"May You Live In Interesting Times"

That salutation seems to have been directed at Lowery Hilltop Farms. It has been a VERY interesting year. This is a tale of kidding stalls, a nursery room, day care, a teenager playground, segregation, an isolation pen, and pens for three breeding bucks. Thank goodness for movable stock panels and baling wire and bunji straps--

We and our nearest neighbor both used wire mesh fence. When he lost some sheep to predators we almost panicked. A few phone calls resulted in the purchase of a truckload of 4-gauge stock panels to build a 3-acre goat pen. $1000 seemed a lot of money to protect $200 worth of goats but we wanted to be sure they were safe.

A major flaw in our fencing was discovered during the first kidding season. Kids could crawl right through the spaces in the stock panels and the smaller adults kept getting their heads stuck trying to reach that perfect grape leaf or blade of grass in the next pasture. 2"x4" wire mesh, four feet high, attached to the stock panels seemed to be the best solution, so...
buy and put up more fence.

Segregation in the '90s

When the caprine population shifted from $50 Spanish nannies to $2500 Boer does we were amazed at how tame and docile this new breed was. We wondered if these new "tame" goats could compete safely with our "wild" goats. After much discussion about the budget and the amount of labor involved we decided to divide the area in half, segregating the two groups, so...
buy and put up more fence.

The Royal Suite

Then came DOC. Paying for the services of a top-quality buck was cost-prohibitive after investing so much in fence and those high- dollar breeding nannies. We wanted to raise the best quality breeding stock so we bought the best buck we could find - the 1996 National Grand Champion Boer buck. Such royalty deserves it's own place in the barn, a new concrete floor, and a separate pasture area, so...
buy and put up more fence.

The Maternity Ward.

The Spanish nannies had delivered their kids in the open barn or in the 3-acre pen but those fancy Boers would probably need special facilities. We read about dairy people that had dedicated kidding stalls for their prized milkers, so...
buy and put up more fence.

Kindergarten.

Our experience with a previous crop of Nubian/Spanish-cross kids had led us to believe that our only responsibility was to watch the kids be born, watch the kids play, sell the kids as meat, and re- breed the nannies. Then it hit us: We were now operating a Boer breeding operation and had to start treating each kid as potential breeding stock. The existing pens were fine for adult goats but were too big. Those frisky kids didn't want their weight checked, their C&D/Tetanus shots, or to have tattoos applied. But by now we had a solution for any containment problem...
buy and put up more fence.

The Cafeteria.

We read that kids confined to pens need to have free-choice grain in addition to milk from their dams. It was also noted that their dams would over-eat if they got into the kids' feed and the kids would get short-changed. The recommended solution was to have a feeding area in the pen where the dams couldn't go but the kids could, so...
buy and put up more fence.

Isolation Pens.

This was turning out to be such fun that we decided to buy more Boer does so Doc could make more kids. Common sense dictated that the new arrivals should be isolated from the existing herd and observed for two weeks to insure that no new diseases are introduced, so...
buy and put up more fence.

The Gender Gap.

Then came buck kids that just wouldn't leave their siblings alone. Those little critters sure matured earlier than we were used to. We didn't want un-planned brother-sister matings nor did we want doe kids pregnant before they were weaned. The buck kids had to be separated from their dams and sisters so...
buy and put up more fence.

The Playground.

Weaning time brought it's own set of thrills -- We had been selling our Spanish/Nubian kids when they were 3 months old so weaning had never been a problem. Now we were keeping the Boer kids to an older age and soon discovered that it's a little hard to wean kids if they are left in pens with their dams. The little critters had to have their own pen, so...
buy and put up more fence.

Day Care.

The next kid crop came three months later. NOW we could enjoy the kids without having to buy and put up more fence. Oops! You shouldn't mix 3-month-old just-weaned kids with 6-month-old "teenagers" -- the new arrivals didn't have the resources to be competitive at the feed trough, so...
buy and put up more fence.

The Bachelor Rooms.

We weren't ready to try line breeding so we needed two more bucks. They lived in the same pen all summer and once they settled on who was boss they even seemed to like each other. But summer is a light breeding season so they had no reason to kill each other. When the does started cycling we had to...
buy and put up more fence.

The Show String.

DOC sired some very good kids last spring and we decided to enter some of them in livestock shows. That requires frequent grooming and just the right amount of feed. They would have to live separate from the others most of the time. Thinking about their Grand and Reserve Champion trophies and all the ribbons they have won this year takes away the pain of having to
buy and put up more fence.

Ok, fine. So now we have 3 thousand dollars worth of fence on 3 acres. Sure wish we had thought of electric fence earlier.

It's been a VERY interesting year!