as much as the Mini boys did with her especially after losing Randvér. However, all horses were extremely suspicious of the goats when they first met. As you can see from the photo of Cimmaron behind Elína above.

We lost Randvér when he was only two years old, but Elína worked through her grief to bond more strongly with the horses and but still passed relatively early at 10 years old when another infection turned into a pneumonia antibiotics failed to beat. They are now together again, surely butting heads happily. 

We probably will not be getting goats again, but then “never” is a dangerous word.