Two new faces on the farm today.
Ever since I made the decision to sell Epic, the question has been who will take his place. My general practice over the years has been to keep two bucks simultaneously as herd sires. It gives me the option when it comes to choosing which doe would be best paired with which buck. And it also ensures that there is no inbreeding, since each year I end up keeping two or three kids who eventually need to be matched with an unrelated fella.
As happy as Petra might have been to handle all the women in the harem, I prefer not to breed daughters back to daddy. A definite no-no. And so, getting a new buck was priority number one.
To that end, I contacted Heritage Song, a highly respected Nubian farm out in north central Kansas. They have amazing animals and have earned numerous awards from the American Dairy Goat Association, besides multiple championship titles on lots of their goats.
I chose a doe from their listing, contacted the farm to reserve a buck kid from her, and then sat back and waited to see what kind of kids she would have. We had a few weeks to wait. And when the great day came, her kids were all girls!
I ended up with a buck kid out of another doe named Purple Passion.
She had originally been my first choice, but for a couple of reasons I went with the other instead. When that doe had no bucklings available, I ended up getting one out of Passion instead, so it all worked out.
He is a big, strapping boy, described in the words of the breeder as being "stunning."
In keeping with the wine and liquor naming theme of this year, I have christened him "Cognac." It sounds like an appropriate name for a hefty, handsome, fiery buck.
The twist in the story is that the doe who had only girls has also come home with me. Heritage Song decided to go ahead and sell her, since they had lots of doelings born this spring and chose to keep some of them.
Even more exciting is that she is originally a doe from the Blissberry herd, a stellar Nubian farm up in Minnesota. Heritage Song had purchased her as a kid from Blissberry last spring, raised her, bred her, and now sold her to me as a super-quality milker. She has incredible genetics with champions and grand champions and milk stars all over the place.
And now she is in my barn. She has a crazy registered name that I can't change, but just for purposes around the farm, her call name will be Sherry.
I'm not a drinker, and I couldn't begin to tell you how sherry and cognac mix in the glass. Probably not well. But in this case, I think it'll be an awesome combination. These are the best-quality goats that I've ever owned. It's a lot of responsibility, and it's a definite honor. And I'm looking forward to all of it.
