The Look

There will be another trip to the feed store today, not because I'm out of goat chow but because I got the wrong kind last time.  My preference for the girls is lactating goat chow, a mixture of whole grains and pellets.  It has a higher protein percentage and helps with milk production.  There are times when the store is out of the preferred chow and second best is sweet cob, same grains but no pellets.  That would be the girls' first choice as it has more molasses and those girls definitely like sugar on their cereal.  After feeding two bags of sweet cob, I'd hoped a new delivery of the LGC had come in, but no.  The store had a new brand of goat chow and I thought I'd give that a try.  This is a totally new type of feed in that it is all there, grains and green stuff, ground up very fine and combined in very small pellets with none of the whole grains and crushed corn that the girls and the mice like.  The goats seem to like it okay, all except Esther, who turned up her nose yesterday morning and dumped her dish.  The problem is the mice.

There are two clans of mice in the barn, living on either side of the milking room.  Each clan puts out sentries to keep watch and then alert their comrades that breakfast is being served.  The first day I put down the new feed there were a few traces of the sweet cob left in the bucket.  The mice picked through their servings (each side gets its own helping), trying to find the grains, giving me questioning looks when those pickings were slim.  Hey, guys, it's all I've got.  Yesterday there were no grains at all.  The clans ran back and forth to the opposite camp to see if they had any.  I'm apologizing like crazy but they weren't having any of that.  They lined up on either side like the warriors in Braveheart, and boy! did I ever get The Look.  Extra squirts of milk did not appease their disappointment in me.

This morning I'll take down some of the chicken feed as a peace offering, and then I'll go to the feed store again.  I don't deal well with guilt.

The day didn't have such a great beginning, but a rather spectacular finish.