Biographies

We believe animals to be sentient beings. They have feelings, thoughts, emotions, memories. Capable of expressing joy, love, sadness, loss and even frustration. They are intelligent and have impressive memories, especially if it results in food.

The Shyre has been blessed with so many wonderful sentient beings that we feel they deserve their own bios. Each creature is special and has a distinct personality, even their voices are different. We can typically tell who is yelling even if we’re in the house. We love them and hope you will enjoy getting to know them.

Addie

“Against All Odds” – Interesting name, I don’t quite recall the history, but I believe she wasn’t expected to survive. But she did and she is now our beloved, cantankerous herd Queen. When Addie came to The Shyre way back in 2014 as part of a goat lease from a wonderful local farmer named Jodi. Jodi is a well renowned breeder of Dwarf Nigerians. We consider ourselves to be VERY lucky to have been part of her program. Not only did we start off with wonderful genetics, but she held our hand every step of the way. I consider her to be a Saint for putting up with all my stupid questions, “over” reactionary mothering and complete inability to navigate the world of ADGA and DHIA.

Anyways, back to Addie. Addie was incredibly timid when she first came here. Her partner was Minnie, who was the initial herd Queen, also from Jodi. After Minnie passed away from a birthing she did not survive, Addie took over. When Minnie was resting after being medicated by the vet, we all knew Minnie would not recover from her injuries. Her two children, Evenstar and Fili from the year before, were standing over their exhausted mother, sniffing her face and nudging her with their snouts to get up. It was heartbreaking. Addie came over, sniffed Minnie, looked at her children and nodded. Then she walked away with the kidds and never looked back. It was like she knew what was happening and that it was her duty to raise these kidds. To this day, 4 years later, Addie and Evenstar still sleep together every night. You’ll even find them cuddled up in taking in the sunshine during loafing.

Addie has a very certain head swing that tells you she is not going to go where you want her to go. And being herd queen means she’s not going alone. She can be real trouble when she wants to, which is usually. Addie has a few names on The Shyre, some of them are not so flattering. Usually she’s “Addie-gooter” which sometimes gets a “ma-gooter” or “Adeline ma-gooter”, but most frequently, she’s “Addie the Hussy”. I know, that’s so not ok, but she just really is. She got pregnant through the fence once which I guess she was REALLY feeling because she delivered quintuplets! That’s a 1: 10,000 chance. She got in the paper, but the stat was wrong and didn’t make it look very impressive. But if you only have 2 teets and 5 mouths to feed, well – you’re impressive. Addie has delivered 5 sets of babies since 2016, 15 kidds, of which only 4 were girls.

Addie is known for really showing her pregnancy off, being wider than she is tall! She completely knocked off a panel from the door because she just couldn’t fit through anymore. I’m not really sure when Addie is due this Spring either March 6th or 19th. The only thing for sure is that they will be totally adorable and….mostly boys.