All together now

Monday night we hauled Nettie & Annette over to Pilgrim's pad for date night.  Nettie's second round (but actually third time) and a first for Annette.  I had thought we'd just breed Nettie to him, but since Annette came into raging, bawling, tail flagging crazy heat at the same time, we brought them both.

Then on Tuesday, the goat yard was a raging hormone circus.  Nettie was still anxious, although nothing like the day before.  Annette was still tail flagging and grunting pathetically.  New Goat was gooey & tail flagging.  And both Pickles and Lily were tail flagging & yelling.....even though I though we had a good breeding with them last month.

Pickles and Lily I could bring over to Herman that day, but my dairy gals were out of luck.  If it weren't for the fact that I didn't want a Boer breeding my dairy gals, I would have let them in with Herman just to shut them up.  But with all the grunting & moaning coming from Annette, Nettie and New Goat, had I owned any caprine condoms, I would have gladly given them a package and put them in with him. Wonder if there's a market for such a product?

I've never had a doe that we had bred go back into heat.  And this year Nettie, Pickles and Lily came back into heat.  It isn't that much of a hassle to have the Boer does bred (Pickles & Lily) as we have Herman, a Boer buck, on premises.  But having to haul Nettie and Annette to our chosen buck was more than a chore for the buck's owners.  Especially when we had to do it three times.

We actually even had yet another buck come visiting just last week.  I thought that Annette and New Goat were in heat last week.  All the typical signs.  So Paul went after work to pick up a teeny-tiny Nigerian Dwarf buck from another friend.  And Deuce (short...and I mean short, for Deuce Bigalow) wanted nothing to do with Annette or New Goat.  But was ga-ga over Nettie.  He stayed here for an entire 24 hours and went home without any new names in his little black book.

I was able to get some good goat breeding action out of the Boers yesterday though.  Pickles & Lily were more than willing to be led into Herman's pen and Herman was more than willing to welcome them in.  And then the strangest thing happened.  After Herman gave that final "heave-ho" to the does, he completely fell over on the ground.  I though he had a heart attack or something.  The first time he did it, he just lay there with his head up, winky in the hay/dirt, still sniffing the air.  I seriously thought he broke something (and had an overwhelming urge to give him a wet-wipe to clean up his junk).  I took the girls out of the pen and clipped them out to eat some grass.  He got up after several minutes, started peeing on himself again and after a while I took the does back in and both Pickles and Lily got two more good hits.  And each time he fell over.  I guess it was just that good.  I would have gone into the house to get him a cigarette, but we don't smoke.

Hopefully this last round of breedings took.  Or, maybe the other times were successful and the does just wanted some more action?  I don't know. So now my normally precise and spot-on breeding calendar looks something like this:

2014 Kidding Dates
Pickles & Lily
January 30th OR March 1st ?

Nettie
February 24-25th OR February 30th ?

Annette
February 30th ?

New Goat
Not bred yet

That's a lot of question marks.  And I still have to find New Goat a boyfriend....a small statured one because I don't think she's large enough for a standard breed.  Not sure Duece Bigalow is coming back or not.  Size-wise, he's fine, but not sure if he's "up" to it.  We'll see.  By far, this has been the most difficult breeding season we've had.  Potentially unsuccessful breedings, unknown kidding dates, three different bucks, one of them rather unruly, and having to haul the does to another farm.

I almost miss Pan.  Almost.

P.S. - I promise, the goat sex stories will be over as soon.  I kind'a feel like a six year old telling fart jokes whenever I bring up my livestock breeding forays.  Except I'm pushing forty.  And I'm not laughing.