A Beagle!

Yes, you read that right! Went out to milk this am and the guy was coming this afternoon to get the 2 pg does and buck he called asking for.

Giving the 2 Boer does their breakfast and there, laying by Mo'Nique is a little BEAGLE! Macey kidded twins last year as an FF and this year she had a singleton (who was cuddled with Auntie Mo, not momma!). With his long droopy ears, size, shade of brown and SPOTS, he looked like a beagle. Did you get the HE? ANOTHER buckling! Yes, I got a couple quick pics but I need to crop and resize them.

This is the 4th doe who is NOT an FF who has had twins every year who had a singleton this year. What's with that? Young buck? That rascal (Bandit) was ALMOST 7 months when he bashed in the barn and had his way with the does in heat!

The guy also wanted the 2 Lady Bug (ND) daughters from last year. Domino, bad girl, is pg and due soon. She's bagged up and swelling in the rear so she shouldn't be long. He's very experienced in kidding out does so will do fine with a doe kidding at a young age. He'll be taking the other 2 bucklings that I don't want to keep as soon as they are weaning age. I am bottle feeding them right now.

So that leaves me with every one sold that I need to sell for the year plus a couple I hadn't expected to sell and yet had no big reason to keep. I also have an awesome load of hay and a new milk stand. My trailer is full of hay and there's about 15 bales in the barn - BEAUTIFUL hay. I never lifted a bale!

There are also some teens that know how to work and use a bit of muscle in farm related jobs. The 2 boys that came along to work and help out were AWESOME young men. I bet their folks are really proud of them. Not a lot of teens want to do farm labor so it's really nice to see a few that know how to work and are responsible. The guy who bought my goats had the guys along to unload the hay.

My kid count for the year:
June Bug aborted the quads - 3 bucklings and a doeling.
The rest kidded out 7 bucklings & 1 doeling. That is just plain WRONG! NOT FAIR at all!

I am now at the point with the goats that I had decided I was going to need to get to in order to concentrate more on the mini Alpines and now mini Manchas. I have my standard Alpine does and the La Mancha doeling and an Alpine doeling for producing the first generation of the minis and for the milk production I need. I want to have milk and all the goodies from it such as yogurt, cheese, etc. I also have the bucks that I can breed with the standard-sized does to. Then I can "cross over" to the other bloodlines so I should have well bred and vigorous successive generations without using one so heavily that I can't breed out or at least improve upon what I need to. I also still have Lady Bug and June Bug who are ND's and I'm really attached too. Go figure... I have 4 ND bucks and 2 ND does! I'm not going to be keeping 4 ND bucks but at this point I don't know which of Lady Bug's boys I'll most want to keep. Wrapper will be larger than Patches at maturity as they are now. I'm very pleased with my herd now.

I'm very happy how this all turned out between kidding and sales - just not that many bucklings!!

Now I can work on comparing improvements needed in the does and strengths in the bucklings as they develop. I can then make breeding plans for Fall. It may seen a long ways off, but it takes time to figure it all out being the bucklings are young and 2 of the doelings are too. I know what 3 of the standard sized Alpines produce and what Lady Bug produced from last year.

It's been a BUSY day. All the poultry have been moved to their "Summer digs" too. I was able to give away 9 unneeded roosters today and boy am I glad about that. All the chickens from the barn are now outside except 2 hens that I couldn't catch yet. The turkeys are also in the outside pen. The Bantams have been in the trailer since I got them and they are now in the big double stall area in the barn. They were very content in the trailer but they are sure happy in the barn too.

I am worn out.... plum tuckered out!