New Blood

I’ve been saying for several years that I need new blood for the goat herd, that is I need to buy a new buck.  I put it off when I got the diagnosis of copper deficiency because I wanted to get that under control first. Then there was a pandemic.  After selling Tiger, I hit the point of critical need for new blood.  See every buck I have is an Osboer.  Xerxes is a Fionn baby.  I love Xerxes, but he sometimes gives me tiny kids; he sometimes gives me huge kids.  In Maisie’s case, he gave me the extremes in one birth.  I would like to quit breeding him because of this.  I would sell him, but he’s crazy wild.  I would just have to shoot him to get him off the farm, so  I guess he’s going to stay here and mostly live a contented life (but not get as many girls as he would like).

Xerxes (an old picture because he thought it was too hot for a photo shoot)

Then there’s Freddie.  He is also a Fionn baby, my last Fionn baby.  He is the one I would use for most of my breeding because he should have more consistently sized kids.  He’s more meat goat, and if you want goats to sell well, you want them to be meat goats.  The only problem with him is that he’s solid white.  People want the traditional Boer look.  He will stay for another year though because he’s also my insurance for getting my perfect kid.

Freddie

I also am keeping Frodo for now.  He is going to breed Pretzel to give me the perfect kid.  Then he’ll get sold.  Ideally, his kid will be my next Osboer buck that is my forever buck.

Frodo fighting with Missy

Since I sold Tiger, I need a new buck to breed my Osboer girls.  I have several girls from Fionn.

Venus Osboer with this year’s kids Rajah (on the left) and Abu (on the right)

I decided to go to the sale barn on Saturday to see what prices were like because it’s been a long time since I watched a sale.  It was horribly hot (101°F feels like temperature).  I mean it was hot enough to melt a llama (just ask Maybeline if you don’t believe me).

Maybeline

That is really not the time to bring home an animal because it’s already a horribly stressful thing for them. But, I couldn’t pass up this deal.

Freshly arrived at Eden Hills

He weighed 90 pounds.  I’m guessing he’s about the same age as Freddie (a yearling).  He was clean and moved well and was really calm.   Even when I reached in the pen when we got home, he just looked at me. He was clam all the way until I got in the cage to put a collar and lead on him.

And I dropped the leash and had to catch him again to take it off.

Of course, he was facing a barking dog,

Sky

squawking geese,

nasty gander

sniffing llamas,

Odie

the scent of two other bucks,

Freddie and Xerxes (old picture because it was really hot)

and a completely new place in oppressive heat.  I suppose that would terrify anyone.  I finally got him to the greenhouse, and he’s starting to calm back down.

He won’t take a peanut yet, but we’ll keep working on that.

I even put a tarp up for him to stand outside and get a bit of shade in the afternoon and still be able to catch whatever breeze there might be.

I think he looks pretty sweet.

Benji

Meet Benjamin Butterboer (aka Benji).