Results of the Former Chaos

Yes, I really do love them!

I'm SURE of it! Positively! I LOVE goats.

Remember my FRUSTRATIONS with an escapee from the buck pen and does in heat? Well, I had my agenda with assigned breeding plans all planned. I had GOOD reasons for my assignments! I have the SENIORITY and expected MY way to reign. But, I sure did underestimate Bandit, my YOUNG Alpine buckling and his RAGING hormones.

How can those crazy does be so in love with a youngster who doesn't flap his tongue at them while blubbering slutty talk and doesn't reek of pee? They are suppose to LOVE it, ask any doe and her owner!

Bandit hadn't even mastered the full buck-in-rut technique of saturating himself in pee. He only peed a little bit on himself when he managed to have 4 feet on the ground within containment of a barn wall and 6' chain link panels with no doe in heat. You'd think the does would have required him to have perfected his buck-in-rut act; NOT his "I CAN and WILL escape one way or another and you can't stop me" actions!

This has been a very difficult breeding season. I tell you, young Mr. Bandit is a houdini with a PHD in gymnastics! He managed to get up to and break out the window panel on the side of the barn (6' up). Then later managed to find a way to scale the chain link panels (again, 6') and keep escaping into the barn with the does every time someone was in heat - one way or another. I covered the pen with chicken wire and he managed to rip a hole and get on top of it and walk it to the edge and jump out. I caught him in the act, standing on his hind legs and using his horns. That boy only needs 2 legs, not 4! (Is there a Dancing With the Goats tv show?) I put up more wire in the barn too, and even wired above the pens' gates, making it near impossible for me to enter a pen!

I couldn't keep the hot wire around the top of the pen to keep him off it either. This coming Spring I'll have to try to run some hot wire inside the pen to keep them away from it. Hopefully with some mature size he'll not be so agile and able.

I've been trying to figure out how to make him some little cee-ment booties or shoes! I hate to do it, but next Fall I may have to chain him in the buck pen (not a good place to chain him) or out in the paddock with my horse (he'd be lonely) and I do NOT want to do that!

Susan, at Queen Acres, suggested cattle panels over the top of the buck pen; but I needed something to keep owls and hawks from getting my chickens. Some of them are in the buck pen - supposedly with the bucks. Now I think I just need a fortress on top of the pen to keep boys in and predators out!

I REALLY didn't want to breed Spirit to her son. Yet she seems to like him better than Nipper. I weaned Bandit "early" (3+ months) so Becca wouldn't get bred by her twin. And, speaking of Becca, this naughty naughty girl likes her brother MUCH more than she likes the blubbering, tongue flapping Nipper, her intended!

We're not even going to go to the topic of the Nigerian Dwarf does! Bandit has snuck into the pen with them several times too, MUCH MUCH to my dismay and frustrations! I don't think he managed to breed them. Fortunately Nipper was in with them when it happened. They, thank heavens, prefer Nipper!

We "won't" discuss the 2 Boer does who I didn't want to breed but was wondering how I was going to keep that from happening. We "won't" discuss the SCREAMING Macey does and the BELLERING MoNique does when in heat and obnoxious neighbors. Yes, Bandit has been there too. I'm pretty sure they are bred as they haven't had any recent scream-fests. I even put them in the buck pen with Bandit and thought that would help. He was happy and content as long as NO ONE in the barn came in heat and then all bets were off and he reverted to his agenda. I have NO idea who they are bred to!

We "won't" discuss the 5' panels with wire above to about 8'+ in the barn, between pens. Of course Bandit figured out to run at the wall and scale it as far as his momentum took him, and to rebound and flip himself up over that wire I kept re-supporting! We "won't" discuss my vocabulary misdeeds which will probably have me with my chin to chest in embarrassment when I leave this earth! The height never gave him any qualms and I get dizzy climbing into the loft in the barn at 10'!

Bandit has me pulling my hair out. Yet the 5, YES 5 FIVE, bucks who left a few months ago were less frustrating combined than Bandit has been!

With all that happened, I'm not sure Bandit got the does bred HE chose to do, so Nipper ended up going in the doe pen with the Alpine does to make sure Kendra and Claire are bred and to hopefully have Spirit and Becca bred to Nipper. I caught Kendra and Claire back into heat after some of Bandit's escapes so I was then hoping he wasn't mature enough to have all his deeds done completely. My fingers ache from all the crossing and clenching I tell you! I also don't think Spirit's cooperation with her son, Bandit, took and I hope she's now bred to Nipper! But I'm NOT holding my breath! And, young Becca? This naughty naughty girl likes her brother much more than she likes her intended, in spite of me telling her Nipper's kids are tiny at birth and it would be soooo much easier on her to cooperate with MY agenda! Maybe it's all the blubbering and the tongue hanging out Nipper has perfected she doesn't like! Or the slutty talk he does on her virgin ears. I haven't caught her back in heat and yet I suspect Bandit will be the sire of any little BBabies. Who knows!

So, frustrations reign. Chaos pervailed in spite of my efforts and coaching does as to who they would love to chose IMHO! Being the "superior" being and, I feel like I should be in control and all that stuff. I am the smarter one but obviously, outwitted. Come kidding season, I guess I'll have a whole lot more surprises than I expected. Now I'll also get to determine who is the goatie version of baby-daddy (kid-daddy doesn't have the same "flow") and it will help that I kept notes of every single escape in writing along with who I found to be in heat. It will also help that Bandit is a chamoise Alpine and Nipper is a black, moon-spotted ND. So along with dates and color, there are also pattern and SIZE that will help me know who is the sire. All of Nippers 2010 kids ALL had frosted muzzles, ears and some amount of tail frosting. Bandit has no facial spot and no white. He's just the chamoise (brown) color with all the black trim.

I will not admit to defeat or quit trying! After all, one thing I can be certain of is I LOVE goats.... And the 2nd is that the Alpines and Nigerians all have upright ears so their kids will too!