Valley Flowers Lily of the Valley

Not to long ago we were blessed yet again by Christine at Valley Flowers Farm 

with a new herd member.  

Meet Lily.  

Suzy is totally smitten with Lily, frankly, so am I. 

She's amazing. 

she is out of MCH Hill Country DAX Stitch 

who has some of that amazing Kingwood running in his veins.

and her dam is Valley Flowers Perky Sue who is Rosasharn's bred. 

(Rosasharn's MY Kodaly 6*D   X  Rosasharn's SP Lil' Boy Blue.) 

Suzy showed Lily in her first show in April as a 4 week old baby who took 2nd in both classes 

under two different Judges.  In front of her in the line was 

her dam's 1/2 sister - Valley Flowers Calico Hearts who went on to win 

Junior Grand Champion. 

Lily Love Bug welcome to our herd. 

So much has been going on here at CBF Nigerians.  I've barely had time to blog about it.  

I know I am WAAAAY behind in updating.  The last time I wrote, It was shortly 

after the first 2 sets of kids arrived on the scene here.  That was Chatty and Wish's 

kids.  Chatty and Wish have since joined our milk test. Chatty is blowing my socks off in the milk pail. 

She's had 2 tests now and both times over 3#'s.  I'm pretty impressed with her as a FF doe.  

Wish, not so much.  She didn't do badly her first test but since I sold her boys as wethers, he milk has dropped. 

PHTHTTHTH! 

About 2 week ago - Tirzah kidded, She was HUGE.  I mean like Triplets huge! 

and she had ONE single big doe kid.  You are probably thinking I should be turning cartwheels, 

because at least it was a doe.  UM, not so fast! 

The doe has a teat with a double orifice. No  more cartwheels.  You are older and overweight still and might hurt yourself (I'm talking to myself of course) .   So for several weeks I've been debating what 

to do and how to handle this whole fiasco.  

I wish there was an easy answer but the one I came to - taking several things into consideration is, 

Selling Tirzah and her daughter as unregistered backyard milkers is where we went. 

I'm also selling Wish and our new buck, Legend.  Yeah, you are probably thinking, I"m nuts. 

But it made me realize why I got into this in the first place.....it was for my kids.  

This is a 4H project gone wild and one I enjoy immensely (otherwise why would I drag my butt out of bed every morning, feed, milk, maintain hooves, clean pens etc.) but I think I sort of let the goats take over. 

So , we took a step back, revisited our goals and dreams, evaluated what our needs were 

as a family and as responsible herd owners and here's where we are at. 

I am blessed to have some good friends with some EXCELLENT bucks, I don't need them this year, 

so, my plans to keep Caspian intact and Legend for my herd that seems to be shrinking considerably, are unnecessary.  Caspian is now castrated and sold and is going to a new home with Tirzah and Boo as unregistered backyard milkers. 

Wish and Legend are up for sale as a registered breeding pair (If you are interested, $400 for the pair) 

Chatty is staying and her doeling is sold (she was technically sold before she hit the ground, the buyers backed out and I re-listed her so I didn't grow attached and keep another doe!) 

Valley Flowers Lisianthus is bred to Ironwoodranch A Good Intrigue *S/*B and is due in Aug. I am loving Intrigue's kids overall and may keep one of these.  Besides, Intrigue's dam is now a finished Champion!

Lisi's sire also earned a Grand Champion title and I am loving this pretty little doe. 

Marina  - earned another Junior Champion title - this one counted and I'm not selling her.  I'd love to see her freshen but she won't be bred until Fall - she's staying. 

Lastly Lily, WoW is about all I can say, this little girl grows and I am more smitten. 

As you can see - this leaves us with only 2 milkers for the year.  Not really working for me since our goat milk soap helps support the herd and we are kind of addicted to all that fresh milk, cheese, yogurt, kefir and ice cream.....so, I cut my herd to bare bones and bought an outstanding milking doe (okay, so she's due in two weeks and I won't get her until later but still) She's is a 3rd Freshener, 2X Grand Champion who will be Linear Appraised next month with our group AND she is going straight on my milk test.  I'm not giving any more information until she officially joins my herd.  

