Black Bo is our top fiber producing Pygora herd sire

Our 2010 breeding season is finally over. All the breeding bucks have been returned back to the "boys pasture" while the girls have been returned to the "girls pasture". Life on the farm is quiet once again.

Next week we will be busy preparing for kidding season. Yes, it's that time already as it's only 4 months away! I'm currently in the process of putting together our Pygora kids list with info on each dam and sire leaving room for their babies photo and description to be inserted once the kids arrive. My goal is to get our kids list out to our pre-depositors as soon as possible once the majority of the kids are born.

Now is a great time to get on our pre-deposit list for the best selection of Pygora babies. We are expecting between 125-150 kids to be born on the farm this 2011 spring kidding season. Last year we sold out of doelings before our list when public in June. Get on our pre-deposit list now to pick your kids starting in April!

Lisa

Our herd sire, "Boo Boo" is looking good!

Our breeding groups have now been together for just over 3 weeks. We will be keeping them together for another 10 days.

We are using 11 herd sires this year. 2 of the breeding bucks are bucklings that were born last spring. One is named, "Copper Spats" and is a beautiful brown buckling with frosted ears and nose. He is out of our late herd sire, "Spats" . He definitely knew what to do when he was first put with his group of girls.

Our other buckling, "Hot Dog", was a little slow to figure things out so he missed the first cycle of his group of girls. Fortunately he is now showing interest in his girls as they are starting to come into their 2 cycle. It looks like his girls will be the last to kid. This is not uncommon for bucklings to be slow as I found that they mature at different rates. Sometimes bucklings won't come into maturity until late winter.

It looks like the rest of our 9 herd sires have settled most of their girls. I am ready for breeding season to be over so I can take down the breeding pens and send the boys back out to their pasture away from the girls. I'm looking forward to peace and quiet until the babies start arriving in March!

Lisa

Week 2 of breeding season

Our breeding groups have now been together for over 2 weeks. Things are starting to quiet down. I think most of the Does have been bred as I'm not seeing any signs of them showing any interest in their bucks. Of course the Bucks still check to see if there is any interest but with no luck. Hopefully this means that most of our Pygora babies will be arriving within a 2 week time frame. That would mean during Spring Break! Yeah! It should be a very busy time on the ranch!

This week we had a few sunshiny days between rain storms so we took the opportunity to take some updated photos of our bucks. Check back as we post new photos of our handsome boys!

Lisa

Flying Pygora's!

Pygora kids having a blast at their new home with Dawn and Paul Brown of Tailfeathers Farms in Newport, Arkansas.

Photo by Dawn Brown

Our breeding groups are now together as of October 20th. In about 150 days our baby Pygoras should start arriving. We check our groups twice daily and write down any girls that are showing an interest in their buck. We use this information so we can plan when our busy time will be during kidding season. We aim for spring break when the 2 legged children are out of school and would like to come to the farm to help out.

We just finished shearing and hoof trimming our baby doelings. What cute little bodies they have under all that fleece.

Lisa

Preparing for breeding season

Setting up our breeding pens


All our does were hoof trimmed and de-wormed this week as we prepare them for breeding season. We will be putting our does with their carefully selected buck next week. We are now busy putting up panels around each of our 12 breeding pens as added security. We find that if the bucks can't see each other, they are aggressive on our pens and their interest and energy is spent on their girls.

Once our breeding pens are ready, we will be bringing in our does and sorting them into their individual breeding areas. We will then bring the bucks in and they will get de-wormed (they were hoof trimmed earlier before they went into "rut"). Once this is done, the boys with be put in with their girls. They will be together for 4-6 weeks. Spring kids are just around the corner!

Cross country delivery update as of 10/11/10 evening

A barrel cut on one of our old goats will keep her warm this winter and also give us her prime fleece.

George made his last delivery to Maryland yesterday and is now on his way back home to Oregon.  George wanted me to let everyone know how much he enjoyed meeting each of you and he knows that all the animals are going to great homes.  I look forward to getting updates from all of you on how the kids are doing. 

George is staying in Iowa this evening.  He is hoping to make it back home to Oregon on Thursday.  I'm looking forward to having him home as it's been pretty quiet around here without him.  

Thanks to everyone for your passion for Pygora's!

Lisa

Southern delivery update as of 10/9/10 eve

George has made his 3rd Arkansas delivery and all 3 North Carolina deliveries today! He has been spending an average of 14-18 hours on the road each day. George is a person on a mission to get all animals to their new homes safe and sound and quickly too!

I asked George what were the highlights he saw along the way. He said the fields of cotton in Western Missouri was something he had never seen before. He said it looked like a field of snow. He saw the cotton being harvested into huge bundles. He saw a sign for a cotton festival. If he had more time he would have loved to stop and see the festival.

George is bedded down for the night in Clyde, North Carolina and will be heading to Maryland for his last delivery. Maryland is normally on our Northern delivery route but the new owners were unable to take delivery in September so special arrangements were made with George to delivery to them. George is such an accommodating guy!

I'm looking forward to having George back home on the farm. There is so much to do in preparation for breeding season. It's hard to imagine that in only 5 months, we will have newborn baby Pygora's bouncing around the farm.

Thanks to everyone for your passion for Pygora's!

Lisa