{"id":2797,"date":"2011-09-10T04:37:23","date_gmt":"2011-09-10T11:37:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/?p=2797"},"modified":"2011-10-15T12:12:50","modified_gmt":"2011-10-15T19:12:50","slug":"the-high-price-of-milk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/?p=2797","title":{"rendered":"The High Price of Milk."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Last year my haphazard breeding program led to goat kids being born in March, May, and July.\u00a0 Also to having to guess by color which buck sired which kid.\u00a0 Or determining if kids were old enough to be weaned or ready for their first round of CD&T by whether or not Pretty wrote about their birth date in her diary.\u00a0 This year will be less arbitrary.\u00a0 Less disorganized.\u00a0 Less dependent upon a 10 year old farm manager.<\/p>\n

With that thought in mind, I decided that the does would be placed with their chosen bucks for the entire month of September.\u00a0 Assuming a doe goes into heat 7-10 days after exposure to a male, breeding should occur by middle of September.\u00a0 Therefore, goat kids should be born in middle of February.\u00a0 There.\u00a0 A plan.\u00a0 It’s a unique plan.\u00a0 It’s not the way most goat owners do it.\u00a0 I’m sure that surprises you.<\/p>\n

Most goat owners determine when a doe has come into heat and then take her to visit with a buck.\u00a0 Voila!\u00a0 Breeding occurs and kids are born within 145-150 days after the conjugal visit.\u00a0 Easy peasy.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, my goats are not French and do not do Voila! very well.\u00a0 They do flag their tails and bleat\u00a0 hysterically when they come into heat, signalling it is time to see the buck.\u00a0 They also flag their tails and bleat hysterically when dinner is late, when another doe is crowding them at the feed trough, when it starts to rain and they are locked out of the barn, when the livestock guardian dog is sitting in their favorite spot under the cedar tree, when their babies sneak out of the fence to eat blackberries, when the chickens roost on the round bale, when the wind blows, when the sun shines, when acorns fall, etc, etc, etc.<\/p>\n

On each of those occasions last year, I stopped what I was doing, rushed the complaining doe into the breeding pen, brought the male to her, left them fresh food and water, and hurried into the house to jot down the date.\u00a0 Thereby ensuring that I didn’t miss the 6 hour to 3 day window of opportunity for conception and also that I would know a pretty close approximation of the kidding date.\u00a0 Also ensuring that we would be late for the school bus or Sunday school or boy scouts or a million other activities that happened to coincide with the onset of heat in the goat herd.\u00a0 Listen to me, friends.\u00a0 Do not tell people you were late because your goat went into heat and needed to be placed in the breeding pen with a buck.\u00a0 It is not polite conversation.\u00a0 The topic of goat sex creates a very uncomfortable silence.\u00a0 Just tell them the dog threw up on the rug and you had to clean it up before he started eating it.\u00a0 Everybody can relate to that.<\/p>\n

Of course, all those false heat signals meant I was running around like a chicken from the neighbor’s dog (I would say “chicken with its head cut off” but who does that anymore?\u00a0 Killing cone, people, killing cone.).\u00a0 I also quickly lost track of who\/m was with who\/m and when (Like that little grammar trick?\u00a0 I created that, but feel free to use it for yourself).\u00a0 Besides which, a lot of breedings didn’t take.\u00a0 A goat would go into heat one month, be placed with a buck, and go into heat again the following month.\u00a0 Meaning she wasn’t pregnant and had to be bred again.\u00a0 Meaning kidding was spaced out all over the spring and summer months.<\/p>\n

A fellow farmer suggested I determine if a doe was truly in heat by how she acted around the male when placed in the pen with him.\u00a0 A doe that is truly in heat, she said, would stand for the male and accept his advances.\u00a0 If she ran away, then she wasn’t in heat yet.<\/p>\n

I tried that.<\/p>\n

But the same doe who flagged her tail and cried plaintively outside the buck pen, started running away as soon as she was confined with him.\u00a0 I took her out of the pen and would find her only hours later, standing right by the gate to the buck pen, begging to go back in.\u00a0 Huh?\u00a0 Or a doe would be placed in the pen, would stand for the male, and come out complacently when the deed was done.\u00a0 But then she went into heat again the next month.\u00a0 And the month after that.\u00a0 What the…?<\/p>\n

I love my ladies.\u00a0 I really do.\u00a0 But I was beginning to suspect they spent all night huddled together in the barn, giggling hysterically at my expense:<\/p>\n

“You act like you’re in the mood tomorrow, Carmen.\u00a0 But wait until you see her walking to the car in her good shoes and a shirt without farm stains on it.\u00a0 Muwhahahahaha!”<\/p>\n

