Hi everyone. So, I thought I’d start this off by introducing myself as this is my first ever blog. Thank you for taking the time to give it a read. Some of you may know me already but for the ones who don’t, Hi, I’m Meg and I’m the deputy head on the mammal section. I’ve been at the park for 8 years now and help look after some of the best animals including the giraffes, red pandas, tapirs, racoons, warty pigs, bats, meerkats, and porcupines. However, it’s my dream to work with aardvarks. If you aren’t sure what they look like. They’re basically a mixture of multiple animals. They have a pig-like nose attached to a long snout. Rabbit-like ears and a big thick tail like a kangaroo. They’re a nocturnal African species that have huge claws for digging out their burrows and to help them retrieve their food out of ant and termite mounds. Anyway, that’s enough about an animal we don’t have…. Yet…. I wish. Anyways. I’ve decided to do my blog on our African pygmy goats.
We have 11 sassy girls and I feel they sometimes get overlooked by some of the bigger and more exotic species here. This is where I come in to introduce you to them all, one by one, so that you can learn about the individuals and even recognize who you’re feeding when you next come and visit.
Thankfully our goats come in a range of colours and sizes so it’s not too difficult to tell them apart but there are a couple that look similar which is where remembering the little details matter. Even so, they all have very different and quirky personalities.
Eileen
I’ll kick this off with the leader of the herd, Eileen. She is our dominant female and one of the two large black and white goats.
She doesn’t have any tags on her ears and her beard is black with a white stripe down the middle. I feel she would be very much accepted as a new member of the rock band, Kiss. Due to her being in charge, you will always see her running towards the food first and telling off any of the other goats that decide to get in her way.
Irene
Eileen has a twin sister called Irene. Eileen and Irene. I promise we aren’t meaning to confuse you. We just like quirky play on names here at the park, hence why our porcupines are called Paul, Paula, and Pauline. Eileen and Irene will turn 13 on the 11th of April making them the oldest goats after Sally. Irene looks very much like Eileen except she has a pure white beard and has a yellow tag in her ear. She’s also quite high up in the group and very greedy.
Sally
Everybody knows Sally. She’s the one that everyone thinks is pregnant which is impossible when we have no male goats! She’s just celebrated her 13th birthday on the 13th of February, making her our oldest goat by a couple of months. Sally is the only black goat and is very large due to her having a distinctive lopsided stomach where she’s getting old, is greedy and has had babies over the years. She also has the largest horns which look like they’ve been put on back to front. Despite looking the ‘scariest’, she’s a real softie and a lot of people’s favourite.
Daisy
Daisy is our 8 year old, only grey goat, born on the 8th of March 2015. She’s very small for her age. Some of the much younger goats are a very similar size to her. We think this is because she was hand reared. Hand rearing is used when sadly an animal’s mother has rejected their young or is unable to feed them. Without help, the offspring would not make it. This is what happened to Daisy. When she was born, her mother Lily sadly couldn’t produce milk to feed her, so Tony and Jackie stepped in, giving her around the clock care until she was old enough to feed by herself.
As Daisy was hand reared, she’s extremely used to people making her very friendly. For example, when we have to catch the goats up for their monthly hoof trimming session, everybody runs away from us but Daisy. She’s too busy following us around and chewing on our clothing and wanting fuss. She also has a little bit of a weird walk compared to some of the others, more like a waddle. Very distinctive and loves to try and steal black sacks off us when we are cleaning.
Doreen
Now, we’ve got the older girls out of the way the next in line is Doreen. Doreen was born at our old sister site, Sandwich Wildlife Park on 26th September 2019 along with her twin sister Valerie. As I mentioned previously, most of our goats look very different. However, we do have a fair few brown goats. Luckily, they all have different markings to help us identify them. For example. Doreen has a white marking going across her back, like a saddle. She also has curly horns and a very fuzzy thick coat. The front of her face is pretty much black and she’s super friendly. Loves playing with keys and coming over for a scratch or two. Her ear tag number is 26.
Juniper
Doreen became a mum in 2022, giving birth to little Juniper on the 18th of March, making Juniper a year old. She looks very much like her mum, except she’s a lot smaller in size and instead of the saddle, has a white U shape on her right side going towards her stomach. She also has a little white tuft of hair in between her horns which are straight unlike her mum and aunties curly ones. She’s also quite a shy goat but is getting better as time goes on. Her ear tag number is 29.
