December already?!

Wow! Has it really been 3 1/2 months since I've posted!?!

I guess we've been pretty busy since breeding season started! We've had had a crazy breeding season, and some trouble getting the younger does to settle. Sadly, I lost one of my favorite herdsires this year, Cherry Glen Gentry Google. We have only one kid out of him, SaturdayNiteSpecial. I think he may have bred a doe shortly before he died, we'll see in a few weeks. Most of the older does are bred to Adonis, and most of the younger ones to Taxman. Since we lost Google, we've bred a few of the girls to friend's bucks, some to Taxman's sire, Willie, and one to Busy-B&D L Lucinda's Luke.

We had a good end to our show season at the NC State Fair, back in October. All of our does did well, Gypsy was Reserve Jr. Champion in the Open show, and Breeze was Reserve Jr. Champion in Youth.

Hard to believe it's December already! First kids are due in just 5 weeks! Iris(Nigerian) is due Jan. 5 and Tansy is due a few days after. 

I believe we have 15 does bred, still trying to get Bam to settle, and waiting on a Nigerian buck to bred Loretta to. I also might breed Reb's daughter from this year, and freshen her in June.

I'll be sending blood in soon to confirm breedings for most of the does. I have a growing suspicion that my Nubian doe, Lily is bred. She must have been in heat the day Adonis jumped the fence. Oh well, I didn't really want grade kids, but I'd rather not lute her this late. She's probably due sometime in January. Which of course is going to drive me crazy, not having a due date for her.

These are the does I have bred for 2017, in the order that they were bred.

Tansy~

My old girl, she'll be 11 next year! Bred to Adonis

Iris~Bred to Orion

Poppy~Also bred to Adonis. Can't wait to see these kids!! 

Oreo~Adonis

Twist(Taxman)

Della(Taxman)

Breeze(Taxman)

Empress(Adonis)

Clematis~

Google bred Clematis in November, praying she settles and gives me a doe kid! If not she'll be bred to Willie or Adonis

Swamp~Busy-B&D L Lucinda's Luke

Dove(Taxman)

Gypsy(Willie)

Special(Willie)

Dancer(Taxman)

It's that time of year again...

It's breeding season!
The bucks are in full rut, and the does are cycling like crazy.
Tansy and Iris are bred, Tansy is due January 5th, and Iris is due January 8th.
Breeding plans are finalized, and reservations are open for 2017 kids.
View our website for more info, and contact me to reserve a kid.

This is me a lot of the time lately...

Trying to get breeding plans finalized, and decide what I want to do this fall!! 

I keep changing my mind, and going back and forth about my breeding plans, but I think I finally figured out what I want, how many I want to freshen and which does I'm selling and which kids I'll be freshening, and which ones I'll keep dry etc.

It's about time too, the bucks are definitely starting to stink and notice the does next door to them. Hopefully we should have does going into heat in the next couple of weeks.

We had planned to try and show at the NC Mtn State Fair this year, but we have a very busy fall, and we missed the entry deadline. We'll try next year!

The NC State Fair is also creeping up on us...Entries opened up August 1st. I'm nearly done with mine. The plan is to get them all done before we start school and welcome a new baby.

Well be showing 20 does at the State Fair, which pushed us to buy a new trailer. We've had our old blue 2 horse for a couple years now, and after the Spring Show this year we decided we needed a new one. It's a slant load, and I really don't like the design. It would be fine for horses, but it fitting all our goats and stuff in it was extremely difficult. 

We started looking for a new one, and found one this past week. It was exactly what we were looking for, 4 horse straight load, can be easily divided, has a tack and living are up front, gooseneck, reasonably priced and in much better condition than our old one. We're going to get the old one cleaned up and sell it, hopefully someone can use it!

I'll be posting our breeding plans soon. Right now I have 12-13 Alpines on the breeding list and we'll have some for sale after the State Fair.

Harrisburg 2016: A star-spangled spectacular

It really was spectacular. To sum up: we had a great time, hanging out with old friends, made new ones, enjoyed success in the show ring, made some great memories and had a great week with our goat people.
I know this post is a tad late in coming...but I did bring a camera to Harrisburg, and I have quite a few pictures from Nationals:)
It took us about 8 hrs to reach the show complex, it was a relief to finally get there, our van was getting pretty hot since it was literally packed to the ceiling with stuff, only a bit of room for 3 people and 3 goats, and it has no AC.

Thankfully, there were no lines at the vet check point, so we were able to get in and unload pretty quick.

We were stalled in the Large Arena, which was the only animal barn with AC. We even got cold the first couple of days, it was rainy and overcast at first, but as the week progressed we became increasingly thankful for an air conditioned barn.

The management test and judging quiz were on Saturday, the other Youth events were Sunday morning, and Alpine Jrs showed Sunday night.

Fitting competition:

Our fitting team took 3rd place!!