That means you'll have to come visit us again to get more information! 

I'm sure you are wondering what we are going to do about breeding.  

Well, two of my friends worked out some breedings with us. I will be using 2 maybe 3 bucks for next year: 

MCH Hill Country DAX Stitch who is a LOOONG handsome buck who throws long beautiful kids (See Lily) 

Valley Flowers Blazing Star (this is Marina's intended as it will pull in more of those lovely 

Rosasharn's lines that Marina has) 

and Sunset Plains Almond Roca.  (he is a yearling buck that blew me away at the last show earning a 

Reserve Junior champion Title and aReserve Champion Title behind Lisianthus' sire Bachelor Button. 

I swear, I'm getting really tired of huge herd changes.  I'm ready for some good girls (and maybe even a boy) to stay here and contribute to our little farm.  I hope these changes help us to make that step. 

Thank you to everyone who helped us make some HARD but necessary changes, to those whose shoulders I cried on (you know who you are) and those who gave us a chance to dream big by allowing use or buy some amazing stock from you:

Sunset Plains,

Valley Flowers

Seldom Herd

 

2012 Babies.

C4 CBF AGI Wish Upon A Star X Desert Nanny BF Blue Sunfire buck

C2 Last Straw Chattachoochee X MCH Lost Valley ML Asher (doe)

C1-Last Straw Chattahoochee X MCH Lost Valley ML Asher buck

C3 - CBF AGI Wish Upon a Star X Desert Nanny BF Blue Sunfire buck 

 

As you can see, kidding season has begun.  For once I did not breed all of my does to kid in Feb.  I showed a little restraint mostly because I really wanted to spread out my milk supply.   This spring has brought us a few surprises.  CBF CS Paint Th'Sky With Stars was due to kid first.  She did not, it appears she had a false pregnancy. This was a bit sad as I'd already agreed to sell her to someone post kidding when the babies were weaned.  I did not feel right asking them to wait until fall for me to have another chance so I sold her.  I was really looking forward to Wish and Captain's little siblings to be running around her and having her on the milk string for a few months while I trained the 2 FF does.  I had my eyes on Wishes as the next to kid and when I was out doing a check on Wish I noticed chatty off by herself in beginning stages of labor.  I moved her to the kidding stall and she promptly kidded with buck/doe twins (see C1 and C2 above)  C2 - CBF ASH Creme Puff is sold and going to Colorado, and I am evaluating C2 as a possible herdsire for my herd.  Chatty has a lovely glued on udder and is proving to be a nice little milker.  he is also the grandson of Intrigue and son of Asher.   I can imagine him taking his place here as a herdsire.
Wishes decided to take a clue from Chatty and got her show on the road about 4 hours later and had twin bucks.  I'm a bit disappointed as I was really hoping for at least one doe kid.  Not so.  They are lovely little boys but will most likely wind up wethers.  (see C3 and C4 above).  It's been fun having bouncy little kids around once again. And the girls are milking well considering this is their first go around!  I will put milk numbers and pics of udders on another post here in the next few days. I am milking once a day but our first milk test of the year will be next year.

Usually by now we have most of our kids on the ground by now.  I"m tattooing (it has one great benefit this time of year - I don't have to wear anything green for St. Patrick's day, my hands are green from tattooing!)
Anyway this year we did things a bit different so we've been living vicariously through other folks' kidding instead of our own.  It's been a tough spring already though.  Not only am I missing having my kids to go visit daily, No milk right now.  Stars was supposed to be due today and it appears she has had  false pregnancy.
I'm so sad.  I really was looking forward to another set of Stars/Intrigue kids!!!!! But at least she milked enough this last year to earn her milking star through AGS. She will be a 3*D in AGS. We aren't sure about ADGA yet.

But, sometime in the next week Chatty (Last Straw Chattahoochie) and Wishes (CBF AGI Wish Upon A Star) both Intrigue kids, will be freshening with their first kids.   These are also Intrigue's first kids to freshen.
WE hope to see many more kids of his this year as he was bred to several outside does this year.

