Salty Sam’s Fun Blog for Children
Number 545
Pygmy Goats
Hello Everyone
Mr Grumps, the caretaker at the Rocky Bay Primary School took a bad tumble this week. He badly sprained his ankle.
Oh, no! And he had so much to do!
This was not good news.
For a start, he wanted to mow all the grass on the school playing field before he went off on holiday.
Word spread around town that Mr Grumps had a problem.
Then Farmer Jenkins came to the rescue with a brilliant idea.
He took his herd of goats round to the playing field.
They started munching the grass and did the whole job all by themselves.
lt was new pasture for the goats. There was nothing there that would be poisonous to them.
Farmer Jenkins told Mr Grumps that the goats could stay around for a while and continue to work for him.
There was a shelter in the playground the goats could use if it started raining heavily. Goats don’t like wet feet!
The shelter would be alright over the summer months.
Luckily, the school fencing was tall and sturdy enough to keep the goats contained. Nobody wanted the goats getting onto the roads.
Farmer Jenkins would bring them a little bit of hay and additional food to eat and collect the goats well before the autumn term started.
And he would set up a water trough near the outside tap. lt was important that the goats had access to water all the time.
Some of the goats Farmer Jenkins brought round were pygmy goats and the children especially liked them!
They really didn’t want to say goodbye to them when they went off on holiday.
Pygmy goats are usually kept as pets.
They like being kept in a pair or a herd for company.
They are really tiny – only about 50cm tall at the top of their shoulders!
They have cute faces and tubby tummies and can be very playful.
They are usually quiet and calm animals; but they all have their own personalities.
They like people. They like attention.
The males are called bucks and the females are called does. These are the same names that we use for deer.
Pygmy goats rarely need milking so they are less work to keep than goats kept as dairy goats. They are hardy creatures.
There are a few types of pygmy goats throughout Africa, but the pygmy goats that people keep as domesticated animals today were bred from the Cameroon Dwarf goats in the 1950s from ones that had been previously taken to zoos.
They have many different colours and markings. Some have salt and pepper colouring in their fur.
They can live to be about 15 years old.
They can have up to four babies at a time and are usually good mothers. They produce very rich milk and quite a lot of it after they have had a baby.
One thing that goats really like doing is climbing on things.
There were benches and play equipment at the school that they thought were a lot of fun.
The goats were really funny to watch!
Bye bye everyone – don’t forget to subscribe to my blog!
Love and kisses
Salty Sam
www.christina-sinclair.com
Bill and Bob’s Joke of the Week
Bill: What do you get when you put some young goats in a muddy vegetable patch?
Bob: l don’t know. What do you get when you put some young goats in a muddy vegetable patch?
Bill: Dirty kids!
Salty Sam © Christina Sinclair 2015
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of material from this blog without express and written permission from this blog’s author and owner is strictly prohibited.
Links may be used to www.christina-sinclair.com
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THE SALTY SAM NEWS DESK
This blog has a good number of readers in the United States.
On the News Desk Quiz this week we have some words used in American English.
Do you know what they are in British English?
Teeter-totter
Skinned knee
School yard
Dirt
Yadda yadda
Someone is funny
Jump rope
Mud room
Anaesthesia
Take it with a grain of salt
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Quick Quiz
Can you un-muddle these words to find towns in the United States that take their names from towns in England?
- rinbimmagh
- lumpothy
- lecantews
- sonbot
- hatwinnsog
- voder
- spmourtoth
- piswich
- sechorret
- racslile
lt’s the Weekend!
HOW TO MAKE LlTTLE TOY BOATS
Bill and Bob made some little toy boats this week.
It was simple to do.
They just took some washed out cartons – milk or juice will do, but they must have a pointed end.
Then they turned them on their sides so that the pointed end would become the bow of the boat.
Then of course they needed to cut an oval out of the top so that their little teddies could sit inside the boat – leaving some card around the edge to keep the boat sturdy.
They added a porthole to each side and a sail on a stick to the top of the bow.
Then they made some speed boats that did not need a sail on them.
Then they painted the boats to make them look more like – well boats!
Being wax cardboard, the cartons were made to be waterproof (liquid-proof anyway) the boats stood up very well to playing on the beach.
Please note that the material on this blog is for personal use and for use in classrooms only.
It is a copyright infringement and, therefore, illegal under international law to sell items made with these patterns.
Use of the toys and projects is at your own risk.
©Christina Sinclair Designs 2015
Answers to the News Desk Quiz
- Teeter-totter – see-saw
- Skinned knee – grazed knee or playground knee
- School yard – playground
- Dirt – soil/earth/compost
- Yadda yadda – blah blah blah
- Funny – witty – (unless they are a clown)
- Jump rope – skipping rope
- Mud room – boot room
- Anaesthesia – anaesthetic
- take it with a grain of salt – take it with a pinch of salt = don’t believe all you are told
See-saw
Quick Quiz Answers
- rinbimmagh – Birmingham
- lumpothy – Plymouth
- lecantews – Newcastle
- sonbot – Boston
- hatwinnsog – Washington
- voder – Dover
- spmourtoth – Portsmouth
- piswich – lpswich
- sechorret – Rochester
- racslile – Carlisle
Can you learn all the states as a memory test?
