To Breed or Not To Breed

This week I will be mixing some girls and boys to have spring break kids.  There are some that I am not sure about, but Lily is not one of those.  I am certain she’s not getting bred.  She had her twins at the end of February and two days later was septic with mastitis.  I’ve never seen a goat go from so healthy to so sick that quickly.

Lily

I’d like not to see that again, so even though she’s looking fat good, she’s retired.  There are two other girls that got mastitis this year also.  It really was a horrible bacteria year due to the lack of winter.

Sugar

Sugar is young and healthy and beautiful and has good genetics.  I caught Sugar’s quickly, and her udder doesn’t look too bad.  I’m going to wean her last kid this weekend, and hopefully, I can get someone to help me do a direct treatment of antibiotics into her teat.  Hopefully that will keep her healthy and let her not have problems next year.

Annie is in the same boat, except her kid has already been weaned and she’s had the treatment. I would love to breed her to Boeris and get girls to keep.

Annie

I will keep a very close eye on those two girls just in case they do have problems again.  I’ll be ready.

There are also three girls that I had retired, but I think they will be coming out of retirement.  First is Joe.  She is in great health, but she has bad feet.  As long as I keep them trimmed well, she will be fine.  She also has kids easily, raises them and they are great!

Joe

Pam was going to be able to retire after she had Maisie, but she enjoys being a mom.  She’s been almost climbing into the boys’ pens when she’s in heat.  She certainly is adamant about having kids again.

Pam

Finally, I have Meg.  She didn’t get bred last year because she got hoof rot during a really dry spell.  Don’t know how, but she did, so I gave her the year off and figured it was just retirement.

Megora

But now, I’ve lost her daughter Jilly.  Her other daughter is Muffin, who lost her twins to Cache Valley Fever while she was at the peak of her milk production.  Because of her temperament, I couldn’t milk her out at all and help her dry up.  Now her udder looks worse than anyone else’s here.

I do have her daughter Jelly, but Jelly has something funky going on with her back legs.  She’s happy and healthy, but I swear she’s part fainting goat or something.  There are times she just seems to trip over grass, and pregnancy would be horrible on her.

Jelly and Muffin

Any of you goat people have a suggestion for poor Muffin’s udder?

Anyhow, if I want to continue Meg’s line, she’s going to have to have another daughter for me.  She’s in great shape and was one of the girls I milked last year.

I’m afraid I’m going to have more goats retired than not pretty soon, but I hate the idea of selling adult goats at the sale barn.  Far worse than going into the food supply would be someone buying them to breed.  I’d hate to see them just boomerang from owner to owner.  They deserve much better than that, so I guess that means they just get to stay here.

Not all of these girls will come into heat for spring break kids, but they are some that have been on my mind a lot.

Linking to Wordless Wednesday with Project Alicia, Live and Love Out Loud, Create With Joy, Tina’s Wordless Wednesday and Sarah Halstead.

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