Cuzco's Glamour Shot o' the Day

[Nanno]

Yeah, I'm planning to breed this year to the new buck we just bought so long as his CAE test comes back negative. I was originally going to leave the girls dry since they were such late babies, but they grew a LOT more than I anticipated. Petunia is already almost as big as Lilly, and while Nubbin is slightly shorter, I think she might weigh more. They're a couple of little monsters and my friends are jealous! They're much bigger than Lilly and Nibbles were last year when I got them bred, and I think they're easily pushing 100 lbs even though they're still not quite seven months old. They're quite a bit bigger than the buckling I just bought! He's two months older and may be slightly taller, but when it comes to sheer bulk, my doelings probably weigh half again what he does. I was just able to lift Pac-Man into the truck today, but I haven't been able to lift Nubbin or Petunia since October. My girls don't look fat and Pac-Man doesn't look thin, but there's a huge difference in bone and muscle. I think Pac-Man will catch up in a few months once he's wethered. He's been loaned out as a breeding buck since fall, so I think his growth fell behind while he was "working out."

Since Lilly is bred and both the younger girls went out of heat about two days ago, I let Pac-Man mingle with the other goats for a few hours today while I worked on he and Cuzco's new enclosure. Hopefully they'll make good roommates for a a month or so until Pac-Man is wethered and safe around the ladies. I don't want him breeding any of my does unsupervised since I want to keep track of kidding dates. But today I knew they were safe, so I let everyone play under supervision. Pac-Man, of course, knows he's the stud, and the first thing he did after knocking Daisy off her feet was to engage Cuzco in a full frontal assault. It wasn't a very well-thought-out plan, and Cuzco quickly flattened Pac-Man and smeared him across the driveway. He tried a couple more times with the same result, and decided he'd better quit before the ladies noticed the embarrassing display. None of them wanted anything to do with the stinky little menace, and since all of them are bigger than him, he ended up sulking in a corner by himself while everyone else puttered around the yard. He tried going after the dog again while she ate her breakfast, but this time she snapped at him (first time I've seen Daisy be aggressive with a goat) and he had to back off. After sulking by himself for a while longer, he readjusted his attitude and happily resigned himself to bottom of the pecking order so he could browse contentedly with the rest of the goats. They accepted him very readily once he stopped picking fights and chasing skirts.