Whew, the past few months have been a whirlwind! We’ve definitely learned some things about ourselves and other people. Here’s a brief overview:
We Can’t Control Nature & Our Time Is Finite
This was our first major kidding season and, while everyone is thriving, it has taken all of our energy and we fell way behind on the poultry side of our farm; plus the weird April blizzards absolutely destroyed fertility for most of our flocks. ZERO goslings survived this year and the Partridge Chanteclers still haven’t gone back to full laying!
Most people have been incredibly understanding, but a few seem to think that we owe them our time and/or can force God and Nature to cooperate with us. While we love to help and answer questions, we have very limited availability. Between the two of us, we have 2 (previously 3) full time professional jobs outside of the farm. On the farm, we do not have dedicated staff; we are just two people who love animals. We raise our breeds to help preserve and promote them, and we offer them to the public whenever we can. This is nowhere near a profitable venture – we are not a hatchery cranking out tens of thousands of chicks and we don’t have trained sexers to immediately cull males at hatch.
We’re Downsizing
Now that we know our limits, and also due to the unexpected loss of stable income from two of our jobs, we are doing some hard cuts. My beloved Tufted Romans and Norwegian Jaerhons are gone, most of the Welsummers are gone, the Wheaten Ameraucanas are for sale, and the Buff Chanteclers are also for sale. We have sold a couple adult does & kids that we wanted to keep, and we had to cancel a few new kids we were planning to buy. Next year, we’ll have at least 5 Mini Nubian milkers for sale, along with bucks and kids.
Live Poultry Deposits Will Now Be Enforced
This year, we’ve had multiple buyers around the country ask us to hatch chicks and then back out. Right now, we have about 40 Wheaten Ameraucanas available after someone asked for a special batch, said that he didn’t want to pay a deposit until we could confirm that there would be enough for his large order, and then ghosted us when we told him that enough had gone into lockdown and then later that enough had hatched. We’ve tried to be lenient about deposits, but we’re going to have to start enforcing them next year.
Unfortunately, it hasn’t just been chick orders. Raising adults or growouts for people LOSES us money. We very rarely agree to do it. Someone excited about one of our breeds asked us to grow them 6 show quality breeding trios, which requires starting with at least a hundred chicks. We agreed because we want to help spread this endangered breed (Chanteclers). About a month after we had hatched and started raising them, the buyers sent an email asking us about shipping them day-old chicks instead. We were in the middle of goat kiddings & didn’t immediately answer, so they completely backed out, leaving us with all those chicks (which we were luckily able to sell pretty quickly).
There Is A Gatekeeper For Goat Semen
The woman who hosts Blue Mountain Genetics here in Wisconsin is apparently strongly anti-black Oberhasli, even though she doesn’t even raise the breed. When we listed one for sale with the option to register him as experimental, this person took the time to find every single ad and comment on each one that black Obers are taboo. When we mentioned a few of the MANY award-winning farms who have registered them (as experimental) and said that people should not criticize the goals of other breeders as long as their animals are healthy and fit, she acted as gatekeeper for all goat genetics and permanently banned us from Blue Mountain’s collection at her farm. It’s a little inconvenient, but we’ll just head over to the one in Michigan or keep looking for another collector.
Baby Goats Attract Ghosts
Below is our full kidding season recap, mostly so we have a place to reference dates & counts later:
- Penny kidded a full week early unaided on 2/19, with two gorgeous bucklings (one solid black [S1 – Frankie], one correct bay [S2 – Johnny]) that we had to tube feed for about a week. They survived, thrived, and went to a new home with a buyer who shorted us $20 and just said “okay” when we brought it up. Lesson learned – even if it looks weird or rude, trust no one and count payment at least twice before letting a buyer leave. Penny’s udder will improve next year and she will be an excellent family milker, but her attachments will not make the cut for our goals as a future exhibition herd – she’s got a small pocket that is common among her purebred relatives. She went to a local farm with Luna and a doeling out of Riesling.
- Lady kidded unassisted 2/24 with a buck [S3 – Monkey] and a doe [S4 – Jolene] and a super socked-on udder! Her fur got weird for a while – brittle and patchy – but is recovering. We thought her kids were both sold but a couple different buyers backed out, so they’re retained for now.
- Dolly was our first assisted birthing on 2/27 – her teeny son [S5 – Blaze] was tail first breech, then a loooong doeling [S6 – Legs/Swiftie] slid out, followed by another teeny doeling still in her sac [S7 – Beanie/June]. Dolly’s FF udder is VERY nice! Her teats are a bit longer than some show people prefer, but they’re very easy to milk. We knew immediately that we’d retain Legs! June was pre-reserved by a nice family a little south of us. A couple “confirmed” buyers for Blaze ghosted us, all the previously interested people found others while we thought he was sold, and another kept bouncing from telling us that our price was outrageous to demanding that we let her trade one of her unbreedable culls for him. Eventually, a really nice family snagged him!
