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Each year, the end of April marks one of my favorite seasons of the year. It’s not summer, but it’s show season.

The first show of the season is always the Weld County Goat Extravaganza held in Greeley, Colo. This show allows me to show both Boer and dairy goats, connect with other breeders and hopefully bring home a few ribbons.

Usually I head up to the show on either Friday night or Saturday morning. However, this year I was in Alamosa for a very special occasion.

For the past 20 months, I have been involved in a program called the Colorado Agricultural Leadership Program. Through this program I have traveled all across Colorado, to Louisiana, to Washington D.C. and to China.

The weekend of the show was the culmination of the program, and although I love showing goats, I wasn’t going to miss my graduation.

I got back from Alamosa early evening on Saturday, and set to work prepping everything I’d need for the show.

Sunday morning began early at 4 am, and the pounding rain made loading the goats a challenge. The trailer was bedded heavy with straw, but even with that, the kids weren’t happy. I did my best to block the wind and then got on the road.

When I arrived in Greeley, I got through the vet check, and then began the mad scramble to get everyone unloaded and settled in less than a half hour before the show started. The vet check didn’t open until 7 am and the show at 8, so by the time I got through that, I was short on time.

I quickly got everyone unloaded and changed into my show clothes. My first doe to show was Glitter, who is a yearling Alpine milker. After that I headed to show my first Boer of the day, a 0-3 month old percentage doe I call Katniss. She placed third.

Then it was back to the dairy ring, where I showed a three year old LaMancha named Tornado, who won her class. Then I showed a three year old Nubian and a four year old Nigerian Dwarf doe.

The dairy show then took a short break, and at that time I showed a young purebred buck kid. As soon as that show finished, it was back to the dairy ring to show my junior Alpine, LaMancha and Nubian kids.

The show went pretty quick, and even though I wasn’t as happy with the results as I would have liked, it was still good to get out and show. I know that had I been able to prepare the goats better the day before they would have done better, but I had another important responsibility. Such is life I guess.

I had my last spring dairy kids born in the middle of April, and added four more bucklings and a doeling to the total count. The triplets were born on their own, and I was able to catch my final doe, Lilly, give birth to a beautiful set of twin bucklings. All of the kids are doing well.

The does who kidded in February are all weaned, and it’s time for many of the kids to find their new homes. It’s bitter sweet selling kids sometimes, but I know they are going on to other homes to be productive.

I did add one new addition to the herd, and that is a senior Nigerian Dwarf doeling. I traded a Boer doe that I had, and Alkmene will be due in July. I sure hope she has a doe kid in there for me, since I’ve had so many buck kids born this year in the dairy herd.

We have managed to get all the outdoor pens clean, and are in the process of reworking the pig pen. Summer is here, and I’m ready for the nice weather!

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Finally, I am almost done with kidding season. It has spanned since the beginning of February, and I have had babies born nearly every week since that time. There are only two dairy does left to kid, and I can’t wait for those babies to hit the ground and to be done with birthing babies. I love the process, but I’m ready for it to be finished.

To date, I have had 31 live babies born on the farm. It certainly seems like a lot, but at this point is not overwhelming. The dams do a good job raising their young, and I have only had to assist with a few of the births, and only had one buckling that I had to help after birth.

This buckling was a Nubian baby, and after getting home late from work, I found him cold and struggling. The dam had tried to clean him off, but it was pretty cold and he wasn’t very responsive. I hate these situations because you never know what the outcome will be, but I knew I needed to get to work on him immediately.

The first thing that I do in this situation is to get the kid in an area where it can be warm. I took him in the house in my bathroom, and tried to get him dried off. After about 10 minutes, he still was not very responsive, so I put him in my sink, and began to run luke warm water on him, slowly raising the temperature as he adjusted. I did this for about 20 minutes until he stopped shaking, and then took him out and toweled him off and propped him in front of a space heater until he was dry.

I then took him back out to the barn to try to get him to nurse, and he still wasn’t interested. So I loaded him up in my jacket, and sat in my truck with the heater on full blast for the next half hour. He finally fell asleep, and seemed to be much more alert after some heat and sleep. When he started nibbling on my chin, I knew he was ready to try to nurse.

We then went back into the barn, and he was finally able to get milk in his belly. The colostrum they first receive from the dam is vitally important, and that first milk can make a big difference in their attitude. Within a half hour, he was up bouncing around and playing with his brother. He spent the rest of the night in the barn in their heater hut, and is just fine today.

Working with babies like this is always incredibly stressful, but is incredibly rewarding when they finally come around. I know that if I had not intervened he would have died, and it makes me proud to do what I do.

The rest of the births have gone fairly easily, save the final Boer that I had left to kid. She kidded without difficulty, but was not interested in allowing her buck kid to nurse. The day after they were born, my senior Nigerian Dwarf doe Mattie freshened early, and unfortunately all of her kids were dead. I don’t know what caused her to kid early, but I fear she may have been headbutted.

Anyway, I had a doe without kids, and I wanted to make sure to keep her in milk. I took the buckling from the Boer doe, and introduced him to Mattie. At first she was hesitant, but within a day she took him as her own and is now raising him and doing a great job. It seems sometimes things happen for a reason, good or bad, and you have to make the most of the situation you have been given.

I did add a couple of new additions, including a bred Alpine doe. I had a friend who had to sell out of her goats, and this doe was too good to pass up. She gave birth to a single doeling shortly after I brought her home, which was a huge relief. I knew she had a single, and I hoped that it would be a doe. I got my wish.

I also added a set of Boer bucklings that I purchased out of a sale in Louisiana, and they will hopefully be here in the next week or so. They come from colored genetics, so I hope to keep whichever one I like better and use them on my colored does. It will be a fun genetic experiment, because I should get some very colorful kids.

Many of the 4-H market animals have gone to their new homes, and the last remaining few will be going in the next few weeks. I will then be able to start selling the rest of the kids that I do not plan on keeping, and started developing my breeding plan for the next year.

I will also be getting ready to head to the Weld County Goat Extravaganza, which takes place in just two weeks. I will be taking many dairy goats, and a few Boer goats as well. It should be a fun show.