Kidding season, new puppy and puppies at Horseshoe Canyon Ranch Meat Goats.

Kidding season finally arrived.  It started the beginning of this month and is still going full force.  This is the first year to have the Spanish kid and they are proving to be excellent mothers.  They are very attentive and do not like to leave the kids for some time.  We are very pleased.  The only thing that is a little worry some is that they have given us a lot of singles but in their defense (for the time being) this is their first time to kid.  Next year we will start to cull who gives us singles again... it is always a process getting your herd where you want it and there are so many ways of going about it, you just have to pick what works for you and your style you want for raising YOUR goats.

1st Spanish born - Twin Bucklings.

We are keeping an eye on them for possible sire prospects.  Time will only tell.

On April second I headed out to Limestone, TN to pick up our new Anatolian Shepherd.  About two years ago we had purchased a male from the breeder but he had a few fluke issues and didn't work out so this is a replacement puppy.  We went with a female this time.

The eastern part of TN is just beautiful!  I would love to take the family back that direction to do some tourist kind of things.  

The dog in the middle is the sire of our puppy.

Horizon Farms Amazing Grace, aka Gracie made it all the way back to Arkansas.  

7/8 Kiko Bucklings - soon to be wethers.

While I was away the goats kept kidding.  Cameron took over the tagging and weighing of the kids.  Thanks goodness for that. 

This dam is a Myotonic x - we owned her dam, who was a reg. 1/2 boer doe.  We have kept several 1/2 siblings to this doe.  They are great commercial dams.

Triplets - Purebred Kikos: 2 doelings & 1 buckling.  All tired out from being born.

7/8 Kiko doe with her PB doeling

Kiko/Spanish Doe with her twin bucklings

Hiding 

We also had a littler of unregistered Anatolian puppies born on April 6th.  Ookii (pronounced Okie) gave us 11: 3 boys and 8 girls.  

One last thing, don't forget to re-order tags before kidding season starts.  I had, what I thought was enough, an extra box on the shelf.  Well, there was no box when I went to get it... I guess I used them all last year.  So I have about 30 kids running around tag-less.  This does two things: 1. makes it exciting to play the guessing game when my tags finally arrive (hopefully today) and 2. it's going to be a chase down now that the kids have a day or two of age on them.  Oh the wonderful adventures of goat raising. How the simple things as having tags can make your life more difficult when you don't have them.  Oh well, live and learn.