One more reason to love AI

There are so many reason to love AI – artificial insemination. Last night I was reminded of one of my top reasons – you can actually do something when your doe is in heat



Like so many goat breeders, our life outside of dairy goats is insane. We try to plan and sync does who need to be taken off the property to get bred to come into heat at a time when we are available. This is truly so we can take animals where we want them and use bucks we choose. We only have 3 bucks on the property and only 2 of the breeds we own could be bred to these 2 bucks for purebred kids. At the bare minimum we if we see them in heat we at least mark it so that we can make plans for 3 weeks later. This is maddening though if you want early kids. Sometimes does only cycle once in September or they cycle so late that “three weeks later” is no longer possible for senior kids. There is nothing more frustrating than having a doe in a strong, standing heat and not being able to do anything about it because you have class or something else keeping you from dropping everything and breeding her.


That was the case last night. Yodel was in a strong heat and willing to stand for a buck. So far we have had no showable doe kids from Yodel – so crossing her was not really an option this early in the year. Instead we thought we would breed her to Flash- our new young Togg buck (that is why he is there after all). Well, being an April kid he was very excited and had no idea what to do. I’m sure that if a doe kid we didn’t want bred was in heat around him he would figure it out…but since we wanted him to breed a doe – no such luck. The idea was there, the action wasn’t. Now what are you going to do? You can’t drive her anywhere this late, your Togg buck won’t do anything – saving the day once again is the magic of AI.


It was literally as simple as we looked at our semen list, picked out a buck to use and decided to give it a go. Inseminate her and hope it works. Now reality is she may not settle. In fact there is a high possibly she will have to be re-bred in 3 weeks. However she most certainly would have to be rebred if we did nothing.


We’ll know in in 3 weeks if it takes but even if it doesn’t – at least I don’t go to bed figuring I wasted the chance to breed a doe in heat. If for no other reason – this has to be one of the greatest reasons to start seriously looking at AI for a herd. No one can keep all the bucks they need for a small herd – this makes it possible to actually breed does the way you want to.

Saanen kids at last

I am a skeptic. Maybe I secretly hope for the best but I plan for the worst and expect it to come. I suppose in some ways this means life occasionally gives me good surprises but mostly it means when good things come my friends have one more thing to tease me about.

Well it was the same last fall when Zinfandel didn’t come back into heat  after 21 days I held my breath. We had tried breeding her by AI twice and I was only going to give it 2 rounds before I took her for natural service. AI – or artificial insemination tends to be a hit and miss thing. In 2009 we bred 2 lamanchas (one time for one and two times for the other) and had 2 sets of kids. We also bred 1 Toggenburg and had no Togg AI kids. In 2010 we bred 1 Saanen twice and 1 Togg 3 times (she didn’t settle by AI at all). Zinfandel didn’t come back into heat BUT I caught Arabica out at least once near the time when she was in heat. I told my friends I would not believe that the AI had worked until those kids came out with long white ears.

To make me even more skeptical and worried Azalea ends up with a little grade Lamancha cross after breeding her specifically to a Saanen buck. Now I was truly worried. The doe that I have taken to the breeder to have serviced by a live buck and I never saw even close to the Lamancha pen kids with a cross so what was going to happen to the doe that I AI’ed and saw near the Lamancha buck pen.

Saturday morning rolled around and Zinfandel looked to definitely be in labor. She kidded with no problems and no assistant needed and guess what… the kids had perfectly shaped Saanen ears and were white all over!!!! It worked!!! I can now say I have successfully settled a doe with AI!!!  The small downside was that they were both bucks so no does this year (last year our 2 sets of AI kids ended up being 3 does) but now I can add AI bucks to the list of potential sires. And yes – I am already plotting next year’s breeding plans including some cool AI crosses. I’m sure the skeptic will be back soon but until then I will go have a long chat with Alba about some Saanen doe kids ;-)

End of 2010

Wow. It is really hard to believe that 2010 has finally come to the end. It was sure a big year for the herd, or at least me in particular. Before this year I have never had more than 5 goats kid on my watch. Never have I bred more than 9 goats (which was how many we bred in 2009). Really this was amazing to have 18 goats born on our property, acquire 5 other goats sold. Once I thought my herd was huge when it was 12 goats, now it is 22!

In addition to gaining goats we watched goats leave too. Willow, who was born the first spring I was away at college and managed to stay through all the herd fluctuations left after kidding this year. Although it seems sad to see her go, reality says she fit so poorly in with the herd that she needed to leave.  We also sold more wethers for butcher than ever before including one that went as a company barbeque. To me this was really cool because it is great to see goats being used in such a public way. If people enjoy the barbeque there – maybe they will really start thinking of eating goat as a common meat. Finally we did lose 3 kids last spring do to a variety of things. I know it must seem strange how I have no problem selling older wethers for meat but it is sad to lose kids but I think that the wethers had a great life and then it was over but the kids often didn’t have a chance to live at all.

Besides the herd member changes we really did have a great show season. I personally finished 1 doe and she now holds the title of champion. We finished the buck we bought in January and he holds the Grand Champion title in his name. We knew he was amazing when we purchased him just by looking at what his offspring have done, but to have him hold that title is even better since now everyone else can also see how impressive he is. We have used him quite a bit this season, so hopefully we will have quite a few kids from him too. Besides our 2 finished champions one of Jenn’s Togg does is looking beautiful and got quite a few nods from judges. Unfortunately she was a first freshener so they couldn’t give her the champion title, but this next year we expect great things from her. Three of our kids won their jr champion titles as well and all three will freshen this spring. Arizona and Azalea are two of our favorite kids and I am really excited to see what type of udder they will have. Honestly with very few exceptions I am really excited about the whole 2010 kids crop. I think we are starting to really make progress with our breeding program and hope that the inclusion of AI will help speed the progress along.

We purchased our AI equipment in summer 2009 so 2010 was the first set of kids we have out of the AI breedings. Three does kids was better than we could have imagined! And such beautiful kids too! They were all Lamanchas so, since we had 2 lamancha bucks on the property this fall, we ventured into other breeds. Notoriously the saanens have been our “problem” breed. Before this year I have had to re-bred Saanens almost every year, thus when my doe settled by AI, I could not have been more excited. If this works – maybe there will be more AI Saanens to come. Next year I think we try to take on the Toggs. We haven’t succeeded with the AI-ing the Toggs, but maybe next year will be the year. Or maybe next year we actually purchase a Togg buck.

On a final note, we sent 4 children to the county fair as our 4Hers this year. As of fall registration we nearly tripled our 4H project. Hopefully we can send maybe even 10 children to the county fair this year. Nothing is more exciting than seeing those kids get all excited about their kids. Maybe in a year or two the children will have animals they own instead of lease but one step at a time.

Overall I think it has been a pretty good year for Cadence Dairy Goats. Thanks for reading and checking out the blog regularly. It is so exciting that in the one year since I started this blog I can actually see people checking out the page and reading it. It is you guys that encourage me to keep writing! Thanks!!