farmdoc's blog post number 48

It’s that time of the year. Our billy goat is pissing on his beard. I don’t need to look at him to know he is; I smell him from the Home Paddock gate. How clever of him. But why does he do it? To make himself more attractive to the nanny goats, of course. Today Sharon and I are granting him his wish, and moving him to a paddock where about 30 girlfriends eagerly await him. He should have no trouble looking after them, especially because his mating paddock is one of our smaller ones, to reduce the chance of him tiring himself out chasing his conquests to be. Today we’re also putting our ram in with our ewes. He doesn’t have a beard to piss on. He’s a placid big chap and, unlike the billy’s, his demeanour hasn’t changed at all lately. The gestation period is 145 days for sheep and 150 days for goats, so we’ll be looking out for lambs from 30 October and kids from 4 November. Go to it, boys and girls. At least the air in the Home Paddock will be sweeter with the billy gone. Incidentally, for the last couple of weeks he has been more aggressive towards me. Maybe he thinks I’m his rival. I don’t know. But I’ll tell you one thing: I envy him his aim.