Our Nigerien doe Esmeralda with newborn Allis (October 2008)

Ever since we sent away Allis’ father Amadeus to the market, Anette and I had been talking about borrowing a buck for a a couple of weeks, in order to have a new goat baby (or two!) in Autumn. Although neither of us are particularly fond of goat milk (Goatgirl put it very well when she described goat milk as tasting… uhm… “goat”, which is just it!), Sheba ADORES it and as we all know, Anette is in love with all things little and I must admit, there are few things sweeter than baby goats.

First goat male to visit Ishtar’s Ark was Rudolf, the prettiest buck on Eden Street.

Unfortunately, he was a little small (although the same age as our Allis), but that did not stop him from knowing exactly what he was supposed to do.

The only problem was that The Ishtar Goat Ladies were NOT into any reproduction games.

And poor Rudolf did not have the strength to fight our dominant doe Esmeralda.

Even the black princess turned against him, showing him her contempt to any ideas he might have in mind.

Poor Rudolf was distraught, and only an hour after his newly aquired freedom at Isthar’s Ark, he climbed up on the closest to a hilltop he could find and cried his heart out.

It didn’t help that he got to meet big terrifying brown beasts for the first time in his life.

Even Esmeralda couldn’t keep those in check!

He did know what horse food was all about though, and jumped aboard one of those rocking food boats.

Eventually, Princess Allis got a little more tolerant towards him, and the two became friends.

He was even allowed to eat in the presence of the two royal highnesses.

Unfortunately, friends was all that they were to remain, so after a few days of making sure Esmeralda did not harm the poor youth, we sent him back to be happily reunited with his mother, brothers and a dozen cousins of different sorts.

In his place, Ali brought a much bigger buck which we named Ralf, but that’s another story…