I had intended to post this earlier but we were struggling to come up with a name that fit Tanya's second doe kid.  The children picked desserts/sweets as the name theme for this year and we just couldn't come up with anything that fit her.   So I took to calling her my "cow-girly".   Finally in desperation we solicited names from friends on Facebook and the name suggestion "Mocha Moolatte" came up.  We don't have a Dairy Queen near us so I had never heard of that particular ice cream coffee drink before.  But the name fit her like a glove and also connects nicely with her sister's name which is Mocha Swirl.

For our final doe kid born this year we had a big name challenge as I have wanted to name all of Violet's daughter with names that start with a V.   Add in a dessert them and our options were quite limited.  Until I remembered a wonderful ice cream treat that is no longer available in the US.  Viennetta suits her right down to the swirls of darker color running through her coat.  And while she may not have gotten her sire's moonspots (as far as we can tell) she did get his blue-eyes.

Of these three only Mocha Swirl is going to be available for sale when weaned.  Hubby has taken a fancy to Moolatte so she is staying.  Swirl has very nice conformation and unlike her sister likes to strike a pose, so she may end up doing well in the show ring. 

In addition to Mocha Swirl,  Blackberry Tart and Caramel Apple will be available for sale when weaned.  I will post more pictures when they are closer to weaning age although if you are interested shoot me a message and I will be glad to take current pictures for you.  

In the final kidding of the year Wags Ranch Incredible Violet gave us buck/doe twins out of Camanna AA Cobalt Azurite. These are the first kids out of "Colby". 

The buckling has brown eyes like his dam and his little sister has blue eyes like their sire.  I do not see ant moonspots on either of them at this point, but they may have a few subtle ones like Colby does.  

Violet's second freshening udder looks quite nice and I am looking forward to milking her this year.  Her doeling will be retained, and the buckling will be one of the 6 wethers that will be available after weaning.   

The wethers will be paired up with the kid closest in age to them and we will only be offering them as pairs this year.   The boys should be ready for new homes when they are around 9-10 weeks old.

This doeling as the first doe kid from Colby will be staying to help us evaluate him, and of course Alex's doe kid that we waited 5 years for will be staying as well.  The other 5 doelings are all under  evaluation and we will wait until they are closer to 12 weeks old before deciding who will be made available. 

We were hoping Tanya Tucker would kid on July 4th and indeed in the afternoon she was starting to show early signs of going into labor.  But she held off until the 5th.  

She was showing signs all morning that she was getting close, demanding massages, talking to her kids.   Around 3:30pm she laid down and got a few good pushes in and I thought she was ready to go, but then she got up and started pacing and trying different positions, some I have never seen before.   She wasn't anywhere close to be being fully dilated so chose to wait and see if she could get the kids shifted into position on her own.

Finally around 7:30 she managed to push the head of a large buck kid.  No front legs just his head and he was stuck.  Took a little maneuvering but I finally managed to pull the handsome classical buckskin kid out.    As soon as his nose was clear he shook his head and showered my face in amniotic fluid.   Since I was already working to complete the deliver I had sputter and keep going.

He was followed fairly quickly by a properly presenting doe kid.   At first glance she appeared to be black and white.  But once she was dry we could see she was a very pretty tri-colored buckskin with white markings.   

Tanya is an experienced mom and got right to work cleaning up her babies.  The buck kid was born hungry and he lost no time in finding his feet and the teat without any assistance needed and his sister wasn't far behind. 

Tanya's discharge didn't seem quite right to me and I was considering going in for a feel in case there was another kid (she has kidded with triplets every time) when a bubble appeared.  But it was not a proper presentation in fact I have never seen anything quite like it.  She was a large kid and all balled up and on the final push came popping out like a cannonball.   She had defecated already, but we got her cleaned up and breathing okay and she quickly joined her siblings in nursing.

No names for either of the doe kids yet, but it will be related to some form of sweet or dessert as that is the theme my children wanted to have this year for naming.

The last due date for any of the remaining does would be July 13th but only Violet is uddering up at this point.  She is the only doe bred to Colby that took, but he was pretty young, and conditions were not optimal.  He was bred too all of the first freshening Tide daughters, so we will have to wait another year to see if he is improving udders.   He does seem to doing some slight improvements on conformation, but udders is the most important thing.

At least two more does should be kidding in July.  Tanya Tucker is due July 4th and we are sure exactly when Violet is due probably around the 13th.   She is the only one that was bred to Colby that we are 100% will be kidding.  

I don't know if Kingfisher will be ready to get the job done come fall, but Colby will be over a year old and should certainly be capable of getting the job done this fall.  

We have not yet determined who, if any, of the does kids born in June will be available.    

For five long years we have waited to get a doe kid out of Alex and it has finally happened Tuesday morning!   Her first born this year is a darling dark gold DOE kid.  Her buckling is super cute too and looks like Neapolitan ice cream.   Needless to say the doe kid will be retained.  The buckling will be available as a wether once weaned.

