Tulips & Chino
August 21, 2019 by Anna Gullickson
Good Afternoon!
I am happy to report that Eric’s Dr.’s appointment went well and he is right on track for full recovery. Dr. Garcia was rather pleased with his progress and how hard he has been working – he really was impressed. So, that was quite the relief after the last appointment. We both left feeling pretty good. J
Chino & Tulips have been doing so well. FULL DISCLAIMER: Turns out Tulips is NOT a Cashmere goat, but a Toggenburg. This is a very old breed from Switzerland. My vet said they are not very common in the States and are used for dairy production, aka “Dairy goat” My vet said, “Supposedly their milk makes really good swiss cheese, though it doesn’t really help you.” I patted Tulips on the head and said, “you won’t ever have to worry about making cheese again.” J Tulips had a trip to the vet last week for a check up. She loaded up right into the van and was such a good girl. We travel 2 hrs each way for our farm animal vet, but she is so worth it. She did a health check on Tulips, no big surprises. She is still under weight, but I’ve been feeding her 2 cups of pellets each night to try to help put some weight on. She also gets orchard grass and browses around with Chino on the vegetation in their yard. The day after she came home, my dear friends Stu & Ann came over to help bathe her and she got a nice brushing. It helped her coat a bit, but as my vet mentioned it is still a bit dull and scraggly….so she gave her a Copper supplement and a Vitamin E/Selenium Injection, thinking she may have been deficient in both. We also got her microchipped, which we do with all the animals, in case they were to get loose and lost, someone would know where their home was. We ran another fecal to be sure, but it was clear, so Tulips should now be in pretty good shape, if we can get her to gain some weight.
She sure does have a lot of energy! Every morning their routine is to get some quick cuddles as they stroll out of the barn, take their morning bathroom break, and then rather quickly get to playing. Tulips jumps up on her rock and Chino comes over and the head butting begins! Tulips makes her little bleats, rears up on her back legs and Bam! Chino is so sweet and lets her control the power of the impact, he wags his tail and holds his head down for her to butt into. After a few hits, she’ll jump off the rock and run around, sometimes he chases her and sometimes he just waits for her to come back. Occasionally she’ll go for a hit when on the ground, but quickly decides she prefers the high ground over him and jumps back up on her rock! They do this for at least 10 -15 min each morning. The other day Maya wanted to come visit them with me, and wow, were they ALL excited! Maya was worn out running around and around the pasture with Tulips. Maya would try to lay down for a rest in the shade or get a drink of water and Tulips didn’t want to stop. Tulips would rear up and make the motion of headbutting Maya, but didn’t ever actually make contact and Maya would stand there wagging her tail while consistently barking that shrill “play bark” that she has. Chino was also excited and wanted to play, but it seemed to be “girls only”. So, he tried to play with me rearing up two different times, to me turing and feeling his front hooves on my shoulders. I was like, AH! Chino, no! His tongue was sticking out at me and I could tell he really wanted to play, but mounting me was a bit much. Ha ha. He stopped when I laughed and said, “Chino, no.” and let me give him loves instead as we watched the crazy girls run around.
They have been great for me in the evenings too, excited to get their special dinner snacks. They run to the gate to greet me and then trot to the barn to get fed. They have been doing so well, but sounds like they take advantage of Dad when I’m gone flying. Chino gives Eric a hard time and pretends he doesn’t want to go in and makes it quite difficult on Eric, it sounds. I think it is mainly because he knows he’ll get more peanuts out of it!
Everyone else is doing well. It is cooler & cloudy today, so we are all enjoying that.
I will be moving these postings to our website, which will mostly just be these postings for now, to begin a consistent blog and keep the updates happening, since many of you are enjoying them. I will send a link to all of you once I make the transition and hope that you continue to enjoy reading them there.
Until then, enjoy the last few days of summer and we look forward to the beautiful days of Fall!
~ Namaste