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Moonspotted is such a lovely descriptor. What a beautiful girl! That first boy, though...dang. I like how the little baby horn buds look like cinnamon rolls.
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Mar 7, 2024 14:10
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How does reserving a kid work? 'i want the best doe from X's litter?
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Mar 9, 2024 05:12
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That first boy won at life immediately after birth, definitely needs to be named Lucky
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Mar 9, 2024 06:20
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Clearly the last Buckling needs to be named Spot or Toner. 
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Mar 12, 2024 09:57
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Arsenic Lupin posted:How does reserving a kid work? 'i want the best doe from X's litter? So here's how reserving works. You go on my website and find a pairing you like, then you email/chat me and go, "Hey Celestriad, here's $100, I want a doeling from the pairing of X and Y." I go, "Sure, you're the first person to reserve a doeling from that pairing." Then when the kids are born, if there is more than one doeling, I go, "Here's pictures of the doelings--who do you want?" Or I go, "You're second choice doeling - do you want to choose a backup just in case?" Then when the kids are born, if there is more than one doeling, I talk to first choice person first and then tell you, "Here is your assigned doeling." If there are no doelings born from that pairing, I go, "Bummer - do you want a doeling from another pairing? Here's who's available." You can say sure, or you can ask for your $100 reservation fee back. Timely discussion, because I reserved a buckling from a major breeder and I picked him up on Sunday. His dam is a first freshener so we don't have any pictures on her or a track record for her. I still felt really comfortable getting him, because of HER parents. Both her dam and her sire scored a 92 on their judging appraisals, when the highest any Nubian has ever scored is a 93. It is super rare for a buck to get that score, and so he is designated an Elite Buck. There are usually only 5 of those designated a year, in the whole country. And her dam is the twin sister to the 2021 National Reserve Grand Champion. His sire is the same buck who sired the 2022 National Junior Grand Champion, making her his half-sister. That buck is also the son of a Top 10 millker, and his grandsires are 2 of the best-known bucks in the breed. So uh, he has a crapload of milk and show potential. Goat kids are hell on wheels and get into trouble constantly. Just like my little Maya, my new kiddo managed to get his leg caught and sprained it. His breeder asked as a professional courtesy if I wanted to substitute another buck, or if I wanted to wait until he was healed to pick him up. But because I literally just went through this with Maya, I told her it was just fine. So we drove 2.5 hours to pick him up, and when I got there she handed me this absolutely gorgeous little guy. Meet J&M Hideaway Rogue Wave! (Sorry for the frame and Imgur tag, I had more trouble with this drat picture.)  You can tell from the pose he knows he's a show goat. The pose is also due to his poor sprained leg, but he is a Major Diva. Rogue is also super snuggly. If you sit, you will have a Rogue in your lap. Period. Good luck getting him off of said lap.
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Mar 13, 2024 03:53
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I used to work for Rogue Wave. It was a good company full of good people. I hope your buck will be more enduringly successful.
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Mar 13, 2024 04:15
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Celestriad posted:
What a beauty! I love Nubian ears. They're just so... dramatic.