- Swiss gave birth right after Dolly on 2/27 and needed help with a teeny breech mini-me doe [S8 – Tiny], then a massive chocolate buck [S9 – Chonk/Toffee], and then a long and wide breech chocolate girl we immediately knew we’d be retaining [S10 – Bambi/Tiramisu]. The first doe went to our friends at Homeward Bound, the buck to our friend Troy who’s just getting into Mini Nubians, and Tiramisu was retained. Swiss’ udder is very well attached and her teats have grown to be awesome for hand milking, although we’d like the delineation between teat and udder to be a little more defined. Swiss was a bit standoffish as a junior and we almost sold her, but she has gotten SUPER sweet after kidding!
- Riesling had two gorgeous girls a couple days late on 3/01, on her own while we were at lunch. Riesling was the first doe who was a challenge to milk – she would buck with both hind feet and kick and be a total B*. After sitting on her for a couple weeks, she finally calmed down! Her udder has sloooowly stretched to take on a gorgeous shape and decent amounts of milk for an FF. She’s one of the two FFs who might have a shot at a milk star this year. We were going to keep both of her daughters, but then both of my employers started showing signs of trouble – cutting pay and letting people go – so we realized that we needed to sell one. We took forever to decide which to retain! We ended up keeping the darker and slightly wider girl [S12 – Futura] and selling the one with the more level rump and a spot on her poll [S11 – Spot, later named Freya] – she headed to a farm together with Penny and Luna.
- Next up was Honey! She didn’t need much help beyond moral support as she kidded a doe [S13 – Clover] and buck [S14 – Lucky] right after midnight on 3/19, while it was freezing out. We wanted to keep the doe so, so badly! She was the absolute sweetest. But both kids developed vertical ear folds and we discovered that their actual ears were slightly twisted, so we had to sell them together as pets to a new pet/photo op farm a couple hours away. Honey has the BEST udder attachments and topline, but still produces the lowest amount of milk in her herd. Not sure why she does so much worse here than her previous home, but she’s available for sale.
- Our bestie Candy kidded next on 3/21 with almost no help, with a black doe [S15 – Lira], a bezoar buck [S16 – Mark II/Comet], and then a tiny mini-me doe [S17 – Tala]. Mark II was originally reserved, but that buyer couldn’t decide between him and someone else’s buck, so our guy went to a sweet 4H family as a wether. Lira the black doe was originally listed and we were going to retain Tala the bezoar, but multiple buyers claimed and then backed out on Lira, so we took it as a sign and kept her instead. Tala went to a really nice farm in Illinois.
- Gazelle was the kidding we were most worried about. We still aren’t sure what’s causing her weird skin issue, but wanted to see what would happen. She needed help 6 days late on 03/29 with an absolutely massive buckling [S18 – Moo], and then a tiny stillborn doeling [S19 – RIP] still curled up in her intact fetal sac; both solid black. We are saddened by the loss of that little girl, but know that we’re very fortunate to only have one death. Gazelle was a hot mess for a while and lost a ton of fur, then we discovered that she had a HIGH tapeworm load & treated those. Almost all of her hair has grown back now, but she’s still flakey. When someone came out to do our DHI verification test, she took one look at Gazelle and said, “Yep, mites!” so we’re treating her for those now with everything we’ve got. Her son WAS going to a pet home with one of Luna’s boys, but the person backed out. He’s so, so gorgeous conformationally and the sweetest, calmest boy we still have here!
- Luna was next up on 4/04, with two nearly identical bay bucks. One’s leg was a little weak at first and the other had trouble focusing one eye [S20 – Ivar & S21 – Odin]. We had to help Luna a little bit, but she did most of the work on her own. Her udder is VERY nice, minus the hereditary pocket, and she produced 6lbs of milk at 11 days fresh as an FF! One of her boys is pending to someone we thought ghosted us, then re-expressed interest after about a month. We’ll see. The other was pending with Moo to someone who backed out, but he has become really weak; we think due to weaning shock. We’re working on fattening him up and he’s now pending to a nice local family with pet Obers.
- Diana kidded on 4/8, the day of the total (in other areas) solar eclipse! Her single daughter [S22 – Moon Maiden] was ginormous, even bigger than Gazelle’s son. Moonie has Diana’s adorable face and long, level rump. She’s retained! Diana has taken a while to stretch her udder, but it is VERY nice and well attached now! Her teats are harder to milk due to pretty bad scarring caused by someone we hired for a while, but that’s a whole other story. In short – always, always make sure the pressure gauge on a milk machine stays below 14 units.
- Last but not least, Rowena had a gorgeous buck [S23 – Cutie] on 5/06! She needed a little bit of help because his head was pushed back, but did most of the work on her own. Unfortunately, her udder is… not great. Her orifices are so nice and she carries a ton of milk, but her medial and side/rear attachments are very weak. She’s only a 2F, but it’s not looking like she’ll hold up. Her son went to a pet home south of us and we’re not sure what the future holds for her and her dam Vivi, who we promised to keep together.
