If you’ve been following along for awhile you’ll know that Daisy is a homicidal goat. Some days I wonder if her sole purpose in life is to kill us. Don’t let her fool you, she’s small, but she’s fierce. If you’re out in the goat yard and walking across it she’ll run ahead of you jump up on a spool and swing her head at stomach level as you walk by hoping to gut you. I’m not joking either. She might let you scratch her back, but you have to be prepared to jump out of the way when her mood changes like a light switch and she turns on you. 

She’s also a terror on the milk stand. Fortunately the stanchion locks her head into place so you don’t have to worry about her stabbing your jugular while milking, but that doesn’t stop her from having a temper tantrum. She kicks, she bucks, she lays down. We’ve been able to remedy most of that by sticking a wooden box under her chest (hobbles didn’t work), but she’s still awful stomping back and forth trying to avoid your hands. Cooing, talking sweetly and giving her scratches only seems to intensify her disdain. 

When she had Mongo we thought maybe she had changed for the better. She wasn’t trying to kill us anymore and while Mongo wasn’t nearly as friendly as Mork, he would still come up to you for attention. Having Mongo seemed to chill her out. All good things come to an end I suppose. Now that Mongo is gone she’s back to her old self. 

Now Daisy has a new weapon in her arsenal. Screaming. At. The. Top. Of. Her. Lungs. When she’s in heat it means 3 days of screaming at us. If she doesn’t see any sign of us she’s quiet, but once a light goes on in the house that she can see, or one of us walks outside she screams. I guess it’s a good thing that it’s not constant, but it still drives us batshit crazy. The first time I heard her scream I thought she had her leg stuck in the fence or something equally horrible. Nope, she’s just sexually frustrated. If anyone has a remedy (other than breeding her) to get her to shut up just let us know!  

So what does this all mean for Daisy? Right now, nothing. We have to hang onto her because when you have goats, you must have at least two. They are herd animals and must have constant companionship. But we’re getting a third goat soon. But nope, she still won’t be going anywhere because we’ll be rotating her and Bella with the new goat (Sedona) for a constant supply of milk. But eventually we may be getting rid of her. We will be breeding Daisy again this Spring because I really want a daughter from her. She’s got great milking teats and good milk production potential for a Pygmy. After that though, we’ll have to rethink her position here.