Meet the noble new patriarch of our goat family. His name is Oreo, for reasons his picture makes clear.
Though we recently bought a buckling, Rocky, he won't be ready to breed the does for several months. Since Caroline and Tam aren't producing much milk right now, we were anxious to have them bred sooner than that. We'd love to have Caroline, Tam, and Edel all producing milk in the near future. Even when Caroline and Tam were at full production we easily went through the milk they produced.
Rosemary had been following Oreo's posting for awhile, but he was out of our price range. Happily for us, there is a bit of a glut in the billy goat market right now, and the offering price went down dramatically. He has great blood lines and a solid record of throwing healthy kids, so we decided to make the investment. Considering the normal stud fee, we will easily recoup what we paid for Oreo in short order. In the end, we'll sell him and, God willing, with the money saved on stud fees, with the money he earns us in stud fees, and with his selling price, he'll earn us a tidy profit.
Since Cletus was a little under the weather, I went with Cyprian to pick up Oreo at a place near Wilson--Nigerian Meadows Farm. (Oreo was co-owned by Nigerian Meadows and StarrLight Farms.) Nigerian Meadows certainly has a nice set-up, and the lady who runs it has been a great help to Rosemary in terms of advice thus far. The transfer made, I packed our new sire into the crate, and Cyprian and I brought him back to Kleinshire.
Needless to say, he was a happy guy upon arrival and began peeing on himself and slobbering, which is apparently proper male etiquette for gentlemen goats in the company of the lady-folk.
Oreo and Tam... Love at first sight?
No, it wasn't to be. So Oreo moved on and asked Caroline out for dinner and a movie instead.
Caroline didn't seem too excited about Oreo either, as you can see from her deflection of his advances in the picture below. But I think we'll close the curtains and let goats be goats. I'm confident it'll all work out in the end. That's all, folks!
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