Thanks to Cole Younger and the other NCDGBA members who have made Youth events happen at our Spring Show, including the Fitting competitions, and for everything you've taught us these last couple years. It's exciting to be competing at National level:)

Oh and our team name was the Barbershop Quartet, thanks to my brother and our inability to come up with anything better. We keep hoping that sometime, by some stroke of luck, we'll be hit by some ingenious name for our fitting team. But, as we were still waiting for that to hit us, we had to go with the Barbershop Quartet. If we make it to Madison next year, we'll come up with something better:)

Congratulations to the 1st place fitting team, the Avengers! We'll beat you someday:)

They are also from NC, and beat us in Rocky Mt. this year.

We unfortunately didn't make the cut for showmanship, but congrats to our other NC youth that did!

We had a big class, 37 participants.

Judging and management went well, I guess that management test we took at the Spring Show paid off. We placed 1st & 3rd in Jr. Management, and 2nd & 3rd in Jr. Judging.

We only brought 3 goats with us, but I was pleased with how they did. They were BRATS in the ring, even worse behaved than some Nigerian kids I've shown! And that's saying something. Special in particular was really bad, it might have had something to do with the Cherry Coke I fed her before she went in the ring...All she wanted to do was suck on my fingers. And she was hyper. But she got 8th place Jr. kid.

Gypsy and Dove were hungry, I forgot to feed them before they went in the ring. Gypsy took 3rd place Sr. kid!!! Needless to say, I was thrilled! That was probably my favorite placing of the whole week:)

 Dove was 18th place.

We cleaned a lot of pens, and made a good amount of money too. And the rest of the time? We played cards.

We played a LOT of cards!

A lot of our NC goat people were there, including the Johnson family, who have 12 kids, so as long as we had a deck of cards handy boredom wasn't a problem:)

I stuck a deck of cards in my backpack the night before we left for Nationals, and I'm so glad I did. A deck of cards is now an essential item for all future National shows:)

Our state was well represented at this show, especially in the youth events. Quite a few of us placed in showmanship, management and judging, and the 1st and 3rd place fitting teams were from NC, and another of our teams nearly made 5th place.

Sr. Premier youth exhibitor, Nigerian premier youth exhibitor, Saanen premier youth exhibitor and Nubian premier youth exhibitor were all from NC.

Thanks to all the hard working people who made this show happen!!

Harrisburg or bust:)

Less than 8 hours till we leave for Nationals in Harrisburg, PA. We plan to pull out of here by 3:30 AM at the latest, and hopefully reach Harrisburg by 11:00. I have a feeling we'll be waiting in line a while, 2409 goats, and only 2 vets doing check-in! 
Everything's packed and loaded except us and the goats, now hopefully we can catch a few hours of sleep before it's time to hit the road.
We hope to meet many new friends, hang out with old ones and have a great time!!
http://www.nationalshow.org/

8 days till Nationals

Time sure flies! I still have to clip a couple does, pack everything, get the girls to the vet for CVIs and a million other stuff, and a very short window of time next week to get it all done.
Assuming we get everything done and on the road early Saturday morning(we plan to leave around 4 AM) we'll be taking 3 Jr. does. This is our first National show, so we decided to just stick with jr. does, and leave the milkers at home.
I'll be taking Gypsy, Dove and Special.

Junior kid photo shoot

They did NOT like it one bit!
I can't say I had fun either though, it was getting hot out and the goats were grumpy. I did manage to get a god picture of Special, and sorta halfway decent pics of the other 3.

Merry Oaks SaturdayNiteSpecial~

Special is my favorite of the Junior kids, my first Adonis granddaughter, out of Tokyo, and my first Google daughter. She was 1st place Jr. kid twice at the show a couple weeks ago.

Merry Oaks Nuthin' Fancy~

My second Adonis grandduaghter, this one is Taxman's. She's a lot like him conformation wise, I think he crossed well with Twist. I will be selling Fancy's dam(Twist) later this year, but I'll definitely be keeping Fancy.

We weren't as successful in getting good pictures of this one, she insisted on keeping her rear legs way too far back

Merry Oaks Tempest Raging~
My little sister's doe, the one that was born on her birthday. Another Adonis daughter. Absolutely hates to have her pictures taken. I hate the ones we got of her, so I'll be taking more soon, but I suppose you get the general idea of her conformation.
She's a nice kid, Oreo is her granddam and her dam's udder is looking awesome this year, so I think she could turn out well in a few years. He temper though...it's like she wants me to sell her.

And last, but not least, Merry Oaks ST Monday Monday. Last kid of the year, Taxman baby, Adonis's granddaughter. Out of Swamp Music. Who is looking awesome this year and freshened with a killer udder! She hasn't been clipped down yet, I was going to show her but someone forgot to register her and ADGA Online Member Services weren't working that weekend, so I took a buck kid instead.

I'll probably clip her later this week though, and try to get a better picture of her. She hates me. Why? I disbudded her. No idea why this little doe in particular decided to hold a grudge against me when none of the others give a crap but she's hated me ever since. And THEN, I tattooed her, so I believe I have been cemented in her mind as the ultimate bringer of torture. She's really going to love it when I clip her!