It's That Time of Year

Time to start making fall breeding plans (for the goats) and spring breeding plans (for the horses). Interestingly enough, I have a solid spring plan before the fall one.. tssk on me!

So for the spring, I have the two lovely ladies lined up for a breeding to an up and coming star. This year (being as it is our first year to have our own foals and not someone else's), I decided to breed for half Andalusians. I am very excited as there are a number of registries that they qualify for including the Andalusian (IALHA) Registry - where they will receive a half bred number. Also, it is my ultimate goal to get into Andalusians and this is my starting point. As this develops more, I am sure I will have lots to discuss.

For the fall breeding plans, I had a solid plan that is not as solid as I assumed. We have a small herd of dairy goats (Saanens) and were planning on having them covered by a gentleman's buck about 20 minutes away. His buck is very nice with good proven lines and would cross with our lines beautifully. I was very excited. The problem is we keep  driving the girls back and forth and they are never in that perfect moment to allow him to breed. They show every sign of being in heat, but some how it's just not right on timing. We are now a solid month past when I wanted to get them bred and many gas miles into this - so we are trying to come up with a back up plan quickly. Our back up plan include using LH to get a more perfect timing of their heat, but this will cost almost as much as buying a decent buck as our vet won't prescribe it without coming out on a farm call or breaking down and buying a buck to cover our girls.  The other option I have was to buy a cheap buck and use him as more of a tease then take the girls over to the registered buck to get the job done...Of course, we are running out of time and I need to get this worked out yesterday. So, here's to getting this worked out!

If anyone has any other suggestions, please let me know! I have a buck rag and I have been watching them for signs of heat (which they are showing) but somehow I am missing the sweet spot where she will let the buck do his job...