As is pretty typical of the planning here at Circle M, we’ve had to re-think our breeding schematics and move some of the animals today, so quickly after we’d gotten them all squared away in their love shacks! Several actually moved themselves, to tell the complete truth.

That darn Pepe, a Nigerian Dwarf buck and one of the smallest animals on the farm, is once again the biggest problem. I had him penned with Gabby, a Nigerian Dwarf doe, in the most secure corral we’ve got, under the calving barn in the front yard. Here, the stocky little couple was encircled by the old stone foundation on one side, and our newest set of fences on the other three. Unfortunately, the corral has a gate. Doubly unfortunate was my placement of more breeding goats on the other side of that gate.

Overnight, Pepe and Congo, the Alpine buck on the other side, either became interested in each other or in each other’s does and between the two of them headbutted the gate to a swinging, dragging, open-ended mess of metal. Gabby promptly exited the corral, entered the pasture the full-size goats were in, and climbed under another gate to forage around in the yard. Pepe spent the day chasing around Cream, the dairy doe Congo was intended for, until he decided to jump the mostly decrepit fence and look for Gabby.

We’d already put Gabby in the very secure back garden, abandoning our hopes to have purebred heritage Nigerian Dwarf babies in the spring, and leaving her at the mercy of Oreo, the Angora buck already installed there. Those babies would be cute, too. After butting off two separate gates, eating the bark off several new willows and mangling a new stretch of woven wire fencing with his stubby horns, Pepe is now tethered under a wild juniper next to the house. He stinks terribly, as all virile bucks do, and has a bloody head from all of his run-ins with Congo and the gates. He’s eaten one side of the tree bare of bark, as high as he is able. Barring a wonderful solution delivered by God in a dream tonight to Shannon or I, he will probably become a dog roast in the morning. A real defeat for us. Pepe has been with us for three years and provided a lot of entertainment and a few adorable offspring, but he is a problem we just can’t solve. The other option is to tether him permanently. Culling actually seems more humane.

In the meantime, the various neutered goats sharing the front garden with the breeding pairs installed there were being bullied mercilessly by Petey, a very adorable soft-fleeced ram I’d matched with Lena, a sweet black ewe. For their sake, I took Petey out of there and threw him in with Lily in the back garden. In the process, Steeplechase, the ram I initially had with her, got out. He’s still out – pouting just outside their fence when I’m looking from inside the house, then prancing and leaping across the yard whenever I come near to try and lure him back in.

I’m not going to have any idea who the dads of the babies are come spring.