Sunday we drove up to Victory Caprines in Vernonia to take a look at the buckling "Rio the Rebel".   Hard to resist such a handsome boy, and since he is unrelated to anyone else in my herd he is now our second herd sire.

When we got him here our herd queen Allie had to check him out and once he had her approval we introduced him to the "big boys".   Stormy was less welcoming than his mom had been, and was being so pushy that he was moved to the girls pen.  Once Stormy was no longer a factor, Sunshine was pleasant enough to his new herd mate and has generally left him alone.

We are certainly hoping this fine looking young buck will live up to his wonderful pedigree and help us continue to improve our herd.

Around 5 pm yesterday, hubby was helping install some more fencing for the goats and apparently misjudged a t-post he was pounding in. He missed the post with the pounder, but caught it with his left palm.  The impact ripped open his hand from the heel of his palm up to the web between the thumb and first finger on his left hand.  

I took one look at it and agreed that a trip to ER was in order.  It took a total of 42 stitches to sew him back up and the doctor said that it put his skills to the test.  An artery was cut, but fortunately no tendons.   He is now sporting a hand immobilizer that he is supposed to wear for the next 10 days at least.

At the time the accident occurred a friend was here helping install the fencing , so she stayed and watched the children (and finished the fencing job) until my mom could come and get them.  Needless to say it was quite the day!

Nigerian Dwarf goats cycle approximately every 21 days.  Jasmine was put in with a buck on March 6th, but it didn't take.  If in fact she was in heat at that time, then her next cycle would have occurred about the 27th of March.   However, the "clean-up" buck wasn't put in with the herd until the 4th of April, so she couldn't have been bred on the 27th.   Which only leaves the next heat cycle which would have been about the 19th of April, since the buck was pulled from herd on the 24th.  

The gestation period for Nigerian Goats is typically 145-150 days.  So armed withe this new information I am guessing that her due date will be between September 11-16th.   Which means there is hope for her udder yet!  It is filling, and her teat length is looking good, but it is definitely no where near as full as I would like it to be.  

So we have three weeks of seeing Braxton Hicks contractions and her doing "goat yoga" which according to some websites means she is trying to make room for multiples.   She is from a birth of quads, so its not out of the question, that she could be carrying quads herself.   (Twins and triplets are more common than singles for Nigerians.)   I haven't seen my other does do that much stretching so there may be some truth to it.   Time will tell....

Jasmine appeared to be in early labor when we went out to do chores yesterday morning.  Around 11am it appeared that heavy labor was starting, she was lying on her side, and having contractions that were lifting her rear end off the ground.  After 5 or 6 strong contractions, they stopped.   No more contractions were seen, until about 8pm when she had another brief bout of contractions.   That was enough to cause Bekah and I to sleep out in the kidding shed, "just in case".   However, morning dawned with no kids in sight.

I got the service memo in the mail yesterday and took a good look at the date on it this morning.  According to that info, her due date is between August 27th, and September 24th.  (She was field bred, so no exact date of service is available.)  Goats can have Braxton Hicks contractions (sometimes referred to as false labor), and lose their mucus plug over the course of several weeks, and that appears to be what is going on with Jasmine.   So we have at least another week of waiting and watching to look forward too.

I'm going to let a well kept secret out of the bag.  It really doesn't rain all that much in Oregon, especially in the summer.  In fact summers here tend to be pretty dry.  Blessedly every time the neighbors have plowed their fields in the past month we have gotten a light rain that night that settles the dust.   Last night was no exception.

It was humid going out to do chores this morning, but the smell of fresh clean air was wonderful!  And you can definitely feel the first traces of fall in the air too, which means I better hurry up and get a barn built for my expanding goat herd!

Yes I have been remiss about blogging lately.   On July 30th we made the heart breaking decision to have one of our dogs put to sleep.   Zack was a healthy happy two year old that was developing extreme dog aggression.  We tried separating him from our other dog, but the kids kept letting them back into together with disastrous results.   He was never anything but patient with the kids, but we were worried that they would find themselves in a midst of a fight and get hurt in the brawl.   We will eventually get another dog, but not for a while.

As for the goats, Jasmine did not kid as scheduled so she was obviously bred to Java Jolt, who is also a handsome blue eyed buck with a nice pedigree.   After a close examination of his pedigree I realized that a buck kid from Jasmine could be used as a herd sire here.   He does share at least two ancestors with Millie and Rita, but they are so far back that, although I wouldn't bred him to Millie I can bred him to Rita without any worries.   So I am back to praying for a herd sire quality buck kid from Jasmine.   Oh yeah her new due date - sometime between the 27th of August and the 27th of September. 

In other news we are going to be trading Millie's buck kid "Rocky" to Liberty Farms in Northern CA for one of their does in September.   Lexxus is a beautiful lady that earned a Grand Champion and Reserve Grand Champion as a junior doe.  And on her last milk test she gave 2.1#,  Fat was 7.8% and Protein was 5.3%.   We are looking forward to using her milk to make butter!