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!