Next up to kid are Tanya Tucker (Tide) and Violet (Colby).   We are still holding out hope that Emmylou is bred (Colby) but she isn't showing any signs of udder and we should be seeing something by now with a due date in two weeks.   Tanya is due July 4th and we aren't sure when Violet is due, we had her written down as due this week, but she doesn't have enough udder development for that.   

Colby was  new to his job, and many of the does he was suppose to cover were first fresheners.  We are hoping that this fall he will be ready to really get the job done for us and we will have lots of Colby babies next spring.

Normally we are wrapping up kidding by this time of year instead of just getting started.  But with the barn not getting finished until we had a foot or more of snow on the ground had a damper effect on heats.   So here we are.

On Sunday afternoon I heard a quite repetitive noise and went to check on the girls.  Jasmine was the one making the noise and was obviously in labor.  Then I glanced over and noticed Dahlia was also in labor and on closer inspection she had already silently produced a single buckling.    I called for help and got both of them moved to the kidding pen, where Dahlia proceeded to give us quads!  Not bad for a three year old first freshener!   I guess she was making up for lost time.

Her doe kids are super tiny, but they are both fighters and seem to be doing just fine.

Meanwhile Jasmine, a 2 year old first freshener was laboring on the other side of then pen.  She produced a single colorful doe kid.  Once we realized she only had a single kid, we quickly took Dahlia's 3rd kid - a buckling - and moved him over for Jasmine to clean up.  She took to him immediately and he sticks quite close to her.  

Then on Monday morning Levana who looked big enough to have quads produced a single LARGE buckling.  In fact he is so big he probably outweighs all of Dahlia's quads combined.   He is the spitting image of his dam - pure white with bright blue eyes.

All six kids are out of High Tide,  and all have blue eyes.  Tide's buck to do ratio is 50/50 so far, which is unusual for him as he tends to throw mostly doe kids..   Hopefully when Alex kids today she will finally give us a doe kid or two and improve his ratio. 

I have been known to go on long distance road trip or two to pick up a new goat but picking up Kingfisher in Maryland was without the most epic goat road trip yet!  

The whole family went on this two week, 22 state trip and along the way we got to see many friends and family.  Kingfisher who was only 7 weeks old when we picked up him up was a good traveler and attracted a crowd of admirers wherever we went.

So what makes this guy so special?   His dam has an LA score of 90 and his sire was the 2014 ADGA spotlight sale Nigerian Dwarf buck.  His paternal grand-dam is the amazing Summerbird LA score of 91.  (see pictures below)

​Very excited to see what this sweet heart of a kid will add to our herd.

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My last blog entry was about moving our family and herd to Idaho.  And while I had every intention of keeping up with the blog, there were a lot of obstacles not the least of which was lack of electricity and internet service.

We had been promised that water and power would arrive by the end of August and while the power company showed up as scheduled the pump guys did not.  So we hauled hundreds of gallons of water to keep our herd in water for over a month.  What a relief to finally get running water.

The next big delay was getting the barn built.  It was supposed to be finished by the end of October, then it was "by Thanksgiving" and we were finally  able to move the goats in after the first of the year.   Sadly on the day we moved the goats out of their calf hutch shelters through the snow to the barn we discovered that "Double the Kisses" aka "Dutch" and expired for unknown reasons.   I had yet to use him on any of my does and was heart broken by his loss.  I do not know exactly what happened but I suspect fast acting pneumonia, although I saw no signs of any issues the night before. 

Due to the move and dealing with temperatures they were not used to none of the does showed any signs of heat until a few weeks after they moved into the barn.  Having better living conditions and being just a fence away from the boys seemed to sort of wake everyone up and we managed to get maybe half of the does bred.   I decided that June/July kids were ok, but I didn't really want any August kids so I cut off breeding.   Since LA will occur here before my does kid I will have to wait for next year and will try to have everyone bred by the end of November 2019. 

I intend to draw blood for pregnancy checks in April and will post results when I know for sure who is and is not pregnant. 

This spring and summer we will work on fencing pastures and moving the bucks out of the weaning pen in the doe barn and into their own barn.  And we will also be working on getting everyone (including me) in top shape for a good year in 2020! 

This morning we are moving the herd to our acreage in Idaho.  This doubles the amount of land and it will also allow us to build a barn that is specifically built to the needs of the goats and perhaps in the future a micro-dairy operation.

​We will be located about 20 miles east of Moscow, ID at the edge of the Palouse region which is known for wheat, lentil, garbanzo bean and split pea production along with Timothy Hay. 

Blush kidded with twins sometime yesterday.  Earlier than was expected, but I'm not sure they were actually premature, all I know is neither of them made it.   One we know for sure was a girl, but the other one we didn't look at.

We waited two years to finally get a breeding to take and now this.  It is very heart breaking for us, and thankfully it is a rare occurrence.   So far Blush is doing ok, no signs of depression or greiving and she seems healthy enough.