Adorable Pictures

You know those shots that are too cute for words? Enjoy a picture one of our newest Lamancha kids - Belize.

Bippity Boppity Boo

I am a little behind but mostly I think that is simply from too many things to do and not enough hours to do it. However I briefly had to post about Annie’s little twins.

Annie was our last kid born last year, at the beginning of May and as a result she was handled less than our older girls. She was a bit wild and a bit skittish. If you caught her she calmed down and behaved fine, but first you had to catch her. This is the down side to having a herd that is over a certain number. The animals who are friendly get more attention and as long as the less friendly ones are eating and seem content you don’t chase them down and handle them. Annie fell to the second set. We would see her eating with her mother, we would see her happily lying in the sunshine, and we would catch her to trim hooves and make sure she was alright but we didn’t handle her daily. As a result we missed the fact that she was definitely pregnant.

Sure we noticed she was round, but she was also VERY furry. I mean, for goodness sakes, she is a Togg. Then we noticed she was growing a small udder, but it was pretty covered with fur and she comes from strong milking lines so there was always a possibility that it was just a precocious udder. We went round and round in our own minds. She was so small… when could she have gotten bred? Wouldn’t we have noticed?

Finally over our “kidding weekend” one of our friends asked when Annie was due. Sigh, I guess it was time to face reality. So finally after Azalea kidded we tried chasing her down. It took quite some effort but we finally caught her. Sure enough – there was definitely a baby we could feel. Since we didn’t want to run around the pasture every time we wanted to catch her – we put her in with Arabica (well! She was already pregnant at this point!)

A week and a half later Annie delivered a beautiful set of buck/doe twins. They are the most adorable things ever. Perfect Toggenburg markings with little Lamancha ears, truly precious. Annie was such a good mother and a good milker. Shortly after she went to live at her new home where her milk is helping to raise calves, but the two kids stayed with us. I’m sure there will be many pictures of the two of them, but for now here is one shot of them and yes, we are calling the doe Bippity Boppity Boo.

Kidding 2011 starts!

Kidding season started today. After 4 does kidding today with a total of 9 kids born and one more still out there thinking about it, I'll admit that I am too tired to write all about the day. So instead I will leave you with some pictures to enjoy

The day started off with triplet Toggs from Yodel! A beautiful little doe kid and two large buck kids

Our six beautiful Brazil kids. Solid black kid on the far right is a doe from Ziggy (the alpine) and the brownish kid next to her is a doe from Ysis. All the rest are boys, including twin bucks from Katie. She must be proving that she CAN have bucks after having 3 pregnancies with 4 doe kids. A proof that I never really needed but that okay - lots more kids to come!

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!!

Lamancha Girls Relaxing

Sometimes you just come upon a picture you just have to capture. The does in this picture (L-R, Argentina, Alaska, Arizona) were just so cute snuggled up together. Alaska and Arizona are twins sisters and we often see them lying around together. But adding Argentina to the mix was just too adorable not to take a picture of. Bellies full, all at different gestational stages, just enjoying the winter sunshine.