Valerie
The last of this trio is Auntie Val. Valerie, as mentioned earlier is the twin sister to Doreen. Valerie is a very shy goat and very low ranking in the group. She often runs away from keepers and keeps to herself. She has curly horns and a fuzzy thick coat just like her sister but her white marking is on her leg. Valerie has a whole back right white leg which goes down the side of her body too making her look like she’s wearing white jeans on that side. Her face is much browner compared to Doreen and Juniper. Her ear tag number is 45.
Florence
If I’ve just talked about the three brown ones, I may as well now go onto our last brown goat and her name is Florence. Florence is daughter to Sally and was born on 27th November 2020 making her two years old. We nickname her Fluffy Florence as the fur on her back legs is all feathery like she’s had a bouncy blow-dry at the hairdressers. Florence can be grumpy at times, but when this is the case, we change her nickname to feisty Florence. The best way to tell her from the other three is that she has a big white triangle marking on her right hand side. She’s also very tall and leggy compared to the other three who are quite short and chunky and she also has big straight horns. Her ear tag number is 22.
Delilah
Florence also became a mum in 2022 to Delilah. Delilah was born on the 11th of March, making her just a year old and the second youngest after Juniper. According to most of our keepers, Delilah is one of the prettiest due to her having lots of different colours and markings. However, I personally think her facial markings make her look like a scary circus clown. She’s also one of the favourites because of her naughty personality. She’s very confident and loves to climb onto the keeper’s wheelbarrows and push them over. Her ear tag number is 30.
Miriam
Finally, we have our two white goats, Miriam, and Mavis. Miriam is the daughter of our dominant goat, Eileen. She was born on the 19th of March 2021, making her two years old. Miriam’s ear tag number is 23 and she’s much taller and leggier compared to Mavis. She also has a pink nose and lots of brown patches located under her eyes and across her coat.
Miriam is also a very naughty goat and likes to jump up at anybody who walks into her enclosure while holding food. She’s like an annoying dog or toddler who thinks the closer they are to you, the more likely it is that you will feed them. To help her with this, we only feed her when she isn’t jumping up at us but as she has the memory of a goldfish, after a minute she comes over and jumps up again. Probably because her mum is the boss, she thinks she’s the bee’s knees.
Mavis
Mavis is the daughter of Irene and was born on the 23rd of November 2020, making her two years old. She’s probably one of our shyest goats along with Valarie. She’s very short and chunky compared to Miriam and kind of looks like a sheep facially. She has a black nose, and her ear tag number is 21. Mavis does have some other coloured markings on her body but they’re more of a black colour, compared to Miriam’s brown. Annoyingly, both have different coloured horns on the exact same sides. White on the left and grey on the right.
The keepers’ favourites
So, there you have it, our eleven African pygmy goat girls. Hopefully now when you come to feed them, you will be able to work out who’s who and even pick out a favourite. To help you out with this, I’ve asked all of the mammal keepers and cover keepers who they like the most and why.
Meg (me) – My favourite has always been, Sally. Mainly because she looks scary but loves a good fuss. I also always feel sorry for her because everybody always thinks she’s pregnant when she’s just got a big appetite. I think we can all relate to that from time to time.
Matt – Daisy because he’s known her from the beginning and helped to bottle feed her.
Kyle – Also Daisy because she’s the bottom of the social order which he has empathy for due to his school days as well as her sharing the name with an old dog of his who he adored.
Meghan – Delilah because she’s the naughty one and likes to jump on the wheelbarrow.
Sam – Doreen, friendliest one, comes over to you.
Toby – Sally because she’s a very chilled out goat as well as Daisy who always comes over to say hello.
Lizzie – Delilah because she’s cheeky and Sally because she’s a big softie.
Danny – Daisy because she was the first goat that he had ever learnt and interacted with.
Matthew – Also Daisy because she’s always on her own, always comes up to you and is a big character.
Dani – Miriam because she’s naughty.
Hollie – Daisy as she’s really sweet and comes over to nibble clothes.
Thank you again for taking the time to read my blog. Remember you can come and feed our goats every time you visit by purchasing our goat food from reception or the machines located at the goats and by the lake. Never feed them anything else as this could make them quite poorly. You can also come and meet our goats inside their enclosure by doing our keeper for the day experience.
