Ohiofarmgirl's Adventures in The Good Land is largely a fish out of water tale about how I eventually found my footing on a small farm in an Amish town. We are a mostly organic, somewhat self sufficient, sustainable farm in Ohio. There's action and adventure and I'll always tell you the truth about farming.


Thursday, October 14, 2010

Getting Nibbles to the church on time

Somebody write these dates down: March 8th - 13th... and as late as the 18th. That's when we'll be expecting Nibbles to have her babies next spring. I'm not kidding!

 Nibbles looking like the Hindenburg - the day before kidding this spring

Today we drove like mad to get Nibbles to the breeder. I thought she was in heat last week and had planned to take her next week. Well. Nibbles had her own ideas. This morning I went out to find here screaming her head off.  And she had a detailed, and complex set of plans to get her to the Good Neighbor's buck.  Her drawn in the dirt plans involved a trebuchet, a hot air balloon, and a cross bow. We headed her off at the pass and loaded her up in the truck. And away we went.

We got to the breeders in about an hour - all the way screaming out the window at slow drivers to "Drive faster! We got a hot goat here!"

Finally we made it.

We hustled Nibbles out of the truck and into the buck pen and.... bing, bang, boom, and a little of the old 23-skiddo later.... Nibbles declared she was in love, the buck declared he loved her, and I was the most embarrassed person on earth.

The breeder laughed and said we could probably just run some errands and come back to get her in a hour or so. But we said we'd be back in a couple days "just to make sure." I'm pretty sure that Nibbles said she wasn't coming home with me "now or ever" as we were walking away. However, that buck had a couple other ladies lined up so I'm pretty sure she'll want to come home when she realizes he never really loved her. Goats. Sheesh.

What we are hoping for in the spring - come on Pickles and Ice Cream!

On the drive home we decided to name the first two babies 'Pickles' and Ice Cream. We hope to see them somewhere around March 13th. We'll put our 4-H neighbor kid on notice. Heaven knows we'll need her help.

You can learn more about goat breeding here.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for great laugh! I hope to have goats someday, with my own handy-dandy live-in 4-H kid to boot! (He's just started it this year.) NOBODY in our county seems to do goats, though - I'm trying to find somebody local who'll let me play with their goats first. I figure purchasing a goat is one of those things that should be a "try-it-before-you-buy-it" type adventure, especially since I want a goat for dairy purposes.

Ohiofarmgirl said...

Nah - once you get goats you'll be sold out. Maybe not a goat "lover" but you'll be a goat "liker", like me, for sure. Most goat folks are happy to show you around. And they will let you test-milk a doe before you buy her
;-)

Chai Chai said...

Umm, doesn't one normally panic, drive like crazy, and pick up a police escort for the delivery part of the birthing equation?

Ohiofarmgirl said...

Yep but its usually ME when I'm driving AWAY from the whole thing! yikes! I'm telling you the whole birthing thing just ick's me out. I can't handle it. I can gut anything that ain't smilin' at me.. but I just don't know nothing 'bout birthin' no babies.

Anyway.

Fortunately we didnt get pulled over on the way there... how would I have explained that I had a "hot goat" to Johnny Law?

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