STILL no kids from Poit. Her ligaments are very soft this evening and her udder feels tight, although not as tight as possible. She has had wax on her teats for a week and looks miserable. I swore I put her in with the buck on the 17th of January and left her for a week. The only thing I can think is that I got the date wrong or left her for more than a week. Both are very possible. I really dropped the ball on this one in terms of keeping records! I'm being extremely vigilant, however, and she gets checked several times a night. So I have no doubts that I will be there if she needs assistance. She hasn't shown any signs of impending labor, but as soon as those ligs are totally gone I will be staying home until I see babies. I am very happy with her udder at this point, and I think it has plenty of filling left to do before it is properly strutted. The teats point out somewhat, but not excessively, and they are a nice size. The udder itself is very balanced with a great medial. We will see how nice the attachments are once she fills up top.
I should have some posed photos of my buck kid in the next few days. I want to clip him tomorrow and get a friend of mine to snap some pictures while I give him a bottle. He is such a loving little cutie. I just saw some photos of a friend of mine's buck she took recently. I'm really stunned by him. He is so gorgeous! I'm trying to convince her to stud him out to me on a few does, but she wants to see how he scores on his LA first. That and we live quite a distance from one another, so I'm not sure how the whole thing would work, especially if a doe didn't take the first cover and we had to try again. Maybe I can "board" my does there for cost of care, but that always a risk to her goats and mine as far as getting ill goes. The stress, the different environments, and the different types of bacterias they are exposed to. But a show environment is just as risky, and we both show. I dunno. I know a lot of farms use outside bucks, I just don't know how they go about doing it. With a horse I know the ropes. If live cover you can bring your mare up when she is in heat and hand breed her for several days, but that only works if you are close. OR, you leave your mare for as long as it takes to cover her and pay mare care per day. You generally leave her for two weeks after the cover to get an ultrasound to confirm pregnancy. For me, its just a wait and see with the goats as I don't ultrasound.
I sold Westley and Gizmo in the same day. The family who bought Gizmo are very happy with him and have joined the GoatSpot forum per my recommendation. It sounds like they are planning on breeding him to one of their girls in the very near future. I can't wait to see pictures of his kids! He is such a friendly, spoiled buck and I was very sad to see him go. But I think I'm doing the right thing by my herd. He is nice, but I'm not sure how the mammary systems will be on his doe kids and I'd have to wait a long time to figure that out, breeding him at least another year in the process. I decided to keep his half-sister by the same buck in any case (Jolie) and it will be nice to have another buck that isn't related to any of my current does. I want to add as much diversity as possible.
HORSES:
So I haven't said anything about the horses lately. My mare foaled in May, and little Pandora is now about six weeks old. I should have posted the news and the photos here, but I often forget that I decided this isn't simply a goat blog. I have found myself calling her Panda for short, at least when she is being nice. She is a little spitfire! She has kicked me twice so far. Both times she got a quick, harsh reminder that its not alright. She is leading well and is very brave. You can touch her anywhere you like. I can't get over how beautiful she is, and her conformation is to die for. She is a red dun tobiano, and I'm convinced she is also a roan on top of that. So her colored body parts will be much lighter than her head. The dun will make her much more "pink" than a normal chestnut and she has dark tips on her ears and a nearly black streak in her tail. She also has a black muzzle coming in and black around her eyes. I'm going to take a few photos of her tomorrow, but here are some as a newborn, still wobbly and skeletal looking.
She is super muscular now. She has a perfect shoulder and hip angle. Her hip is just gorgeous! I think her only conformational flaw is that her neck may tie in a bit too low, but I don't think it is enough to make her heavy on the forehand. Her eye is strange, however. She was born with a defect. The vet said it isn't genetic, and that it's just a fluke in which skin cells grow on the eyeball.
She is a little jumpy on that side and nearly runs into stuff once in awhile because of it. But she seems to have adapted quickly and manages to run about just fine without hurting herself. He says she can see, but its impeding her field of vision. He thinks he can easily remove it without hurting the eye itself when she is a weanling. I have to start saving as I'm sure it will be spendy.
I may be trading Chief for my mom's very flashy overo gelding. He is too much horse for her, but he is very well trained and just needs a firm hand. He is gorgeous!
I really hope she decides to go through with the trade, but we'll see.
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