LBGs!

Little Baby Goats - or "LBGs" as coined by our sweet friend - are selected and will be arriving on site in late June and early July!!! I cannot wait.

LBG shopping is all about Googling and Googling and Googling, contacting farms and meeting new people via e-mail, pouring over hundreds of photos of beautiful goats and their humongous udders, checking out the stud-ly bucks, trying to balance flash with quality, attempting to keep the driving distance under a six hours, trying to avoid $500 doelings without feeling cheap, coordinating the timing with my summer vacation, and finally MAKING FINAL DECISIONS. After you think you have a plan and reservation then the momma goat has only bucklings. Back to square one.

I will not lie: I love every single second of LBG shopping. Literally I will close my eyes at night and see goats and kids and udders (the udders I find to be a little disturbing - they look painfully large - but I guess I need to grow up and put my farmer shoes on). It's a commitment if you want to do it right, and even then it's a crapshoot. Then there's the waiting: waiting to hear back from the busy breeder, waiting for them to send photos, waiting for website updates, waiting for the kidding itself, w  a  i  t   i  n  g    for the baby to be    w  e  a  n  e  d  ...   ... ........

I found two amazing doelings! Two gorgeous doelings are currently busy "growing up" so they can leave their mommas and join our farm this summer. WeberWood Acres Annabelle and RebelWood GJ Butternut are from great lines of high quality milk producers, and they will become our "foundation" does. 'A beautiful tricolored stunner, and an adorable gold and white sweetheart. I am still partially looking for a black and white doeling with blue eyes - Jim doesn't know that yet but I'm sure he will be okay with it :) If one happens along then great, but I am not combing the countryside for her.

So it is official: I am going to go from "I have pet goats" to "I breed goats". Of course that means I will have many more hooves to trim, so I invested in a milking stand. Jim is not a carpenter, so I shopped around and found a very well-made and reasonable at Fire Fly Farms Woodworking.

**5.14.14 Update: We will now be adding a third (and final - I swear, Jim!) doeling this summer: black and white, blue-eyed beauty RebelWood GJ Desert Bramble!! **

photo of milk stand from the Fire Fly Farm site