Hence the decision to simply confine the does with the bucks for the entire month of September.\u00a0 Sooner or later their hormones would take over and pregnancy should be accomplished.\u00a0 I would document breedings if I saw them, but even if I didn’t have exact dates, at least I would be able to concentrate all the kidding to one month.\u00a0 Which is a lot more organized than I managed to get last year.\u00a0 And by confining one group of does with Calico Jack and a separate group of does with Merlin, I would be sure to know which buck sired which kids.\u00a0 Well, I’d know who sired everyone’s kids except for Charlotte’s.\u00a0 Since she promptly escaped from the pen with Merlin, moved into Jack’s pen, and then was found back in Merlin’s pen a couple days later.\u00a0 I don’t want to malign anyone’s character, but really, what a loosey goosey!<\/p>\n

So far, my plan is working out pretty well.\u00a0 I even witnessed some breeding and documented it on my calendar.\u00a0 See?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I’m sure I’ll still be able to decipher those notes by Februrary.\u00a0 Probably.\u00a0 Maybe.<\/p>\n

Plus, I think this plan is better for everyone involved.<\/p>\n

Well, except for the neighbors.\u00a0 Who have been subjected to the blubbering and singing of bucks in rut for a week now.\u00a0 Along with the squeals of does frantically trying to escape.\u00a0 I would videotape it for you so you could hear the craziness.\u00a0 But it is impossible to videotape and cover my ears at the same time.\u00a0 Also, I don’t have a video camera or the technical ability to post a video online.\u00a0 That’s why I’m a farmer and not working in IT.\u00a0 My neighbors are probably videotaping it as we speak in order to document their complaints to animal control.\u00a0 Because, really, you wouldn’t believe how loud it is unless you’ve heard it.\u00a0 So it may not be better for the neighbors.\u00a0 Sorry ’bout that.<\/p>\n

It isn’t so great for tourism either.\u00a0 The smell of bucks in rut is kind of horrific.\u00a0 The smell comes from the bucks urinating on themselves to attract the females.\u00a0 Which is not exactly a pleasant visual.\u00a0 When visitors see the bucks unsheathing themselves and urinating in their own faces, they tend to turn kind of green.\u00a0 The visitors, I mean, not the bucks.\u00a0 The bucks are turning yellow.\u00a0 There are a lot of shocked gasps, gags, and the covering of young children’s eyes.\u00a0 I just hope that the children who come over to play after school don’t share what they learned here in the middle of dinner.\u00a0 If they do, I’m so, so sorry.<\/p>\n

Also, I don’t think the friend who milks for me on the days when I’m at work is enjoying the new plan.\u00a0 Previously gentle and easy-going does have been known to kick milk buckets or break head stalls in the frenzy of mating season.\u00a0 Removing the ones in milk from the buck pen in the morning is a stinky and complicated job.\u00a0 Putting them back in after milking can involve dragging a reluctant doe halfway across the barn yard.\u00a0 Again, I’m sorry.<\/p>\n

The constant stampeding of bucks after does, does away from bucks, battles between bucks, and battles between does has been hard on the smaller ones in the barn yard, too.\u00a0 Chickens, guineas, ducks, and even Little Bit, the barn cat, have been trampled in the chaos.\u00a0 Whoever can fly, roost or climb out of\u00a0 the way stays off the ground as much as possible.\u00a0 Sorry, sorry, sorry.<\/p>\n

Even the barn and farm equipment have not been spared from abuse.\u00a0 Hooks have been ripped out of walls, gates torn off their hinges, feed barrels toppled, hay racks butted down, and waterers tipped over.\u00a0 The kids spent all of Labor Day repairing and refurbishing the barn yard.\u00a0 Sorry, guys.<\/p>\n

To top it off, the poor livestock guardian dog is confused by the hormones flooding the air.\u00a0 He often spends the day trailing any doe in heat and attempting to mount her.\u00a0 Sorry, goats.\u00a0 Knock it off, freak.<\/p>\n

Now that I think about it, “better” might not be the proper term for my plan.\u00a0 “Consolidating the chaos of breeding season to one month” might be a more apt description.\u00a0 And you thought the price of raw goat milk was only $8\/gallon.\u00a0 Believe me, the real cost is soooooo much higher.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last year my haphazard breeding program led to goat kids being born in March, May, and July.\u00a0 Also to having to guess by color which buck sired which kid.\u00a0 Or determining if kids were old enough to be weaned or ready for their first round of CD&T by whether or not Pretty wrote about their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[115,117,18,116,112],"class_list":["post-2797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-breeding","tag-bucks","tag-goats","tag-kidding","tag-milking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2797"}],"version-history":[{"count":39,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2797\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3013,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2797\/revisions\/3013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}