August | 2012 | M. R. Goats

It was the call you always dread as a livestock owner. You see we were on the road 3 hours from home delivering goats and buying hay when the phone rang. My buddy was stopping by to check water troughs for me while we were gone because the heat was pretty intense and all of the creeks are bone dry due to the recent drought. He said he had everyone watered and was getting ready to leave when he saw a big white goat in the driveway.

Turns out, this was truly a “Big White Goat” who goes by the name MRG Diesel. Diesel is actually more yellow these days than white because he has been wearing his working clothes for a few weeks now. It is still unclear if Diesel ‘jumped the fence’ or went through it because it is 8 strands of high tensile electric wire that was not electrified at the time. We do know that he did not get in with any other does at the time but for reasons like this we are glad to have and utilize DNA parentage verification as a tool on our farm.

I instructed my novice goat handler friend over a static filled cell phone line to shut the gate on the driveway, grab a bucket, and coax Diesel into the yearling buck paddock which was electrified until we returned. Note: The goat wrangler below is at least 6’4″.

Diesel Lookin’ for Love in all the wrong places

Wouldn’t you know it, Diesel wasn’t happy in a field of bucks that he had thought looked better from across the road. You see, the smell in the air he kept sniffing was coming from all of the does in heat with HEMI next door. After a day of talking to the girls through the fence and one head butting season with HEMI through the fence, we decided there might be a safer place for this rutting buck. We loaded Diesel up in the trailer and took him to my friend’s farm. He runs Purebred Kiko bucks over full-blood Boer does and sells very nice and very big 50/50 crosses. He had some yearling does that needed bred by an outside buck and Diesel was awarded the contract. He should be safe for now until all of the activities calm down around the farm. We will miss him for the short time that he is gone but he will have plenty of great forage in his new pastures with his handful of does to breed. We took Warsaw there to vacation last year and he came back about 30 pounds heavier on his lush pastures.

If you are looking for a good commercial herd sire, check out my friend’s 2 50/50 Kiko Boer bucks he has for sale. I posted these bucks earlier in the year and they were very impressive looking when I saw them again this weekend. Click on the link below to see these bucks and their sire https://mrgoats.wordpress.com/2012/06/26/hybrid-vigor/

On Monday August 13^th, we moved HEMI out of a pasture full of bucklings through the cow pasture surrounding the barn and into the pasture where the does were grazing. All-in-all this went much smoother than expected. You see, HEMI isn’t one for handling. We should have known what to expect when he had to be lassoed as a yearling when we picked him out in GA. He’s only gotten wilder since spending the last few years in the hills of Wild and Wonderful West –by-God-Virginia.

HEMI and Loverboy grand-daughter

He’s by no means ‘mean’ but would better be described as flighty. I should have bought a lasso and learned how to use it by now. HEMI has been such an easy keeper that all I am required to do for the most part is open a gate and let him go through it on his own accord. He had been talking to the does through a small section of shared fence row for a few days to the point that I thought someone was going to get injured in the process. We thought about waiting a few more weeks to start the breeding process but there were obviously does in heat and a buck in rut so we let them have their way.

HEMI and Southwest Cisco grand-daughter

Let’s hope that we don’t wind up regretting this group decision in January when we are freezing our butts off ear tagging kids in the dark, after work, with 2 young ones by our sides. As one would expect HEMI went directly to the girls in need that he had been courting through the fence. Once they were taken care of, he then decided to see if anyone else was ready and just didn’t know it.

HEMI checking does

At one point during the performance, he decided that beating up a willow tree might be a good way to show off for the ladies, or maybe it was a way of getting out some frustration.

HEMI in rut

Our 2 other breeding bucks this year have also been staying busy with their respective groups of does. This will be Warsaw’s second kid crop born here and we are excited to see how they are again this year.

WARSAW in hot pursuit

MRG Diesel already has 2 kid crops under his belt in OH but this will be his first one to hit the ground back home. We have some of his 2012 kids as well and they are thick and meaty just like him.