I ended up Selling Ammi bred as someone really wanted her and kids out of Intrigue.  I cannot wait to see what that cross will produce.  It was hard letting Ammi go after just getting her back last spring but with the price of hay rising this year we felt that this was for the best for our herd for now.  Ammi has an excellent home and will be used to produce many beautiful babies for her new herd.  Before she left, we found out that she earned her milking star through AGS (not sure about ADGA yet)   VERY proud to say I'm the breeder on this beautiful doe.

Because we are trying to achieve the goal of having year round milk - we bred Tirzah later than we'd usually like (She is bred to Asher).  She really is a nice little milker. She also earned her milking stars in AGS and with her butterfat has enough to earn the Sue Rucker Bronze JuJu award through ANDDA.  We are hoping she will finish this year and we will nominate her for the All around or All American this year as well.

We are just now breeding our younger two does for fall kids.  Our original plan was to breed Marina to Intrigue before he was sold and Lisianthus would go to our new buck, Legend.  you know what they say about best laid plans.....well, Marina went into heat and our good friend Christine of Valley Flowers allowed us to use her buck, Blazing Star, before she sold him and we jumped.  This breeding would bring in a LOT of amazing genetics from Rosasharns' as both Marina and Blaze have that in their background.  And while I was trying to catch Legend to go in the breeding pen with Lisi, Intrigue busted out and got Lisi before I could say BOO!  WEll, I did want 1 more set of Intrigue kids before he left. If both does are bred, they are due July 28 and Aug 10 respectively.  We will be keeping VERY FEW kids this year so if you are interested in something - please email me about availability.  I have some kid reservations to fill but once they are filled - we will have some for sale.  BTW - buck reservations are wide open and I think we could have some good ones this year. For those of you who are new to CBF - I do not breed for eye or coat color.
I breed for conformationally correct milking does and bucks who will produce such.  I prefer certain lines so we do wind up with a lot of Chocolate and white colored goats but it's not because we are trying to breed Chocolate and White Milkers!!!

upcoming news - we are back on 305 DHI this year with everyone who is freshening and because NM is getting a stop or two on ADGA's linear appraisal schedule, we applied.  IF nothing changes we will be getting our Linears done between June 12-26.  The good news is everyone will be shaved already by that time and we'll be eagerly awaiting whatever advice etc. we get from the appraiser.  I am eager to learn what we need to improve on etc. All of this is an amazing learning experience for us as our goal here is to improve our little herd of milkers and produce awesome little milking Nigerians for herds who want them.
Thanks for visiting us here at CBF Nigerians!

sometimes during the winter I just like to take some time to reflect on the year that's behind and think about the year that might be ahead.  Winter, the lull in goat stuff.  Everyone is bred that needs to be bred, two more does will go in with their intended bucks but for now they are still enjoying being carefree babies.  I still have two does milking which, compared to last year when we had no milk (really chaps my hide to feed 8 goats and get no milk) at this time.  We also had no eggs last year at this time and this year we are steadily getting around 4 or more a day.  I love thinking about babies that are coming but at the same time am grateful that there isn't so much work to be done right now......Just enjoy the slower pace of life on the mini-farm.  I am dreaming right now about the garden for the year - what will we plant?  Oh so many things on the list!!! I do see the green tops of the garlic planted in November peeking through the dirt. Lots of garlic. And because of the modern wonder of row cover  - we are still picking a bit of greens and root crops. Not much but every little bit helps.  yes, it's a little piece of heaven here at times.  I love the work and fast pace but love the winter slow months too.  Gives me time to catch my breath.  Of course, there is soap to be made, some scarves to felt, maybe a little sewing, knitting, crocheting and finishing up projects that took a back seat to the business of babies, milking, and all that comes with that - cheese, soap, yogurt, canning, gardening etc. 

Yes, I look forward to attending a few shows, being on 305 DHI for the 2nd year in a row and getting our herd Linear Appraised in Sept.  I look forward to looking out my back window and watching this year's kid crops bouncing, playing, snuggling with their mommas....but for now I will enjoy the dreams, because the reality is that the insanity of it all is right around the corner, less than 2 months away.....