A New Spanish Buck

We are excited to announce our purchase of a new Spanish buck.  A 2011 Buckling that is out of a Kensing bred doe and by a Weinheimer bred buck.  We put him in with 15 Koy Ranch bred does on Oct 21.  Barry likes his build and his type but is not excited about him not being black.  If the kids turn out like I think they will, I don't think he will mind. 

We have not come up with a name for him yet. 

In with some Koy Ranch Does.

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

Goat this and thats...

Mid Spring

I would say summer is now upon us.  The cool rainy days have stopped and the heat has arrived.  I think it was a bit rude of Mother Nature to go from one extreme to the other, but she does what she does and we have no say in it. :)

With all the rain we had some of the goats were very "challenged" while others took it in stride.  When extreme weather comes it lets you know who your real tough girls/guys are and who needs to go.  So some have been added to the culling list.

End of May

During this time of the year there is a lot more thinking about the goat program than doing.  The kids are starting to show more of what they have potential to be and the does are out just doing their job.  A lot are starting to put weight back on due to all of the summer forage (which is nice to see).  A few things I have thought about while watching the goats be goats:

1. I really need to update my website, and do it on a regular basis.  I usually am more involved with it but this year I have been very ho-hum about it.

2. I need to get back in the Goat Rancher.  Another, sigh, I didn't renew my breeder listing.  That is something that is important if I am going to sell any kind of breeding stock, duh!  AND I need to do a 1/4 page ad or something.

3. Breeding plans. I have decided I need to stager breeding better.  Breed the top does to kid out earlier and the first timers and commercials later when the weather is pretty okay (unless we get more rain and mud like this year, then it really does not matter). 

4. When should I go look for another Spanish buck?  We purchased two last year. One ready to go and the other was quite young and we only gave him a few does.  So I am thinking the older buck is going to find a new home (think he has found it), breed all the Spanish to the younger and then look for a buck for the year 2012 breeding season... my thoughts thus far.  

Spanish bucklings: always on the look out.

So as the summer goes on I will sit and think some more and come up with more plans for the future.  Before we know it, it will be time to gather up kids and take them off to market.  

Can't afford to wean these guys late or else I will have some unauthorized kids being born. 

Puppies for sale, you know you want one.

The puppies are just a couple days over a month old.  They will be ready in about 4 more weeks.  There are 8 girls and 2 boys.  This pups are full siblings to the last litter that went for goat dogs to pets.  They do make great family farm dogs if you have time to spend with them.  Priced $200 each.  They will not be registered but are full blooded Anatolians. 

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. 

2011 Winter Weather at Horseshoe Canyon Meat Goats...

Remember last years kidding season for HCR Meat Goats?  You might not but we do!  We had purchased quite a few does that were due to kid in Jan. and Feb.  It was one of the coldest most miserable Jan and Feb I can remember - at least it was during the times the does started to kid.  We had goats living in our garage to keep babies from being born and almost instantly freezing to death.  What a mess!  

This year we purchase a few goats that were bred to start kidding the end of January and that they did.  This year the difference was they picked a week that brought 60 and 70 degree weather.  The last doe to kid decided to do so the day before the "big storm" was to hit.  We were able to gather her up and put her and her twin bucklings in the end stall of our barn where we set up a heat lamp and had lots of straw for the kids to keep warm in.  Kikos are tough and so are their kids but letting less than day old kids stay out in freezing rain would have been pushing the limits, no matter what breed. 

All that is left for our winter kidding season are 3 purebred Spanish, 1 Willingham Spanish and one Purebred Kiko doe all bred to the purebred spanish buck (due to start kidding mid-Feb.) The date is approaching fast.  Hopefully this arctic weather will have moved on and we can have some days above freezing.  Time will only tell what mother nature will bring.  

A few days before the big freeze hit Arkansas.

Marlin our English Bulldog/Blue Heeler 

One of the early expecting Spanish does.

A 7/8 Kiko dam and her 2010 PB doe kid.

1/2 Kiko doe 

Joe and Mischief coming to say hello. 

Older NZ doe

The day after the storm arrived. 

Despite the cold the new kids that were born during the warmer weather seem to be handling it well.  We have found if a kid can have several days to nurse he/she can handle pretty cold weather.  They are more capable of finding shelter and following their mother around for some warm milk. 

New PB doeling

The majority of the herd waiting for the hay to be rolled out.  Forage is not an option when there is iced grass covered with snow. 

Cold but beautiful.  

NZ Kiko Buck DAR Kareem-O-Wheat

Corydon Indiana - THE CREAM OF THE CROP SALE

We had not planned on attending the sale this year.  I got a call from a past buyer who lived in KY that wanted to purchase another load of our commercial does - I will say this always makes me feel good. I am sure it makes everyone feel good, but sometimes don't you wonder how your goats are doing when they leave your farm and if the buyers are happy with them. Sometimes you never hear from the buyer again.  Anyway we struck up a deal to deliver goats to the sale.

I was excited because I wanted to go back and take the kids to Corydon during Halloween for their big festival things going on around the square.

We arrived late, late Friday night - we had planned on leaving earlier, as we always do, but it didn't work out that way.  The 9 hr trip always takes a little longer when you have 4 kids in the truck - but we arrived!
The next morning we slept in a little (because of that dang time change - Cameron our oldest didn't think that Corydon wad far enough East to allow a time difference. I think I agree with him).

When we finally arrived at the sale Dr. Browning was just about to start his seminar.  I feel that his information is so useful and well done if that is all you went to see it would be a well worth trip.  We learned a few things and were reminded of a few others.  He also talked about the flood from last year and showed a lot of photos from it.  The goat industry is lucky to have TSU and the Brownings and all of the research for us to use for free.

Sale time rolled around and some how Cody and Cameron (our two oldest - were helping work the sale).  It is funny because Cody is NOT a goat person but he was more than willing to go do a paying job.

The prices were up and I bid on a few but they were to much out of my reality price range for me to justify me buying a goat.  We are not in need of any stock but there were a few that that I really wanted. :)  I was proud of myself for refraining and having control of myself.  Goat auctions, well almost any auction, it is hard for me not to go home with out at least ONE animal or item.

There was a lot of high quality stock and they buyers appreciated it.  From what I can see the high selling buck was consigned by Egypt Creek Ranch Lot #71 and sold for $2400 - he was by BBM Hanky Panky's Y266 and out of a daughter of BHF Onyx's Shadow...he was a pretty buck and just got off of the WIU performance test.
The high sellind doe was consigned by Goat Hill Kikos Lot #27 and sold for $2700 sire: Sunboy Stanton 149 (Nick) Dam was a daughter of TNT Cody
The high selling % was a 1/2 AKGA doe Consigned by Goat Hill Kikos Sire: GHK Nick's Copy and out of a commercial Spanish doe - she was bred to Wild Bill... she sold for $525

After the sale we took the kids to the square for some Halloween fun.  We were just an hr behind on the good trick or treating, most of the homes were out of candy after dark....so we ended up taking them to Wal-Mart to pick out a big bag of candy to make into one big pile of sugary goodness.