Goat Life - A Farm Update

Just a little farm goat update. A pleasant surprise. Indeed. It might not mean much to you, but to us it means a ton.

We've bred all our girls except our "babies" who aren't really babies (born in March of this year).  I've been watching for signs of heat cycles which generally come close to every 21 days.  When a doeling reaches 90 pounds, many goat farms start breeding that doe.  We like to have a bit more weight on and breed at 110 pounds.

When does (girl goats) kid (have their babies) it's a good thing if those babies have other babies to "grow up" with - babies that are close in age.  So, we were really hoping and praying that the last two does would go into "heat" near each other so we could breed them and have them give birth pretty close together - thus baby goats (of similar age) hanging out together.

Yesterday, we knew Posey was clearly in heat and so we put her in the breeding pen with Samson for a date.  We'll do that two days in a row - and often twice in a day - the morning and the evening.

I've been watching closely for Plum to come into heat and for some reason have not noticed a heat from her.  Today, it happened. Plum - was in a "silent" heat. After Posey finished her date, we put her in with Samson and voila....if the girl didn't stand still so Samson could have his date.

So, we'll see...here's hoping they do not come back into heat and both girls will deliver together 150 days from now.

Ahh...farm life. Never a dull moment.

Storm in March of this year,  pushing and pushing. It's such a wonderful time.

Storm's baby born. I'm trying to give him colostrum.
 As you can see, I'm quite the goopy, bloody mess - but full of joy with this new life.