So here is an interesting thought for you - do the goats like going to the show?

As you encounter more and more goats you realize that goats have a personality somewhere between a dog and a cat depending on which goat you talk to (metaphorically speaking). Most goats are independant like a cat but still enjoy human attention like a dog. And certainly their intelligence stands as high as any pet.

So this begs the question - do goats like going to the shows? 
This picture I took of Xymphony says a lot in my opinion. I think it is hard to argue that she is smiling at the camera:

Can't you see her smile?

There are certainly goats who do not enjoy the show ring. We had one goat that refused to stand still and another who seemed to get car-sick driving anywhere (including to a show). Those are animals who we find nice pet homes for where they can live their life in peace and not deal with the attention of being shown. However for most of our show string - they do love the attention. They enjoy the grooming and handling ahead of time. The love to meet the people at fairs. Lots of our goats stand on the fence as people pass by and try to get their attention. If those goats don't love showing - it is hard to say what loving being there would look like.

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.

North Valley Summer Show

North Valley DGA, known for their May show up in Red Bluff, decided to do something different this summer and put on a mid August show for Sr does only.

I will admit that I dragged my feet a little on one more show. After a show nearly every weekend I wanted a break. But being the good sport I am (read humor here) I agreed to give it a try. Boy was I glad we did.

First let me say that normally that area in mid-summer is HOT but it was actually not to bad. We choose to get up early Saturday morning and drive up then instead of spending the night up there. Just like I sleep better in my own bed, I think the does do better when they can sleep in their own pasture and relax. It makes for an early morning, but as long as you have udders clipped and goats ready to go - it actually isn't that bad.

We only took our Togg milkers. Lanney came too just to be sure we had the numbers, but we did not end up needing her so she was not shown. The show was divided up in a 4-ring circus style so that 4 breeds show at once. This is great because you get a lot more accomplished in a shorter amount of time, however if you bring more than one breed it is very difficult. With the exception of Thistle, who is not a strong saanen competitor, the Toggs are our only older does. Yearlings have a really hard time winning in a big show. Judges feedback is important, but for this show we were packing light and trying to do it easy by just bringing one breed.

All three of our does placed really well. Yodel placed 2nd in 3 rings (standing right behind the champion twice), Xymphony placed first in every ring, and Keegan was second in all 4 rings. The best part was both Xymphony and Keegan earned a Reserve Grand Champion award!! A big reward in the competitive Togg area.

Overall I came home with a very positive feeling. Not only are the Toggs headed in the right area, we are starting to be known among the larger breeders. People are beginning to see us as comrades and there is nothing more exciting than seeing your hard work start to pay off.

Only a few more shows to go this season and we finish with the big hurrah of putting on our own show - it will be crazy!

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!!