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Apr 18, 2024 19:21
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I have totally neglected to post all the changes on our farm, and now we're 3 weeks out from kids. So I'll do a post on some of the changes, and then in a couple days I'll do a post outlining our preggo girls. In May, we got a text from a lady who had bought one of our goats from us. She said that someone had just given her an orphaned litter of Anatolian Shepherd x Great Pyrenees puppies, and did we want one? Well, obviously, we had never had a livestock guardian dog before, my wife had never raised a puppy before, and I hadn't raised one in 15+ years. So of course we said yes, and brought home an adorable 6-week old potato. We named her Freya, after the goddess of war, since she was going to be a great protector for our flocks and herds. Puppies are a handful, but how can you be mad at this face? Here she is at 10 weeks old:  She grew up big and fast. She's the smartest drat dog I have ever met, but also the most stubborn. It's a breed trait, and from what I hear this is normal until about 2 years old once they finally agree to start listening. I think you can see her personality really well here.  She is a Very Good Girl. She loves to protect the goats. It is Serious Business and she gets Very Upset if anything comes around that doesn't belong. 5 nights ago, she alerted me to a possum and if I hadn't held her back, she would have gotten him once I scared him out of his hiding place. The only downside is, she hates being fenced in. She escapes fences better than goats, and there's a saying about goats: "If you think you have a secure fence, throw a glass of water at it. If the water goes through, so will a goat." So it's a constant war to keep her in the pastures with the goats, but we'll win that fight eventually. Now for our 2nd new addition! When I first started getting into goats, and the idea of wanting goats, I did a ton of research. Somewhere, deep in my research, I came across a picture of a buck I absolutely fell in love with. He was the epitome of the Nubian breed - a heavy, muscular dual-purpose goat who milked like crazy. He sired a Top 10 milker, and he actually originally came from a farm only about 90min away from us. Unfortunately, he died in 2004, over 20 years ago. Here is a picture of him so you can see why he's my favorite goat of all time:  One of my previous bucks, Flag, was his great-great grandson, bought from the original breeder, and I thought that was as close as I would ever get to Spinning Top. Until I got a text message from my veterinarian friend, who had been experimenting with artificial insemination. She told me that one of her clients had a doe who just kidded 2 bucklings sired by... Spinning Top! Did I want one? OH gently caress YES. I nagged that poor lady for a month, and then drove 5 hours each direction to bring home this little guy. The whole way, he sat on my wife's lap as good as gold. She kept saying, "I can't believe I'm holding him, given who his daddy is...." His dam's name is Trouble, and his dad's name is Spinning Top, so meet Spin Outta Control! (SOCs - pronounced socks - for short)  (My friends call this his Tinder profile photo) He is absolutely 100% the golden child. Our biggest buck, Horizon, adopted him as a little brother immediately. Socks also bossed around Rogue from the start, despite Rogue being 8 months to his 2, and Rogue being about twice his size. He is so spoiled, and so incredibly sweet. He very much has the heavy build of his dad already. Here he is at 5 months old, already (barely) big enough to fit on the milking stand like a big boy to eat his treats. I am just over the moon about him!  More to come in a couple days!
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Mar 3, 2025 05:50
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Those are some drat fine dogs and goats.
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Mar 3, 2025 15:48
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Celestriad posted:
I kept thinking she had a little bandana pulled up over her muzzle, like some kind of bathtub bandit  Great update, can't wait to see more!
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Mar 3, 2025 16:03
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Lord Awkward posted:I kept thinking she had a little bandana pulled up over her muzzle, like some kind of bathtub bandit yeah he's a bandit, he's come to steal our hearts!
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Mar 3, 2025 16:06
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I'm SO happy to see some updates to this thread! I've been thinking about our goon farmers now that spring is on the horizon.  What a lovely new dog (who is already working hard it sounds like), and what a handsome new golden boy!
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Mar 3, 2025 18:32
