What did you do today?

[Taffy]

That's a huge bummer for you! Have you thought about drawing blood to verify pregnancy in the other does?

[Saph]

Nanno, sorry to hear you are having problems with your girls. As my good friend Joe used to say, "it's always something with these goats!"

Carl & I decided to get out of the snow for a few hours, so we loaded up the boys & headed down to the Salmon River Breaks. We live about an hour away, and it's great early season training to hike the steep country above the river. Too early for rattlesnakes and ticks, but we did see a bunch of whitetail deer and cow elk. The goats even found a few shrubs to snack on, a nice change from their steady diet of hay this time of year.

[IdahoNancy]

That's beautiful. We are blessed with having a nice winter here in Idaho this year.

[Nanno]

Nice photo, Saph!

Taffy, I'm not sure a blood draw would make much sense at this point since I don't want to breed this late. Lilly was supposed to get bred in December like everyone else but had an unusually short cycle and was out of heat by the time I got her to the buck. The January 4th breeding was her second go-round. It doesn't help that she has a 22-23 day cycle, so if she misses a breeding, the next chance is a long wait.

I was watching Delilah for a heat cycle earlier this month, but I never saw her come in so I thought she'd settled. But today she's really flagging and letting Lilly mount her. I wouldn't have been able to blood test her until last week--already too late. I guess this is the danger of doing late season breedings--you don't have so many cycles to work with. Normally I wouldn't worry about it, but this summer is shaping up to be a busy one. I knew that and was hoping to get started in November, but that didn't work out. I'm definitely seeing the benefit of keeping bucks here--it can be really hard scheduling these driveway breedings, and then you have to keep your fingers crossed that the doe doesn't go out of heat on the way up there. I wonder if Lilly "went out of heat" because she didn't like the buck. She LOVED the big fellow we used last year (Finn's daddy), but the buck this year was immature and smaller than Lilly, so she really didn't like him and I wonder if that contributed to her not taking. She had to be held so he could breed her (and he did do the job), but apparently it didn't work out. GRRRR!!

Well, the kids I was most excited about are Finn's, and so far it looks like he did his job. If Delilah didn't take, I'm concerned that she may have reproductive issues because there's no reason she shouldn't be bred. Even if she didn't take with the Nubian buck, she should definitely be bred by Finn. She jumped the fence and spent plenty of time with Finn before I noticed the "security breech". I even watched them breed twice real good before I could intervene.

[Charlie Horse]

You win the prize for "The Year's First Outing"

Its January. I thought I'd be the first in March.

[nebs]

Wow, Saph what a great pic. Any chukar sin those breaks?

[Saph]

Thanks, Nebs…as a matter of fact, we did indeed spook up some chukar. I have seen lots of them in that country. Hunting those guys would get you in great shape pretty quickly!

[Dave-Trinity-Farms]

Am currently out hoof trimming and poking the goaties with some needles Calvary 9 and multimin90 time

[Nanno]

Delilah was flagging and letting Lilly mount her this morning so I took her out and put her with Pac-Man all day and she didn't want him to touch her. I let her and Finn sniff through the fence as well and neither one was all that interested, so perhaps she's not in heat after all. Maybe acting in heat for Lilly is the best way to keep Lilly from terrorizing her. Keeping my fingers crossed!

Lilly is most definitely in heat, and Petunia came in this morning as well (don't worry--Petunia is supposed to be open). The two of them had a shouting match all afternoon. Phil and I took Pac-Man, Jezebel, and Delilah for a walk and we could hear Petunia over 1/4 mile away through the trees. Dang, that goat is LOUD when she's in heat! Lilly is not quite so loud, but when she's not baa-aa-ing, she keeps up a steady growl as she chases all the other girls. She sounds like a very angry cat. It's pretty funny.

[Nanno]

Poor Finn had his life permanently altered today. He's very sad at the moment, but I keep telling him it's for the best. No one will love him if he keeps growing into a big, ornery, stinky buck. He was stinky enough last fall even as a youngster! Finn will have a much longer, happier life as a wether. He'll get to go places and do things and meet people instead of being shut away at the back of the property.

The people at the vet's office fell in love with him. He's irresistible even with his aroma. He was very good for the anesthetist when she strapped the gas mask over his face. All my other goats protested at least a little bit, but not Finn. The poor deluded fellow was under the mistaken impression that no human would ever do him harm. Hopefully he doesn't remember enough of today's ordeal to have reformed his opinions!

Well, I've got to go out and check on him one last time for the night. Hopefully Finn bounces back as quickly as Snickers and Sputnik did.