It’s that time of year again, the temp has dropped and the bucks are blubbering messes showered in their own urine. Time to break out my puffy coat - it’s breeding season!
In order to make Straw In My Bra Soap, I need lots of goat milk and the only way to get goat milk is.... goat babies! And the only way you get goat babies is.... bow chicka bow wow.
As easy as it would be to just let the goats all run together and have a free for all, my goats are registered with the American Dairy Goat Association and I have to know who the sire is with each pregnancy. So in order to avoid a Maury Povich situation, I have the boys and girls separated. (Side note: you can have DNA testing done to determine parentage and, if I ever have to do so, I will take the results out to the barn and announce them Maury Povich style “The test results are in, and you are NOT the father.”)
Having a separate pen for the bucks and does makes sense - I not only know who the father is, but I can breed certain goats to each other to improve upon the genetics of each parent. And as a bonus, I don’t end up with a bunch of inbred goats. So I end up marching goats back and forth from one pen to the other, letting them have arranged “dates.”
Watching the boys woo the ladies is quite entertaining. First of all, they are a sticky, stinky mess. When in rut, the boys pee all over their faces to attract a mate (seems logical). When a female is near, they curl their lip like Elvis and then start blubbering, snorting and (my personal favorite) blowing raspberries. Unable to turn down such a display of masculine energy, the doe in turn wags her tail and accepts the buck’s urine scented offer of courtship.
After the “date” I distract the boy with a handful of animal crackers and steal his girlfriend away, back to the doe pen. So, if you see me walking around in my puffy orange jacket this time of year, just know I’m busy making a “love connection” between a couple goats. Essentially I’m the Chuck Woolery meets Snoop Dogg of the goat world.