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Here's the update on the preggo does, as promised! Nebula's pregnancy didn't take. I think she actually had an early miscarriage brought on by too much fighting, and she never really came back into heat. She's still in milk, though, a whole year after she last kidded, so I'm just gonna see how she does for longevity. Her genetics and body condition say she can handle it, and so this is a good test. First due is Amber, in 2 weeks. She usually gives us twins, but she's wider now than she has been in past years. She can barely get up and down on the milking stand, and she's groaning. I'm concerned about pregnancy toxemia, because she didn't finish eating her grain today. When a goat doesn't eat, it's a concern. When a heavily pregnant doe doesn't eat, it's a Problem. So the countermeasure is to spoil the hell out of her by offering her whatever she feels like eating for the next 2 weeks until she releases the hostages.  Kachina is due 2 weeks after Amber. She is once again a colossus, smuggling a porpoise or perhaps a small car. She eats like the world is ending, so no worries there. Her mood is the worst part. She wants to kill her daughter Maya first, and then the whole world. I don't really blame her. Look at her! She's got so many in there, they can't even properly kick, just kinda squirm around. Last year she had triplets. This year, I'm thinking quads.  They're both bred to Horizon. They both have amazing udders, and Horizon's only going to improve that in his daughters. So I want to keep a daughter from each of them. Here's Horizon now, all grown up and stunning:  We also have a 2-year-old first timer, Mona, due right smack in between Amber and Kachina. Her baby pic is actually a few pages back in this thread, and now she's having babies. Aww, the circle of life! She is so upset. Whoever is in her uterus is extremely aggro and kicks the second you touch her belly, and she just does not know how to process this. She's usually an extremely quiet goat, but she is talking a lot right now. She isn't very wide, but she is very deep. Her dam liked to carry the kids low, and looks like she's doing the same. She's building a cute little udder and she's being very good about letting me handle her udder and teats even though this is all new and strange. I suspect twins, for her sake. A single large kid is rough on a first timer.  She's bred to Rogue, because I have suspicions about her udder and he can correct that in their kids. I am not planning on keeping a kid just so I can prove out her millking capacity and her udder, but I have changed my mind about that before... Look at how gorgeous Rogue is, even in his awkward teenage phase! Occasionally, his 2 brain cells collide and he has a thought, even!  Finally, here's a picture of all the preggos together, so you can compare widths. You can get a good idea with Kachina and Mona, but Amber is at the wrong angle to see how much her belly is really sticking out. She is also SO OVER this pregnancy, can you tell? 
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Mar 6, 2025 03:25
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B A B B Y G O A T S Amber took her dear sweet loving time, to the point we were worrying about her because she was having contractions for days. Turns out goats get Braxton-Hicks like humans do; go figure. Finally on her due day, we went out and saw her in active labor. She took awhile, but nothing was happening, so I had to go in. She was sure I was murdering her; it was all my wife could do to hold her down. She is a very large goat. Kid was sitting with her head on her hooves, elbows out, and she tried to run away. I evicted her and she's been unhappy since. We're calling her "Jane Complain" as a result.  Next up, Amber gave us a pretty frosted boy. He's the friendliest of the bunch. Toddles right up to you to be held.  Amber was laying down, but she stood up and shot the last doeling out at me. They're all tiny, but she's making a big stretch.  We're going to keep one of the girls, and it's going to be a difficult choice. Last weekend we heard about an amazing sale on a doeling related to my buck Rogue Wave. They share a grandmother which is the closest amount of inbreeding I'm comfortable with. Look at the stunning little girl we brought home:   Her name is J&M Hideaway RF Sunderland, but we're calling her Sunny. She's certainly not smug about staying in the house until Amber had her kids. Not at all.
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Mar 22, 2025 04:25
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Clearly Jane Complain stays, as you named her already.
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Mar 22, 2025 04:35
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She is gonna stay, but her registered name is now Topaz because her dam line has a gemstones and minerals theme. The boy is Feldspar, and the other little girl is Ruby. (Not my choice - her new owner picked. I try not to give my goats stripper names because it sounds super awkward yelled across the barn in frustration.) M O A R B E B B E Mona was ears out and not at all happy about impending labor. She was really loose in the back end but she took forever to fill up her udder. I put her in the kidding stall and she complained for a while then settled in. Then I heard her complaining again at about 11:30pm. She kept complaining, and at 11:48 I went out to check on her. Walked into the barn, turned on the lights.... She has a kid on the ground. Nope, more than one kid. Holy poo poo, 3 kids?! She was tiny! Where the gently caress did she put 3 kids?! She was a first timer and there is usually a lot of drama and screaming and they take longer to kid. Goats make a very distinctive sound when they're in labor and pushing. Mona -did not scream -did not make the push sound -had 3 babies in 18min All 3 were even sitting up and looking around by the time I got to the barn! It took some convincing to get her to let them nurse, but she got the hang of it. Unfortunately, she's having udder congestion issues and wasn't able to feed them properly so I had to pull them early. Here's the herd, somehow all girls because I wanted a boy (this dam line naming theme is Irish names): Riley - splitting image of daddy, Rogue:  Tulla - splitting image of mama, Mona:  McKenna - splitting image of grandma, Erin:  Genetics is fun sometimes! It's always really interesting to see what I get.
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Mar 31, 2025 01:48
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