Happy Halloween!

What are you dressing up as for Halloween?

Stella has decided to be a vampire this year:

And Mini is apparently going with the "unsuspecting victim" look. 

Whatever your plans are, I hope you have a happy and safe Halloween!

And Baby Makes 100

This thing I'm under has four legs, but I can't seem to find where the udder is.

As I sort of foreshadowed in my June post about baby goats, we do have some new kids as of just a bit over a week ago.  Two does gave birth to a total of two bucks and one doe, which brings us up to a grand total of 100 kids hitting the ground in 2012.

A friend asked me if we were kidding early or kidding late this year, and it is definitely a case of kidding late.  I used to have a doe or two kid in the fall, something that is easy with Nigerian Dwarf goats because they are year-round breeders.  However, since I started my skin care product business,   fall is far too busy for me to also deal with does kidding and kid raising.  Also, there's not much sense in having my does kid either after show season is over, or so far before show season that they're somewhat "stale" by the time the first show of the year rolls around.

Baby doe must climb anything/one that is climbable.

So, why did I make an exception and have two does kid in October?  The Cliff Notes version is that about four and a half years ago, I was talked into selling twin does (I had only wanted to part with one kid) to a "show home".  These twins were out of a doe named Castle Rock Snowfluryceanothus, who is also the dam of my does Alum Root and Blizzard, both of whom scored a 91 on Linear Appraisal this year.

Castle Rock Snowfluryceanothus

Flurry was a lovely, wonderful doe who I sold in a fit of "Arrrrgggg too many goats!" a couple of months after the twins were born (the regret about this decision came pretty quickly), but who died of pregnancy toxemia after about eighteen months in her new home.  The twins were neither shown nor bred in the home they went to, and since they were sold with the understanding that both would happen, combined with how their older sisters have turned out, negotiations commenced, and I picked up the twins in May.

I realized that breeding them right away would mean October kids, which was not something I was terribly excited about.  On the other hand, waiting till they would freshen with spring kids would mean five year old first fresheners, so in with Guy Noir they went, and here we are five months later.

I'm not quite sure what I am going to do with the buck kids- their pedigrees say they should be herd sire material, but they are out of first fresheners who are pretty early in their lactations (meaning they still haven't quite pulled themselves back together post-birthing), so it is a bit early to judge.

This spot is waaaay better than sleeping in the barn

Meanwhile, the doe kid seems to have decided what she is going to do- use her powers of cuteness to secure a place on the farm.  It's working too- guess I'd better start thinking of a name for the little fuzz ball.

The Placebo Effect

On a hot day (we're still hitting the mid-90s and higher half way through October), what could possibly sound more refreshing than spending some time in the pool?

That there is no water in the pool is of no matter to Ms. Heartburn.  She's heard this is the best place to stay cool on a hot day, she's claimed it, and won't let anyone else in the pool, lest they take some of the refreshing-ness away.