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Sunday, April 18, 2010

Spring = Babies

This birds are twittering, the bees are buzzing and the goats are increasing the size of the herd. Spring has sprung.

As of this week we have six new baby goats and we are waiting on one more nanny to kid. The latest addition to the herd is a little buck born this morning. He was already trying to stand and nurse within minutes of birth, so we gave them some privacy to get to know one another.

We raise goats for consumption, they are meat goats. We try to keep the herd high-percentage Boer and most of the goats have standard coloring, meaning white bodies are light to dark brown markings on their head and maybe lower legs. This makes for a lot of chubby white bodied goats running around the pasture. So when we get some color it adds a bit of interest to our day. This little girl's markings are not standard, but I think she's very interesting to look at, almost like a yin-yang symbol on legs. She is very friendly and very tame already.

Big Mamma is usually the best and most prolific nanny in the herd. Despite her coloring, she is also a Boer. This spring she looked like she was carrying three or four kids, but apparently she's just big boned. She blessed us with a single doe.
These are two of our three bummer kids this year. We have to bottle feed them 4-6 times a day and they are getting used to nibbling the dandelions and grass shoots. The kids have named the white and brown doe Star. The black and white buck is Buddy. His twin is also a buck, cinnamon in color with white ears, named Ranger. Ranger is learning to bottle feed this weekend as his momma went to the sales yard.

1 comment:

Penny said...

Very cute!
I want Nigerian dwarf goats, just trying to figure out how to fit them into my small backyard. ;^)