Wren Farm Cupcake X North Forest Farm MX Shamrock for 2013

I just bred Cupcake to Shamrock today, so should see my first 2013 kids on the ground around March 1.  This is pretty exciting!  I didn't think I'd be as excited this year as I was last year, but I am. :)

Cupcake is the White doe

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The strengths of this breeding:  Combining the beautiful dairy looks of Cupcake to the strength of feet and legs in Shamrock's line should build on the strengths of each.  I hope to keep Cupcake's ultra soft and milkable udder in this breeding, and gain width and capacity.  I'm really looking forward to seeing the doeling(s) produced by this breeding, provided there are any.

NewPics; The Boys

Shamrock

Shamrock and Aspen

New Pics; the Girls

Starlight's daughters, Ginger and Lil' Bet.  Japanzy reaches for some choice browse in the background.

Japanzy and Cupcake

Lil' Bet (Bouncing Bet)

Starlight looking beautiful in the sun.

Yummy tree bark.

Starlight and daughters, Lil' Bet and Ginger

A Few New Pictures

UPDATE:  Ginger is still adorable, but no longer for sale.  We've had her too long now, and we're smitten!  She'll be staying. 
This little darling is North Forest Farm Wild Ginger.  She's for sale!  You can see more pics of her on the "for sale" page.  She's just an amazing little darling.  We all love her, and it's been a tough decision to sell her.  However, there's only so much space, money and time to keep these little goats in.  I've decided that I can only keep one doeling this year.

Molly with some of our spoiled babies.  Pictured are on the left, the doeling I've decided to keep, Bouncing Bet (or Lil' Bet, as I call her), In her lap is Shamrock, our new herd sire, and the others are Macintosh and Maple, who have been reserved with a sale pending.

Here are all our new babies except one.  It appears Aspen was off on an explore. :)

Blue Eye Mystery Solved

We finally got to the bottom of the mystery of where all the blue eyed kids came from!  I was beginning to fear that we had a fence jumping buck when we ended up with blue eyed kids from all our does.  One parent must have blue eyes for the kids to end up with them.  I found out last week that BOTH the bucks we used (Maxwell and Trevor) have blue eyes.  I had thought that only one of them did.  We ended up with 5 out of 6 kids this year having blue eyes.  It looks like we'll have a lot of blue eyed kids in our future!  I certainly wasn't breeding for blue eyes.  I want good milk, and as much of it as possible.  Blue eyed goats do seem to be pretty popular with people, though, and it looks like I'll be able to accommodate folks in the future.  Both the bucks I'm going to keep have blue eyes, as do the doelings I'm keeping.  Now that the exhaustion of kidding season is over, I'm already curious about what we'll have next year.  This is addicting!

Shere Country SH Starlight X Gerle Ranch Trevor

We had our last kids for 2012 on May 2, 2012 at 6:30 P.M.  Though I'd tried very hard to be there Starlight waited until we were eating supper to go into labor.  By the time my 7 year old checked on her, she already had all three kids on the ground!  She'd cleaned off their faces already, but they were each still partially in the sacks.  I was concerned about the tiny doeling, but she's proving to be strong, and Starlight is taking very good care of all three of her babies so far.

doeling: 1 3/4 lbs. pale gold
buckling: 2 3/4 lbs. chamois with white belt
doeling: 3 lbs. chocolate chamoise with white poll

Wren Farm Cupcake X Gerle Ranch Trevor, Twin Buckling and Doeling

Cupcake had twins, a buckling and a doeling, on 4-26-12 The doeling is white with medium gold spots, and the buck is a solid light gold. Dispite Cupcake not being the most attentive mother, her twins seem to be doing pretty well. I've had to bottle feed the twins and milk mom a few times because she's not consistently caring for them, but I think she's doing better now. The little twins are adorable! I just want to keep them all, but I think either the buckling or both buckling and doeling will be for sale, depending on what Starlight kids with.