A Quick Update:
First I apologize for not updating the blog as much as I
intended. Bottle feeding and staggered kiddings seems to take most of my time
up these days.
A Quick Note:
Our
Breeding Plans: We have decided to intensify our breeding focus for
the herd and will be making some changes to the breeding line up as things
progress. Since I have limited space I need to be very selective in who I keep.
We have decided to start line breeding our goats to emphasis milking ability as
well as sound structure. In order to
narrow the focus, I am only keeping the adults that have similar ancestors. Each goat also has at least one close
ancestor that was/is capable of producing 1000+ a year.
Hazel
Hazel will be going to a new retirement home at the end of this
lactation. This years kidding was pretty bad and the one prior to (2012) had
babies that presented the same way. The only saving grace with the 2012 babies
was that they were much smaller and I was able to pull them out without too
much trouble. Given these kiddings and her moderate milk production I believe
it’s fair to retire her. She will be joining her two kids this year in
Mayville.
Sunny
Sunny tested Negative a month before her potential due date.
She kidded 03/25/13 with no
problems. She had 2 bucklings and a doe. We plan on retaining the doe for
breeding this year in order to get a better idea of what sort of udders Hoodie
is giving his girls. We have Sunny up for sale right now as a milking doe. I am
not in a huge hurry to sell her, but I also realize that with keeping her
daughter we need to make some room.
Hoodie
Hoodie became a year old in late March. He was fecal tested
for his Birthday. (wow what a gift).
His results have come back negative. He continues to grow
into a very correct, very flashy herd sire with some stellar milk genes.
Maddie is the last but not least to kid. As I am writing
this, I am expecting / hoping for kids Memorial Day weekend. Maddie tested
negative in late April. She is already displaying a very symmetrical very
correct udder and I can’t wait to see how it fills in. Her mother continues to improve and is
actually on her 2nd year in milk w/o having to be bred again. My
hope is that Maddie also has this ability and will pass it on to her future
kids.
New Additions
On May 20th I made my latest and hopefully final
trip to the airport to retrieve the last additions of the herd. At 2AM (after a flight delay) I picked up Desert
Nanny BF Alligator Pie and Desert Nanny BE Dubliner Style. I am hoping that Dublin
Future Plans
In the next year I hope to get a farm website up and running
where I can have a list of my herd members, milk records, pedigrees, and
breeding plans. I will continue to post test results on the site and hope to
have everyone tested at the same time ever year going forward. (It’s a lot
easier to upload that way). I plan on testing for CAE, CL, and Johnes on an
annual basis. For the goats under a year old I will continue to do a fecal
right before they kid to ensure that nothing is transmitted in utero. As much
as I hate bottle feeding, I think it does help with weaning and it creates an
easier managed goat in the long run, sooo.. I will continue with that as well.
If all, (or most at least) goes according to plan I intend on
showing more does next year and possibly starting milk test. (While eating
loads and loads of cheese. Lol)
