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Sunday, 28th September 2014
It has been another very exciting day for Marmite as today both Nutmeg (on the left) AND Sage (on the right) were in season! Sage is five years old and has kidded before but Nutmeg is only 19 months old and so if she becomes pregnant, she will kid for the first time this spring. Not that Nutmeg was at all shy about being such a youngster and in fact she was more than happy for Marmite to pay her lots of attention - which he did!! Male goats can be quite romantic in their own way and they don't always just simply mate with their females and then walk away. They smell them and nuzzle them although the accompanying noises they make are perhaps not that 'romantic' sounding to us humans!!! (We won't go into details...)
We are however a little concerned as there was perhaps a bit too much of the sniffing and nuzzling going on and we did not see an awful lot of the actual mating!!! (Again, we won't go into details!!). Marmite is young and it may be that having three females in season in just two days is a little overwhelming for him but time will tell... As you know, we were keen to have a young billy as with only six females to be mated with, we felt an older billy might get a little bored! The problem with a younger billy such as Marmite of course, is his lack of experience!!
The good news is that we are at the very start of the breeding season and so we do have time (hopefully) for Marmite to have another 'go' if any of the females don't become pregnant this time. Goats come into season every 18-21 days and so we now have the 15th and 16th of October in our diaries to check Thyme, Nutmeg and Sage. (There is a lot of maths in smallholding isn't there?) If the three females show no signs of being in season around those dates, it may well mean they ARE pregnant.
A goat in season can be quite obvious, there are three signs: LOTS of noisy bleating, LOTS of tail wagging and a swollen back end. In most goats their seasons are hard to miss!!!
Running a smallholding is very exciting although it can be very worrying at the same time but above all else, an awful lot of patience is needed...
