Coming soon, a new BABY GOAT!

Jun 03, 2023

Video above was taken in spring of 2019! You'll read about that further down :-)

Happy Saturday!

Sitting on my front patio writing this blog on Friday afternoon—perfect weather:

Warm, breezy, 10 mph winds and 20 mph gusts—lovely! I Love Lucy is out with me. We’ve played ball and I remembered to get her tub out of the garage so she can get wet. In Colorado we bought a galvanized stock tank for her and it’s not been out since we moved! I found it, scrubbed it out, filled it with water and she’s already all wet and smiling showing me all her teeth in a very happy smile!

She likes to drop her ball in it and then blow bubbles as she's fishing it out :-)

Big news on the farm this week! I’ve been on the hunt for a new “herd sire” aka a boy goat that can be our new daddy goat. This will be my 5th year breeding (I didn’t breed in 2021 because we moved and didn’t breed for this year because I knew I would be overwhelmed with Mom’s crossing.) I really want to focus on more “correct” babies this time around and so I’ve been searching for a buckling that can help. What does “correct” look like? Well, Nigerian Dwarf goats are a small dairy breed so high milk production is a plus but there are lots of other things that are important too I’m learning!

In the past I’ve been most interested in making super friendly babies but it turns out, that’s not too difficult. Goats are typically friendly anyway. I mean there are a few that are a bit wonky (I’m looking at you Ellen!) but mostly they are lovely, kind creatures. And that was enough for me. And then Poppy came along and we all fell in love. He was the sweetest boy goat you could ever imagine and the prettiest too. He is out of my favorite girl Denali and was so beautiful when he was born I immediately assumed he was a girl LOL (The video above is from 2019 when Poppy was born, he's the white baby with tan spots) And when I checked I guess his little testicles were still covered in baby goo and stuck to his leg because I still thought he was a girl. I was only starting my second birthing season so give me a break! 😂 So Poppy grew up balancing on my shoulders, being just the sweetest thing and being carried everywhere I went, and eventually went on to become a breeding buck for us. But then, just after we moved, I started noticing that he was a little gimpy. I called the vet out. He has something called carpal hyperextension which means his front knees hyperextend. So, remember how you could bend Barbie’s knees in the normal direction but then you could also bend them in the wrong direction a little too? That’s what Poppy’s knees are doing. So his breeding days are over but he’s such a sweet goat that he’s still here.

How does that lead to babies? Well today is a stream of consciousness day of writing so you’ll have to bear with me. I want to breed goats that will live long and healthy lives as well as be sweet as pie. I want to breed goats that don't have what Poppy has. So that means they need good structure, wide hips for easy births, big soft udders with good attachments to feed their kids (and us!), and the list goes on and on and ON!

So, as I said, I’ve been searching for a buckling…

And I think I found one about 30 minutes away. I’m going to meet him this weekend. If he’s the one, he would come home mid June, which means fall breeding and spring babies! A goat’s gestation is about 5 months. And then next spring: BABY GOAT YOGA!

Here is what my top contender looks like as a 4 week old buckling:

And here is a pic of his mom's udder, because these things are important!

See how the teats are larger and pointing down (easier to milk), how the udder is attached at the upper leg? All good things in the goat world :-)

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I think this is the thing that I’ve really learned since Mom died. I recognize those moments everywhere, and it doesn’t feed into my anxiety, no, not at all ;-) When it gets too much, I do an extra neurofeedback session! This is the way I manage anxiety and ADHD without medication.

My mom used to grab baby ManChild up and squeeze him and kiss him and nibble on his cheeks and tickle him until he was just a puddle of uncontrollable giggles :-)

We were out doing chores this week and Sweetness was following us from place to place, hanging out with us, asking for cookies. We got in our little golf cart to go park it as we were done and this is what he did: