Relaxed Farming - our farm in your classroom

Pygmy goats can often look naturally grumpy as these photos show... but you will have to believe us when we say that both Marmite and Thyme were VERY HAPPY to spend some time together today. This is because Thyme is in season and Marmite was more than ready to get together with her!!
A week ago on the 21st September, we wrote that it was a little too soon to allow Marmite to mate with any of the pygmy females as this would mean mid-February births. Then on the 23rd the little monkey got out of his paddock and we were worried he might have mated with one or more of the females then - and we were especially worried about Thyme as we had a feeling she was about to come into season (the fact she is fully in season now means she wasn't on 23rd).
By allowing the two of them to get together today we are now looking at the 19th February as the earliest possible date for Thyme to give birth - this is because goats are pregnant for anything from 145 to 155 days. (You can set up a spreadsheet to work out these dates for you.) In the past Thyme has given birth on days 148 and 149 after mating so we are therefore probably looking at the last week in February as the likely start to our pygmy goat kidding - almost as originally planned and all very exciting!
We have also now worked out how Marmite got out of his paddock! We decided to put him back into the paddock first thing in order to then see if we could spot him getting out. (That does make sense, honest!) As Thyme was in season (and at that time not in the paddock with him) we knew he was probably going to try to get out in order to be with her. He did not, as we thought, go under the fence where the badger made a scrape in the ground. No, he was far cleverer! What he actually did was climb up the gate and through one of the spaces between the vertical and horizontal pieces of wood. It was a massive struggle for him and looking at the size of the gap we would not have thought it possible but we watched as he struggled and a bit like a cork exploding from a bottle, he finally 'popped' through.
At that point we opened up the gate and put him AND Thyme back in. Funnily enough, with Thyme to keep him company, he did not make an effort to escape for the entire rest of the day!!!