Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Of Breeding Season and Crazy Goats!

It happens every year, I have my breeding plans all written out and know exactly what I want to do. And the goats mess it up.This year I wanted 2 does to kid in January, 2 in February, 3 in March and 3 in November, each set about a month apart. Yeah, doesn't look like that's happening. At least I got Iris and Rebekah bred for mid-January kids! For the past few days Tansy has been showing signs of heat, but not standing for the buck. She stands and wags her tail, and goes over to the buck pen, but freaks out and runs off when the buck tries to mount her. Which is weird because I've never had trouble breeding Tansy! Emerald went into heat today, so she was bred to Adonis. It wasn't until afterwards that I remembered I'd been planning to breed her to Taxman.Whoops. So I decided to breed Tansy to Taxman instead of Emerald. But Tansy has other ideas. She was showing stronger signs of heat this afternoon, so I attempted to breed her to Taxman. Nope. She acted like a crazy maniac when Taxman went near her. So I thought she was not actually in heat. But I let her in with Adonis to make sure. And yes, she is in heat! But apparently Adonis doesn't like Tansy. He wants the younger doe. In about 5 minutes, he had bred Emerald 3 times. And in 5 minutes he hadn't mounted Tansy once. After 20-30 minutes with Tansy he accomplished one possible breeding and a lot of blubbering. So I returned him to the buck pen. Which is pretty much a war zone. It contains Adonis, Taxman, the Nigerian buck, a buckling from this year that never got wethered, and a yearling wether who thinks he's a buck. On one side is Tansy, and on the other side of their pen 8 pretty young does. So all the bucks, and Tansy and the doelings that are in heat all go down to the corner where their pens meet and yell and blubber and fight and try to knock the pens down. Maybe I should make a buck pen far, far away from the rest of civilization....And they're still messing up my breeding plans. Tansy was supposed to be bred 2 weeks ago. but instead she's right in between January and February. Poppy and Clematis are up next, and they'll most likely come into heat in a few days which will put all 5 does due in 3 weeks. Which was not my plan, but what do I care? Breeding season is crazy, but who raises goats and expects life to be normal? I love my crazy goats. And they love to mess up my plans! Life is certainly far from boring on a farm...I ain't complaining!

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