How many doelings?

2011 Spanish Doeling

I take records, I write down birth weights and who was born when. I even tag everything when the kids are born... the trick I have found is looking BACK at your records and actually reading them.   This kidding season it felt like for every doe kid that  was born three buck kids were born next.  I kept thinking how we were going to have to keep every doe to replace older does I was getting rid of this year, plus the usual number of culls.  So I didn't look at the doe kids or count them as time went on... WELL, we pulled all of the doelings off the 350 acres to avoid them getting bred.  I don't like breeding does in the year they are born. 

The pen we put the doelings in.  Lots of food, although, not for long since there are so many of them.

As we were working the goats and separating the 2011 doelings my husband asked "How many of these do you have?"  My reply, "I had mostly bucks, there shouldn't be too many."  Then he asked "How many of these are you keeping?"  "Well, most of them because we got rid of so many does this year."  As the work went on the doeling number got bigger.  The pen we were putting them in was getting more and more crowded, to the point we had to use a different pen.

Some of the 2011 doelings

When all was done we counted the little girls and I had fifty two.  Hmmmm, fifty two?  I was thinking I had around 30 with some that would end up at the market.  Moral to the story:  It is important to read and use your records not just make them.

Crazy colored Kiko/Spanish doeling

What now?  Now I need to go through the doelings and figure out who I am keeping, who is worthy of being sold as breeding stock prospects and who is going to market.  

Purebred Doeling