Each month, we ask you to share your questions about farming, food or Sacrewell with us on Facebook. The person who writes the best question wins a free family admission pass for a day at the farm, as well as having their question answered on our website. This question came from Deborah Willoughby.
There was a lot of discussion about this question, as all the animals on the farm can get up to a bit of mischief now and again. However, there are a couple of animals who have been particularly cheeky in recent months…
Mischievous Minstrel becomes a mum
This July, Minstrel developed a rather naughty habit of leaping over the fences around her enclosure in the animal village. Sometimes she went exploring around the courtyard, other times she went visiting the rabbits in the surrounding pens. She seemed particularly keen on visiting McVitie, a brown Lionhead buck.
After a few weeks, things calmed down and Minstrel went back to her former, unadventurous self. A quick check by our weekly volunteer, Dee confirmed our suspicions. Minstrel was pregnant.
Minstrel gave birth to a lovely litter of kits on August 8th. If you see them next time you visit the farm, you’ll be able to see the family resemblance. Two are jet black, just like Minstrel their mum, and two are pale brown, just like McVitie.
Archie and Winston make a great escape
Pygmy goats Archie and Winston were up to mischief as soon as they arrived at Sacrewell. They were initially placed in the paddock in front of the farm house, which has a landscape feature called a ‘ha ha’ as one of its boundaries. On their second day, Jill and Jess were watching them from the main path, when Archie decided to make a leap for freedom. His brother Winston quickly followed and both goats were soon up on the ha ha, nibbling away at the shrubs. They seemed to know how naughty they’d been, as they leapt back down as soon as Jill and Jess had run round the buildings to join them. Jess then sourced some emergency raisins from Origin8 to tempt them into their field shelter, where they could be safely contained overnight.
On their third day, Winston and Archie were relocated to the neighbouring paddock, which has a much higher stone wall as a boundary. All seemed to be fine for a few days, till the fearless brothers decided to show off their climbing skills by scaling this stone wall as well! The overhanging hedge proved to be just too tasty to resist.
We think we’ve got these naughty goats penned in now though. Ryan installed an electric fence in front of the stone wall and that seems to have dissuaded the goats from any further adventures. However, they’ll be joining forces soon with our other pygmy goat Hardy, and then who knows what will happen!
