Saanen Doe kid

 Since I am the one who is writing this entry – I am going to write about my beautiful Saanen doe. I really need to stop telling people “Oh we are breeding 3 saanens, I’m sure that we will have lots of Saanen doe kids.” Yea, every time I say this I end up with nothing. This year Azalea tricked us; she gave us a doe, but it was not a Saanen. Well then Zinfandel gave me Saanen kids but no does. So that meant it was down to Alba. What’s more is Alba had more than just this year’s hopes resting on her. She was bred to a buck (Auric) who is just gorgeous and I love dearly and this is the third year I have used him.

Auric - beautiful sire

The first year I used him was way back when Thistle was a 2 year old first freshener. Sadly she kidded when no one was around and the kids did not survive. Then I used him again when Vanilla (Willow’s older full sister by one year) was a first freshener but she kidded with a giant single buck kid, still no doe kids. Since Auric is getting older, I figured Alba was probably my last chance to get a doe kid from him. Needless to say A LOT was riding on this breeding and I was definitely holding my breath.

Awww I think she is smiling

Thankfully Alba came through for me! She delivered (by herself, without our help) a beautiful single doe kid – full Saanen and thoroughly lovable. Perfectly white with the correct upright ears – all Saanen.

For a name, Albariño is a type of grapes, so then I wanted another name that was a variety of grapes. Finally we settled on Bianchetta (which literally means, little white grapes, but is also a variety of grapes) or Bianca for short.

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 ;-)

Surprise, Surprise!

We only had 1 doe due to kid last weekend. Azalea is a Saanen yearling milker who was born last January and we decided to freshen in February so we would have some Saanen senior kids. You can recall our breeding/hiking adventure with Azalea back in September. Remember how she angry she was about getting taken all over the mountain? Remember how she did not enjoy the hiking at all? Well I’m afraid she got the last laugh.

Her daughter was born late Monday evening and while Azalea will tell you it was a horrible process it was not extremely eventful – until we saw the kid. Little Bamboo has tiny little elf ears! And instead of being solid white like Azalea and any good Saanen should be she has the palest brown patterning! In fact her brown pattern looks remarkably similar to her ½ brothers – Arizona’s boys. So instead of a senior Saanen kid Azalea gave us our senior Arabica kid we had been hoping for in the early does. Although I would have loved a Saanen doe, I’m grateful for another doe kid and if you’re going to have and experimental, a beautiful doe is the best way to have them.

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!!