The crazy fall of 2011

This fall has been a crazy one. Between school, work, actually feeding and breeding the goats I'm afraid blogging has taking a back burner. Perhaps as winter starts I will be able to pick back up.

November as a whole was a good month. The most interesting thing we have seen this November is more and more people coming and using our bucks. This is only the third fall we have even had bucks around, but this is really the first year I have every had people come and use them. Before that I have always been on the other end - driving to people's house to use their bucks.

Personally I have decided I really like being the one who doesn't have to drive a lot better. Sure you end up smelly and covered in the oder of buck but at least you don't have to get in the car after that. Plus you get to meet lots of cool people you would never have seen before. Yep, this buck service thing is actually pretty cool.

In other news.... WE HAVE BABIES!!!! Yep our July bred does kidded this last week. Antimony kidded with twin bucks by Arabica and Katie gave us a single doe kid from Kastdemur's Vigilante News. A beautiful white kids who being born Lamancha (which equals location name) and born in B year at Christmas time can only be rightfully given 1 name = Bethlehem. Probably as time goes on this will be shortened to Beth.

She lives in the house and is making the puppy and kitten jealous of all the attention. Oh? I didn't mentioned that I have a puppy and kitten now? I told you it had been a busy fall...

Beth and the Kitten - Quiz. He wants to play with Beth soooo badly

We picked up a poor bedraggled kitten when we went back the Sunday after our Delta DGA show to finish cleaning up the fairgrounds. Jenn stopped the car and he ran right into her arms. We knew that he would never survive and he was amazingly good natured. He wanted to be held and cuddled and to top it all off he had a broken leg. So he got to stay. We named him Quiz after a cat in one of my favorite books, fed the remanats of the goat milk and he grew and grew. He is the least of our troublemakers and has really integrated himself into the household. He loves to play with the puppy and just the other day I found him curled with Hannah (the 9 year old dog who lives with the goats) while they were sleeping in the garage.



He was so small and helpless

Not so tiny anymore - but still just as sweet



Puppy too you ask? Yep. When we went up to breed goats we stopped my our friend's house to visit since we were in the area. He breeds Australian Kelpies - a type of herding dog from the land down under. True working dogs who will go and go and go until they drop. He had mentioned a puppy last spring but when his favorite female whelped in August I assumed they would be snapped up. When we were there he said he had one puppy left that we could have if we were interested. Were we interested? Well I had had no plans to get a puppy yet...but I have wanted one for a really long time. I said yes and we brought her home. We called her Mac or MacKenzie after a character from a TV show Jenn and I love. She is much more of a handfull than Quiz, but she is smart and trying. She loves playing with Hannah, playing with Quiz, herding the chickens, and will hike all day if we ask her too. We have taken her everywhere - and she has taken it all in stride.



How could you pass up that face?



She has already grown so much

So I did not lie - it has truely been a crazy fall. Fun but crazy. And just think, more kids in a only a few weeks.



Do you like her?

Now that life is calm enough and all we can do is sit around worrying if a doe settled or not we really have time to evaluate the herd. All summer we have heard what the judges had to say about them, we saw them stand at the top of the line and we saw them stand at the bottom of the line (less than previously maybe, but the occurrences were still there). We have a good idea of that their worst faults are (especially the milkers) and what we love about them and yet we still play the "what do you think of her?" game.
The nice part is that all the does who have made it to the fall are nice enough in their own right, but knowing how many does were are breeding means we have the start thinking about who will go in the spring. It is sad at some level, but at the same time I know that none of the goats are not eligible for sale if something comes along.
So how is it done? Well take a doe for example - currently my most often subject is Thistle. What do we like about her? Well I love how deep she is and how strong she is on her feet and legs. What do I dislike? Well lets start with how I wish her mammary system was better, but what I really don't like is how much trouble she had last year after kidding. We have a show herd - this means that if a doe ends up with such a horrible freshening that she can't show - she will have a hard time fitting into the herd. But then I really like her daughter. Azalea is one of the nicest does kids we had this year... If you like the kids a doe gives you is that enough reason to keep her and at what point does she have enough daughters to pass on her good traits. It really leaves you to sit about and ponder what is a good doe?

What do you want your herd to look like? What do you like about each doe and what would you like to change? Fall is the perfect time to really sit around and evaluate the does. It makes the spring - when you are overwhelmed with kids to choose from - easier when you already have your list of who is staying or who has to shape-up or head out.