Guest Blogger

This is Madame, I just finished milking her last night, she is pretty much dried up. She will kid in late April, I am hoping for a buck from her this year, and a doe would be nice too.
This is my all time favorite goat picture, I have used it all over the place. Madame is probably the most photogenic of my goats, although her wether Nonami is also. His face has grown a bit crooked in the last year, I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t keep him intact.

This is Madame with her 2008 kids when they were very young, Nonami and Zelda. Nonami is her wether, and the other one is a doe who has gone to Texas. Zelda is apparently spoiled rotten there.

This is a recent picture of Nonami and Madame. My current wethers are smaller than the first one I had was. I am thinking it might be because I neutered them at a week old. The first one was 3 weeks old. I’m going to test that this year and neuter them at 3 weeks.

Here is a picture of Madame that shows her shape. The next one is her udder, in 2009 after her second kidding.

I think these are all my goats, tomorrow I am going to talk about my dogs a little.

I hope you all have a great day!

And her kids. Triscuit (and Madame) came from Sue Huston when I went to Missouri in 2007. She is a 4th generation kinder. She has had five kids so far, and I still have them all. She has a lovely udder, and this picture hints at it. Triscuit is very friendly and a little bossy. She runs to the milking stand to get milked, she really wants her grain. She is second in line in the herd order, and has contested that a bit with my big nubian Tsu, but they settle. She is half the size and younger too, I don’t think she’s going to win that contest anytime soon.

She had two kids in 2008, PipPip and HooRay! Here is Pip in a tub. Pip is due to kid in March, I am hoping for a lovely udder like Triscuit has and teats that are a bit bigger because Tsu is her grandmother. Pip is smaller than any of my other kinders, but she weighs about the same amount as Browner. This picture of Pip and Browner shows the size difference, Browner is taller and longer. They both weighed 80-85 pounds before they were bred. Pip is the shyest of my kinders, and sort of a loner. I’m hoping she will have a doe that will stay with her and that she will be happier. I’m probably imagining things, but I would like to see her kid snuggling with her.

This is Ray, he is the biggest kinder I have. I’m pretty sure he is over the size standard, but but he has a nice long body. This year I will get a better look at how his kids are going to turn out. I don’t have any of the kids he sired last year.

In 2009 Triscuit had triplets, the first picture is Trude and Simon, a couple hours old. They are out of Domino. The second picture is Pickles. She and Trude will be bred this fall, Simon is destined for the freezer. Last year I learned how to socialize kids, and all the kids from 2009 are friendly and can be handled pretty well, even though they were not bottle fed.

I’m having some trouble getting these posts to format the way I’d like, so please forgive me the strange layout.

Have a wonderful day!

Fresca and Domino snuggling at less than a week old. Domino got iodine on his head, that’s what the yellow is. Nowadays yellow on his head is pee. He was an adorable kid and everyone loved him. Even all the other goats. Fresca is still very tightly bonded to her mother, they hang out together all the time.

This is Fresca today, she is bred to kid in March. She will be two in June. She was bred to Ray, who is one of Triscuit’s kids. Tomorrow is going to feature Triscuit and her kids.

This is Domino as an adolescent, when he was still charming and pristine.

This is Domino last summer, he is bulkier now, and tinged with yellow. We tried to get a current picture of him, but the best we got wasn’t good enough. He bugs Ray alot, I think about separating them, but they would have to split the room they have and it wouldn’t be very big. Plus they also snuggle, so I don’t know what is best. Advice would be welcome.

Ray is bigger and used to be the dominant one. Then we had a big rainstorm, and they spend a day and a half in their house. When they came out Domino was dominant and Ray had a little tear on his ear. (That healed with no problem)

Piglet’s feet aren’t very good, her hooves grow very fast and she has had a problem with laminitis that started after she kidded with these two, I have watched her kids very carefully and so far their feet are fine, and they have had no issues, but she was older when it started. We successfully treated her last year, and she was running and jumping and appeared cured, so I gradually stopped the meds I was giving her. She has relapsed, so we have started over. This time I know it isn’t because her hooves haven’t been trimmed well enough. So I am not inclined to breed her again, at this point. She is a terrific Aunty with everyone else’s kids, and they love her.

Tomorrow is for Triscuit.

