Lucy

FYI: We did 2 blog posts again. Have fun.

Meet our goat Lucy, the newest addition to our clan. Someone please let Moxie and Typhoon know that she won't be coming back to America with us... so as not to worry about being replaced. We bought Lucy for $3500 Jamaican, about $40 US, seemed like a pretty good price although a couple of our local Jamaican friends here have commented that maybe the price was a little high. We may have payed a bit of a “white man's tax”. So be it.

We can't tell you much about Lucy. We don't know what kind of goat she is (probably some kind of mixed breed Caribbean goat), or what her bloodlines are. She's just a goat to us, but we love her just the same. Everybody already thinks we're a little crazy... “A whitey wid a goat, Lard, wat dis worl a comin to?!”, and then we gave her a name which of course nobody does here.

(Small side note: People here don't really name any animals, including pet dogs, cats, bird, whatever. We go for nightly walks through town, and invariably some pet/guard dog will bark at the new 'whities' in town. The owners will immediately come out to reign in their animal, while yelling “Dog! Dog! Come ya!” Or “Pup! Puppy! Stop dat! Shhh!” By the way, we can almost hear the dogs telling their masters in response, “No, trust me. Something's a little different about these guys. Haven't figured it out yet, but I know it's something.”
Part of it has to do with Jamaican culture's take on pets in general. The don't really talk to their dogs for any other reason than to call off their attacks on PCVs. So why name them?
So you can imagine what people think, when not only have we named our goat, but we pet her and talk to her when we walk by or get up in the morning.)

What we do know about Lucy is this... she is right about 12 months old and supposed to be pregnant, bred a couple of weeks ago to a nice big ram goat. This is part of the reason we didn't mind paying a little extra for her. You see, we have plans for Lucy and are glad that she is in the “family way”. Goats in Jamaica are almost exclusively bred for meat. Almost nobody, except the wealthy, eats any other kind of meat (other than fish and chicken). So when we heard that Lucy had already been bred we were actually excited because it'll speed up the process all the more. Gestation is about 5 months, although like every other bit of information here, we've had a hard time getting a precise answer, maybe it does really vary. If Lucy really is pregnant she should give birth sometime in late October. It's common for females to birth twins, and sometimes more. At about 6 months old, most ram goats are either sold for cash or slaughtered for meat, the does are usually kept for more breeding possibilities. Most likely we'll follow a similar plan. And if all goes right, maybe by the time we leave here in two years we will have a small flock of goats to sell or give away. We will also attempt to get some milk from Lucy when the time comes, although we've been told that the goats here are too small for that, not enough milk. However it works out, it'll sure to be a learning process.

In the meantime Lucy has become our alarm clock. Without fail at 5:30 every morning Lucy will begin to loudly proclaim (what is it that goats do... bray? neigh? Cry?....oh yeah, bleat!) her hunger and desire to be put out to new pasture. Pasture is the only thing that goats need here. No water, no supplemental feed, no housing. Incredible. So every morning we take her on a very short walk to a fresh area of grass and brush, tie her to a tree or post and let her graze for the day. In the evening we bring her back to the house and inside our gated area to deter anybody from stealing her. Several local people have made us aware of this possibility. Let's hope not as we're quickly becoming attached to her. Oh, she will need to be wormed 3 or 4 times a years, but not while she is pregnant. She is learning to like to be scratched behind the ears and gently stroked on her back.

So keep your fingers crossed for us and, maybe just maybe, soon we will be competent goat herders. Aren't you proud moms?