Billy Goat Gruff

My daughter is having a problem with her goat herd. This is the story of how you end up with too many goats.

My children have all been members of 4-H. It is a great club for children to keep them busy during the summer months. It starts with picking a project. Hmmmm..... What is the child going to study. Cake decorating, photography, stamp collecting, how about American Sign Language. Noooo. Those would be to easy. Lets pick a project that will really keep them busy - GOATS.

So it starts with one cute, small, long eared, baby that calls out to you "mmmaaaaaa". What could be cuter? So it starts. This baby grows with daily care but is lonely, so you have to get another goat as a companion. As the summer comes to a close your child takes their goat(s) to the County Fair to show off their hard work. This is what seals the deal. The week they are at the fair they and their animal get lots of attention and in their spare time get to run all over the fair grounds while having a free pass to neglect their chores on the farm.

Then comes the 4-H round-up show and the Open fair show. This is the parental conflict. A ribbon or no ribbon. If they don't get a ribbon or trophy you will have tears the rest of the week. If they do get a ribbon, you better add on to the barn. Well lets just say, we have ribbons and trophies.

Now to show the goat as a 2 year old, it has to be in milk. Which requires it to give birth. To give birth you need a "daddy goat" or as we call them a buck. The romance is short and five months later you have more cute adorable baby goats. I forgot to mention earlier in the blog to be careful in choosing your breed of goat. They may look the same, but they do not all procreate the same. Nubian's, which are excellent milkers also can give birth to as many as four kids at one time. So in two years our herd has grown from 3 to 11 goats. But you only need one buck so now we have two extra bucks that have to be kept separate from their sisters. We tried putting them in the same pen with "daddy", but it is getting close to mating season and he considers sonny to be a rival for the ladies attention. So if you are in need of a cute 8 month old ADGA registered billy goat that was bottle fed, write. PLEASE. Daddy billy goat is getting GRUFF.