Relaxed Farming - our farm in your classroom

Meet 'he-who-needs-a-name'!!! This rather sweet pygmy billy has now joined the Relaxed herd. A week or so ago we commented that we weren't having much luck finding a billy close to home and then, suddenly, a search on the Internet brought up three potential candidates. We had seen a photo of this chap along with an older brother and liked what we saw, so this morning we headed out to Redruth to 'have a look'!!!
Redruth is a good hour's drive away from us and so we (Jack, her brother Jon and wife Annette) went with the expectation that if we liked what we saw, we would 'probably' return with him. We went prepared, which included taking a collar and lead... The breeders (Angie and Bob) were delightful - they had a herd of around 30, including some very fine older billies, all of whom had the run of several acres. They were all quite long-coated goats (most of ours are short-coated) and with much stockier, shorter faces and there were some delightful colours!!
We only have six females to breed from and so our idea always was to buy in a youngster who would be happy to work with (i.e. mate) a mere half dozen girls and who we might then keep through to next year!! Temperament (the way he behaved) was very important as on our smallholding everything has to get on with everything else and be good with visitors (of which we have a lot...). The older brother was obviously a bit more feisty and we liked the face of this one more so he became the chosen one and after paperwork was sorted, we loaded him up. The journey back was trouble-free and he made hardly a sound!!
Once in his stall in the barn he overcame his initial shyness very quickly, tucked into some food and when last checked this evening was lying down chewing the cud in a corner... Our plan is to keep him in for a few days and then gradually start to introduce him to our herd, probably starting with Pepper first. Until we want him to start mating with the girls, all meetings will be 'supervised' as we don't want any early pregnancies. There is also the small matter of Satin who is our one remaining kid, not yet three months old but until we sell her we definitely don't want 'he-who-needs-a-name' anywhere near her.
And talking of names, ideas please!! The others are all named after herbs/vegetables... Use our Facebook page click here (or the Contact Us via the website) to send your suggestions...