Category: goats (Page 7 of 9)

Our goat Minnie (see Minnie in the middle of this blog post when she was first born) didn’t get pregnant when she was with our buck Eastwood during the Winter (Eastwood died during that time). And so, we borrowed a buck from our neighbor Chris, a Spanish billy (see him at the top of this blog post); and lo and behold, new kids!

Please meet Desi and Lucy (we named them that because Desi Arnaz was kind of Spanish-ish 🙂 ):

Here they are just shortly after birth:

And here they are today, three weeks later:

We are grateful to the Lord for the increase of the herd.

— David

And again, God graciously granted two more kids to be born to one of our nannies. This time it’s Winnie, with Shatner being the sire; and they produced two little bucks.

Please say hello to Bert (on the left) and Ernie (on the right):

And here’s their moving picture (with not a lot of movement 🙂 ). This was about a week ago. Also, by this time, we had 17 goats total:

We thought we’d also include a video of all the goat kids being more active. I mention they sit around all day; actually, they sort of only do that for the first several days, but then are old enough to keep up eating with the herd throughout the day, although they are more active in the morning and at night. The video’s a little long, but there are some fun parts throughout it. And, you’ll get to see how Bert and Ernie’s faces look almost exactly alike:

As always, we are, and may we ever be, thankful to the Lord for all of His provisions; and we pray He grant us wisdom and guidance in the care and use of these animals, for His glory.

— David

Once again, the Lord graciously granted new kids to be born to one of our goats Betsy, who’s full Nubian; and with our full Nubian billy Shatner, the kids are full Nubian as well.

And here they are: please meet Rhett (on the right) and Scarlett (on the left):

Here is some live-action resting 🙂 . And actually, as of this video, we had 15 goats:

We are again very grateful to God for allowing us these provisions, and pray these kids become productive members of the herd.

— David

A few months ago we did a blog post about our goat kids graduation, where we put all the does with the bucks we had planned for them, the first generation offspring does to be with a buck for the first time. Well, a couple of days ago, the Lord graciously granted our first second generation kid, a buck, to our Nubian doe Marie. His sire was Eastwood, who I recently mentioned had died during the winter. But, he apparently helped bring along Marie’s first kid; and in honor of him, we’re calling the new kid “Woodrow.”

He has his father’s colors; and he sure seemed large for a new-born; but I have a feeling we’re used to twins and triplets, who probably end up a little smaller than a single kid might, although I can’t be sure. It appears he’s doing pretty well:

Here he is in action. The whining goat in the background is Pammy, who recently gave birth as well:

We are thankful once again to God for His graces and mercies in granting this healthy new provision to us.

— David

For our breeding scheme this year, we previously discussed our separating out our older does to be with our main buck Shatner, and the younger does, his female offspring, to be with Eastwood, a goat we traded one of our triplet bucks for. Well, there have been a couple of updates: first, Eastwood died during the Winter; so we borrowed a buck from our neighbor. He’s apparently pure Spanish, and we call him John Buck (think what you might call an unknown female goat 🙂 ) :

We had put the bucks with our does in the beginning of November so they would give birth no earlier than April, where they should be mostly out of the cold. Well, Sue was out near the goats the other day, and she heard a very young sounding bleat. Umm…huh? She went to see what was going on, and lo and behold, our doe Pammy had given birth to twins! While quite surprising, we were both very thankful to find out God had granted us two new goats — a male and a female. We decided to call them George and Gracie, and here is your introduction to them:

And here is a video:

As I briefly mentioned in the video, last year, when Winnie had her triplet bucks, the middle one, Porthos, seemed to often have physical problems, from pink eye to swollen front knees. And he was smaller than his brothers, and so we kept him with Winnie much longer than we did the others, so he could continue to have her milk. Well, apparently we kept him in too long, as nearest we can figure, he is the father of the new kids. Porthos has grown up to be about as big has his younger brother now, and seems to have also matured normally. 🙂 Even though this is a possible situation of some in-breeding, which we were trying to avoid, since it’s Pammy it’s not too bad as the worst Porthos might be is Pammy’s nephew; with Betsy, she’s of a whole different line, so if Porthos got to her as well, it’s fine. However, he may have gotten to his mom, Winnie; we’re hoping not, but I guess we’ll have to see what happens. And now we know better for the future.

We are grateful for the Lord, in His graces and mercies, granting us these new provisions; and we pray that He might grant they be productive members of the herd, according to His will.

— David