The Goats Need Coats

We're learning things about goats every day. The baby goats, Cover Girl and Joey, came to Simply Country Farm when they were just weened from their mama last spring. And then Joey's big sister, Destiny (the one with the prize-winning udder) came early summer. We've so far learned about milking goats, feeding goats, and have loved getting to know each of their personalities. Now Destiny is about to give birth to twins, or possibly triplets, so that will be yet another adventure!

But something new we've learned about goats is that they need coats to keep warm in our cold winter months. A goat coat? Hmmmmmm . . . I've never seen one, in fact I've never heard of such a thing until now! But thanks to good ol' Google, I can find out just about anything on the internet and there it was, complete instructions on how to make a Goat Coat requiring taking measurements from shoulder to hip, around the belly, etc!

Then I found out something even better. Jennifer had a set of coats she had borrowed and needed to return, so I just made a pattern from them and had a great time making them. They are made with a sturdy cotton outside layer with a soft fleece lining.

I had a good time sewing these goat coats, something I've never thought in my wildest dreams of every doing.

Here are from left: Cover Girl, Joey, and Destiny the other day when it was a nice sunny day.

Here they are today. It was too muddy to go inside the gate so the pictures have the gate between us. But you can see that we need to make some adjustments to the goat coats. They tend to slip and slide around their bellies!

I'm not sure why Destiny, on the left, wasn't wearing her coat but here you see her with Joey. I love the way the chickens, especially the one in the center, want to be in the picture too!

And this is Cover Girl modeling her lovely coat. Note that she is standing with all four hooves on a rock . . . so she doesn't get her feet muddy!

Life is Good!