It is snowing here! Well, it has sort of turned to rain. But they said there would only be snow over 6000 feet, and we are around 4800 feet. So the snow was a surprise. We have gotten more precipitation this year than we usually get, hope it keeps up.

Have a wonderful day!

Jan

This is Tsu, my first goat. She is due to kid in March. She will be six in April. I got her when she was a kid, that’s how I remember how long I’ve had goats. She wasn’t bred until 2006, when she had two bucks in the dead of winter in the middle of the night. It was 15 degrees, and I didn’t know what I was doing, Neither did she, it was horrible. Fortunately I have a neighbor who has experience and she helped us. The kids survived and did fine. The next year I didn’t get her bred until very late, and her kids were born at the end of June. That was pretty bad too, there are just too many flies in the heat. I milked Tsu for 18 months, and dried her up to be bred this year. She is due to kid in late March. I will never breed for kidding in the cold or heat again, at least not on purpose.

She had two kinder does, Blacker and Browner. They looked so much alike that is how I told them apart until I got different colored collars on them. But part of the year Blacker looked Browner and Browner looked Blacker, they are really twins. Blacker went to live in Texas, where she is doing well. They still call her Blacker. This is the two of them when they were kids.

This is Tsu and Browner today. Browner is also bred to kid in March, they are both due on the same day. I’m not sure this was a great idea, but I came home from breeding Tsu and Browner was in season. I have to be sure to be there when they kid, so I can know for sure whose kid is whose. I don’t think all the kids will look alike, but it’s possible.

This is Piglet, I got her from my vet, she was his last nubian. She came with that name. He got rid of all his nubians in favor of Saanens and Oberhaslis. He has a big herd of dairy goats. She has the sweetest temperament of all my goats, and everyone loves her. In the summer her coat is bright red, and fades with white undercoat in the winter. I have a doe and a buck from her, and I will talk about them tomorrow.

Until tomorrow, have a wonderful day everyone!

Jan

This is my pygmy buck Silver. He has gone to live with the main pygmy goat person in my county, and he got bred to some little does this year, he thinks he is in heaven. I miss him, he is very sweet, but he is in a much better place for him, and I had no further breeding use for him. My best nubian, Tsu, got bred to a different pygmy buck this year. I don’t have a picture of him, but he is quite the little darling. It was exciting to get connected with a pygmy breeder who shows and has lots of bucks. And I was really happy she wanted Silver. I think he is beautiful.

This is a picture of my son and grandson and me last August when they visited. They live in Vermont now. The little doe is Triscuit’s kid Trude. Triscuit had triplets last year. This year she isn’t bred.

So I think I have figured this out, and will post more, with more pictures, later.

Have a great day everyone!

Jan

Hello everyone!

I am Jan Hodges and I am blogging this month about my Kinder goat adventure. I live in central New Mexico, about 30 miles south of Albuquerque.

I discovered kinder goats in the 90s, I moved out of the city to two acres in the country in 1993, and a neighbor had a goat for awhile. I liked her. Goats seemed to me to be by far the most interesting livestock. I was working, though, and it didn’t take much research to figure out that I couldn’t manage an 11 hour workday (including a pretty long commute) and also take decent care of goats. I’m pretty lazy, really.

In 2000 I rescued a great dane, Duke, who had terrible airborne allergies, which started a long hunt for relief for them. I tried shots, but he got tired of that and we couldn’t do it without his cooperation. I tried raw honey, but that requires a huge dose, it was too much sugar, and expensive. I found local milk that wasn’t processed much. There was a dairy that sold it, but they got bought out and that milk disappeared. So the only way to get milk for him was to have my own. But it was still too early. I got milk from my vet, who has a herd of dairy goats, for a few years. Duke’s troubles with allergies completely disappeared for the rest of his life.

I got my two nubian doe kids a year before I retired, but milking them and working was going to be beyond me. I retired (finally, the first day I possibly could), bred one of them to my lovely Silver, and had my first kinders, both were male. I decided I didn’t want the characteristics of the other doe in my kinder herd, and don’t have her anymore.

In the spring of 2007 a friend went with me on a road trip to Missouri, where I got two doe kids from Sue Huston. They are my lovely Madame and Triscuit. I feel like I was very lucky to get them, and it was great to meet Sue.

I’m going to stop now and post this and try to figure out how to post pictures.

Have a wonderful rest of the day!

Jan