We are finally finished with kidding for the year!
As we chose to start small, we only had 3 adult does to breed this year. We put them all in with EZK Pay to Play on Nov 1, 2021 and two of them kidded, as expected, in the first week of April. EZK Bat Chick, however, held out until May 14, 22.
That means that she needed 6 weeks with the buck to get pregnant! Good thing we left them together that long.
TGP Jolene
Jolene went first, on April 5, giving us Triplets!
- TRG Titan Maestro, a white buck that weighed in at 6 lbs. By 30 days he was us to 19.6 pounds.
- TRG Titan Moneymaker, a 5 lb buckling with light brown markings. His thirty day weight was 18 lbs.
- TRG Mooshoo, a cute white doeling at 4.8 lbs. Her 30 day weight was 14.8 pounds.
TGP Juniper
Juniper gave us a beautiful big doeling. TGR Mocha weighed a whopping 7.8 lbs and by thirty days she was up to 19.2 lbs. Mocha is a creamy chocolate colour, hence her name.
EZK Bat Chick
Now, finally, Bat Chick has released her twin bucklings. They were each 8 lbs at birth. We will have to wait to see their 30 day weights.
- TRG Titan Magnus is brown, and looks like he will become tri-coloured like his dad.
- TRG Titan Lightning is all black except for a white lightning bolt marking on his Left flank.
We managed to get Bat Chick’s boys tattood and tagged without getting green ink all over them. We didn’t fare so well the first time we applied goat tattoos!
Now What
Now that we have finally finished kidding, what do we do with the kids? We have a total of 6 kids – two girls and 4 boys.
The two girls will be kept, to add to our herd. Two years from now, they should be having their own kids.
The kids from Jolene and Juniper will be registered as New Zealand Kikos. Because Bat Chick is not from Pure New Zealand lines, her bucklings will be registered as Purebred Kikos – Not New Zealand.
If the boys develop as well as we expect, they will be sold to be herd sires for other farms. Lots of people are discovering how great Kiko goats are. Even dairy goat farms are finding benefits with breeding a Kiko buck to their milk goats. The resulting kiko/dairy cross kids are more resistant to parasites, have good feet, and make great moms.
Next year, Lily and Luna will be old enough to breed, so we should have five pregnant goats, and 10 kids or more! Lily and Luna are the doelings from Jolene and Juniper last year.
