Creating a new goat paddock

Our new goat, Pinkie, was bullied by our two other goats when we put her into the goat paddock when she arrived at the end of last month. This is quite normal and after a while, they would be expected to calm down. The problem however was that our two existing goats have horns, giving them an advantage in any scuffles. Pinkie, without horns, is also more vulnerable to being head butted simply because of the size of her udders. A cut on the milk sack last week, almost certainly from a horned head butt, pushed us to take the decision to separate her from the other two.

As a temporary measure, we have put her into a corner next to the goat paddock and quail house. We let her out to wander around when we are on the allotment and when she needs to be milked. We need, however, to build her a separate paddock and have chosen the area where most of the henhouses are sited. The henhouses will remain in place but the sage and soft fruit we have grown on that part of the allotment need to be moved. That's David in the photo above digging up our sage to move it to our herb garden.

Still to move are the gooseberry plants which will go to the derelict allotment we have taken on but not yet started using. Pinkie's paddock does not need a high fence. A metre high will do but we will need to put gaps in sufficient for the hens to get through. The fence is needed only along one side of the new paddock. The fence of the existing paddock forms one side of the new paddock and the remaining two sides are hedges. Pinkie will love the hedges - she adores hawberry in particular and we have lots of that. Work on creating the new paddock is on going.