Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Goat Lovin' is in the Air..................

Thursday as I was cleaning up from my face cream expedition, I was washing dishes while looking out my window as I always do.  I noticed a little goat lovin' was in the air.  When I did chores that mornin' I was pretty sure Tulip was comin' in and it turns out she was!  Star and Tulip both came in on Christmas Eve so I knew if they weren't bred they'd be comin' in soon.  Star didn't come in so I'm crossin' my fingers that she's bred and will kid in May. 

I apologize for the picture quality.  My barn at night isn't the best lighting for photos!  Star hanging out..
 This is the first time I haven't hand bred my goats and I'm not sure I like it.  Always before I've housed my buck in solitary confinement with his wether.  When my girls came in, I'd let him out with them, he'd jump on and do the deed, I'd put him away and we were done.  How did I know the mission was accomplished you ask?  Well in extremely technical terms........when that buck juice gets where it needs to go, the Mrs. will hunch her back up and waddle forward.  When hand breeding, as soon as I saw that hunchback waddle, I knew were were in business.  This way I'm not seeing that and I don't like it.  I saw a bit of foreplay and action out the window but no hunchback waddle.  Of course she'd been in heat since morning and with the ever so balmy temperature of 17* it's not like I'd been out there all day!

Fatty Tulip can never get enough to eat!
Why am I keeping them together all the time you ask?  Well in short, my hay isn't the best this year and I want Tommy to be able to browse all the time instead of having to live on mediocre hay.  I also don't want Tommy to live entirely alone.  I don't have a wether to house with him, so he's living full time with the girls. 

Who could resist that face?  I know if I were a doe, I'd be putty in his hands! 
   I know some of my darlin' readers pasture breed their goats with great success, so hopefully that will be the case here as well! 



 

God Bless.........................

15 comments:

  1. Sounds like Tommy has a bachelor pad!

    I haven't raised goats, but with the blogs that I read, they seem to be rather smart animals. If there's something they want to eat, they'll figure out a way to get to it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Good luck! Hope everything goes as planned

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Teresa! Thanks for commenting, nice to have you visiting ;) I've seen him mount her several times just no hunch back waddle, which always worries me. Her nether regions were nice and smarmy so I'm pretty sure the potion got where it needed to. Thanks again and stop by anytime.

    Veggie and fern, thanks for commenting and Veggie, you are right, goats are very clever critters!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Woohoooo Goat Lovin, lol Hope the deed is done!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Lol. Hope everything goes as planned for your goats. I'm so happy your back into the goat business again. I really enjoyed reading about your adventures with them before..Until we get our own goats I will continue to enjoy yours ; )

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks Trish, I'm glad too. I can't say enough how thankful I am that God kept us here!

    ReplyDelete
  7. hehe goats are cute but boy do they stink... LOL :) I can say this b/c I've had them before. I really wasn't much of a goat fan though... mine were mean! So in high school I started showing Sheep, but one day I showed a goat for a round robin event (where you show one of every breed) and I had the lady believing I was the goat girl instead of some other animal :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Oh man - the goat-lovin' business drives me nuts. I tried the hand breeding thing, but my girls showed NO sign of coming in so I was walking Buzz to the girls every day and hanging around for 1/2 an hour at a time. Nothing would happen, the girls would just look at him like "what?". The FIL laughed at this and told me to just throw him in there - that if they were in heat, he'd be the first to know anyway. I think this is the ONLY way to get Moonpie to settle because she hasn't kidded in two years and I think it's because she was hand bred and wouldn't settle and since she doesn't show any sign of being in heat, no one realized she wasn't bred. I'm not real sure when she's due, but I've got an idea since she's only getting wider. . .
    Good luck! If my little Buzz could get the job done, I'm sure Tommy won't have a problem! Hehe.

    ReplyDelete
  9. oh my... i think I need to scrub my eyes after reading this post and comments lol!

    Ahem, *blush*, I had a friend whose mare would take the longest time in her cycle to settle during breeding; comes to find out she rather enjoyed herself while being breed...maybe you have some tarty' ladies there?

    ReplyDelete
  10. I hope your girls settle for you! I'll bet Tommy gets the job done. He is a cutie.

    ReplyDelete
  11. This is the second great goat post I've read today! Good to see you here. I feel I've lost touch with you and loved seeing your goats again! Keep in touch as you can!
    Mrs. Joseph Wood (Jeanette)

    ReplyDelete
  12. Greetings from Southern California :-)

    I added myself to follow your blog. You are more than welcome to visit mine and become a follower if you want to.

    God Bless You, ~Ron

    ReplyDelete
  13. I've always wanted goats. We can't have them because we live in a "planned community". Plus we live in the woods and Stephen insists if I got chickens or goats the bears would eat them.

    Also My father in law had the worlds meanest goat, that kind of put me off on my urge to beg for one. They are really so cute though!

    ReplyDelete
  14. oh dear. I believe that's more than I ever wanted to know about goat lovin' lol

    ReplyDelete

If you'd like to comment, I love to hear from folks and I will do my absolute very best to comment back or answer any questions!