Emotional blackmail

Dorian's tactics have not worked.  None of the goats have sprouted thumbs and opened his gate.....his gateway to personal fulfillment and happiness.  The does have begged and pleaded with me, and Mya threatens me by raising the hair on her back and walking stiff-legged around me, tilting her horns and generally trying to look threatening.

I have remained immovable.  I will not have kidsicles in February.  Gestation is five months, and of the six of us....Dorian, Mya, Ginger, Peach, and Plum....I'm the only one who can read a calendar.  No honeymoons until mid-November, no babies until mid-April.

With the full moon influencing the usual craziness here and bringing it to a whole new level, they conferred and brought out the big guns.  The major weapons.  Emotional blackmail.  Put us together or else!

First Mya tried.  Her weapon of choice was bloat.  This consisted of not getting up for breakfast, then not wanting to go across the yard to the garage to be milked.  Totally not her pushy, bossy, in-charge herd queen self.  Her rumen, the major fermentation vat that is the largest stomach of a ruminant, was hugely distended with gas that she could not expel without assistance.  If left unchecked, it could actually......ug.....rupture.

First she got a very deep rumen massage as I tried to get some of the pressure relieved.  She gave me two burps and tried to gore me for my trouble.  We sparred for a bit in the middle of the yard, in full view of the neighbors.  I half expected animal control to show up.  I can't imagine what my suburban neighbors thought I was doing, struggling with this "poor goat."

I milked her without giving her breakfast (couldn't add to the rumen pressure) and then forced some vegetable oil into her with a dosing syringe.  This will break up the surface tension of the bubbles and help her expel some of the gas.  I gave her some baking soda, too, and she was better in an hour or so.  By early afternoon, she was back to her normal size and her obnoxious self.  And she was back to Dorian's fence.

Dorian decided to up the ante.  I glanced out the window to see him swinging from the tree in his pen, hanging like a cattle rustler in a B Western.

The hubster and I rushed out to rescue him, only to find him in full control of the situation.  Sheesh.

Someone remind me....why do I keep goats?