Fierce Mom

Before Dena's babies were born Joan carefully and meticulously built an addition to the goat shed with it's own small pen so we could separate her and the kids from the other two adults.

 I was concerned that the larger goats might, accidentally or even on purpose, injure one of the tiny kids. Daisy has been an aggressive queen, reminding Dena especially of her position with random head butts. But it didn't take long for the kids to figure out that they could get through the fence and wander around the larger pen at will. Fortunately Daisy and Spike were well behaved.

The next question is what to do with Dena. Does she stay inside the little pen while the babies run around at will? At first I was still concerned that the tiny kids would need a safe place to escape to and Dena should be there. After a while it became evident that everyone was getting along fine and poor Dena was just stuck in a small space.

We have three goat areas that can be opened or closed depending on where we want the goats to be, so at first we let Dena out into the main larger pen and closed off one pasture for the other two adults. But the kids got through that fence to follow Daisy and Spike.  I knew eventually they would all have to be put back together, but my main hesitation was around how Daisy and Dena would get along.

For the two years that our three original goats have lived together Dena has been submissive to Daisy's queenliness. Most recently, she did her best to simply stay out of the way.

Now that she had babies, would Daisy continue to beat her up, and would the babies get trampled in the process?

Turns out, motherhood changes a girl. When we finally decided to bite the bullet and let all of the goats be together in the same pen, Dena showed us all that she was no longer the submissive little girl. Now she is a fierce mom unwilling to back down to Daisy or Spike.