Two years ago we had a beautiful buck kid born and contrary to our usual practice of banding every buck not pre ordered, we were so taken with him that we raised him with our doelings hoping that someone would want to buy him.  It was not to be and after holding on to him until he was almost 3 months old we decided to give him to a local breeder who was establishing her own herd. Last summer I received an e-mail stating that she was selling out of goats at this time and offering to return this buck to us since he had been a gift. I can't tell you how thrilled we were to immediately take her up on her offer. You see Reuel Zephyr's RY Sirocco is out of a JJ daughter bred to a JJ son.

Later in  the spring of 2007 we lost our beautiful, productive and loving doe, SGCH Reuel Zina's JJ Zephyr, to an apparent heart attack. Zephyr kidded normally with two very large and nice buck kids. She did great and was milking a bit over a month when she died. She came into the milk room, jumped on her usual stand and set to gobbling her grain. She was washed and stood quietly while waiting her turn to be milked.  As I transferred the inflations to her she lifted her head, quietly maaed, and dropped dead. We tried CPR to no avail and she made no attempt to breathe nor did she struggle. Needless to say we were devastated and it was difficult to return to the barn for chores for the next several weeks. Having Sirocco back is a double blessing to us as he is one of only two surviving Zephyr sons. Well, we were glad to say good bye to 2007 and hello to 2008.

This past year, 2008, was a much better year for us in terms of the type of unforeseen events that complicated last year. We were quite happy to see our new kids arrive and thrive and were very happy to have had the opportunity to sell some very nice kids and does to some very nice people. Our thanks go out to every one who purchased animals from us in 2008 and we wish you all great things.  Our breeding season is well under way here for this year (2009 kids) and we are anticipating another wonderful kid crop.  The does are fit and trim and the boys are eager to have their way with them.  At this point we have about 10 more does left to breed and are crossing our fingers that those who have been AI'd will bless us with some does this spring and that their AI's have "stuck". We will have ultrasounds done early this winter to check on their progress and to catch anyone who isn't settled yet. 

As you can see from the pictures below, we added another life long friend to the family. Trampus was rescued from a roadside ditch and found his way to us through a friend in our DHIR test group. (Thanks Mishael!) He was  about 4 weeks old when he came to us August 4. The tiny pup weighed in at 6.9 pounds. After lapping up goats milk with his Kibble for just over 3 months he now tips the scale at nearly 50 pounds (November 2008) and is full of energy and wiggles as a happy healthy and very smart puppy.  Our old Rott, Rosa, wasn't sure about the kid at first but has shown great tolerance and they are firm buddies now. She is busy teaching him the ropes. He has grown up in the milkroom helping me milk morning and night so the goats are well used to him and he to them. He takes his job seriously already and is quickly learning his chores. He is all Rottweiler in his brains, temperament and size but not having his tail cropped as a puppy keeps folks guessing when they see him. He is keeping us busy and charming all our visitors.

Please check out our doe and kid pages for the breedings and projected due dates and reserve your kids early for the best chance of getting your first choice then join us in chanting "Does, Does, Does, Does", as we await the new arrivals.  Apparently not enough of us were chanting last year as we had a 66% buck year.