As you may know, we started our goat herd two years ago with the two does Savanah and Rebel. They arrived at the windmill in Autumn 2020, already pregnant, and they gifted us with three new kids in Spring 21. We still have Thea (dopey but adorable) and Archie (sweet and trusting) but since our only male is a wether (meaning we had him castrated), we don’t have a way of increasing our herd here on the farm. So that is where Mr Boombastic comes in!
We talked with our friends Natalia and Senhor Mourais who have a goat herd in the nearest village, and they agreed to lend us a buck (uncastrated male). The buck comes from a herd of dairy goats, and since our girls are from a meat breed, we are hoping that the mix of the two will enable us to make at least some goats cheese. But first things first, we need to get them pregnant! Mr Boombastic (as we've named him - he doesn't actually have a name!) arrived on a Saturday morning, when we had calculated that the girls were on heat, and the first thing we noticed about him was his stench! God almighty, male goats really stink. It smells like a mix of urine, old cheese and sewage. But thankfully, the girls seem to like it!
Quite quickly the older females, Savanah and Rebel, were wagging their tails at him, and letting him put his face into their streaming urine. How romantic! Archie, who smells as sweet as roses in comparison to the buck, was very perturbed to have this new arrival on his patch, and although we had separated him into another enclosure, he escaped and did his best to get in the way of all the flirting. There was some barging, rearing and butting, but luckily Mr Boombastic seems focused on the business in hand. We won’t go into the details of the breeding itself, but without doubt, Mr Boombastic seems to be doing a good job. He will stay with us for about a week and then we need to try and catch him, and get him back to Natalia and Senhor Mourais. We will only really know if the breeding is successful in a few weeks time, but with all the effort he is putting in I can’t help but think of little Boombastics arriving next spring. We will keep you posted!