The goat mating dance is so funny to watch; bucks are gross and obnoxious! If you have never seen a buck acting like a buck and are not easily offended, I encourage you to visit a farm and ask to see their bucks. They make funny faces, goofy sounds and run around like fools (much like teen boys that I remember from my childhood and some grow men I know presently) - I love it! And our Nephi is so persistent...
We purchased Nephi and Miss P from a ranch in Eastern Nebraska. A huge goat ranch, she had 86 does, 23 bucks and had already rebred most of them. We got a gigantic discount on both our goats by buying 'off season' and doing a package deal. It never hurts to negotiate - the worst they can say is no, right?!
Anyhow, both Nephi and Miss P were dam raised and when we brought them home, almost completely wild. All of our goats are dehorned and Nephi was descented as a kid, so he isn't super smelly. Both are getting better at being handled, Miss P is hard to catch and Nephi is hard to get to stand still. Both did very well for vaccinations and hoof trimming but I can tell that we will need to start thinking about building another structure to restrain Nephi for shots and trimming as he is already almost too big for our stand. If you have any big bucks or have seen any buck restraints, please let me know - I am having a bugger of a time finding something that will hold a 200 pound buck!
Both Lacey and Lilly are bred to Nephi for 2011 kids. Lacey is due in March and Lilly in April. Miss P gets to wait until next year for her turn, I want to make sure she is big enough to handle kidding and she is still on the small side right now.
We brought in a doe (Twila) for Nephi to 'date' over Thanksgiving weekend and she was bred this week. Twila will be headed home next week and should kid in early May. We brought in another visitor (Daisy) today. She is actually currently cycling so Nephi is being diligent about being amorous. Since she was brought mid-cycle, she may not settle this cycle, so she will be staying through January 2nd to ensure that her breeding takes. That makes 2 outsider does for our first season of being official Nubian breeders offering buck services. With the savings from not having to send our does out and these two visitors, Nephi has now paid for himself and MissP!
I have several reservations for doelings our of our 2011 crop and we will retain one buck as a companion for Nephi. I have yet to decide if the retained male will remain a buck that we might rent out or will be a wether. I probably won't be able to decide until we see what he looks like and if he would make a good breeder. I hope to get a good selection of kids this year and am excited to see what they look like.
We have the buck house "love shack" finished and the horse barn almost done. As soon as we finish the new horse barn, we can move the horse out of the buck pen and start buying fencing for Nephi. Then... We can move Nephi into his love shack and will have the kidding pen ready to go! We have always had late April kids, so having kids in early March and early April will be a challenge since March is our coldest month. Yikes! However, having bred a bit early, it will help our kids to be bigger towards the end of summer and sell better since they will be breedable in Fall.
Three years ago I never imagined that we would be hip deep in the Nubian breeding business. Never thought that we would have top bloodlines in our barn and be making enough money to have a self sufficient herd! What a blessing.
I added a bunch of goat info to our website on the Homesteading page - eventually, once our web designer has time and we have money we will move it over to the goat section. It contains basic information on our practices for goat care. Everything we do is done at the direction of our vet, who specializes in goats and only goats.
If you have questions or thoughts, please leave a comment or shoot us an email! We love the questions we are getting and enjoy getting to know so many of you from all around the world.
