Mostly Awkward: The 48 Hour Buck

Amazing

• This weekend Donna of Edelweiss Acres brought us two goats. We have been planning this drop off for a month around work schedules. Jesse, is a pregnant Nubian-Oberhalsi doe. (In case you forgot why we want all these goats, check out, I promise we're not hoarding goats.) We're very excited to welcome Jesse to our permanent Farmstead flock. The second goat, Dante, is a purebred Oberhalsi buck. He was supposed to come stay for a month to breed Nana and Sugaree. Because we both work full time jobs this just seemed easier than having to catch their heat cycles just so. Of course, as rotten luck would have it, both girls came out of heat a few days ago. If we put them together now he would run them around to no avail. Poor Dante was on a kind of glass wall, prison-style quarantine. The others could come visit, but no contact.

A few words about Dante. HE IS ALL MALE. So majestic. So strong. So...horny. (And I don't mean the ones on his head).

Awkward

• Do you know how bucks make themselves attractive to the opposite sex? To put it simply, they pee on their faces and beards during breeding season. It's called being "in rut". Their big beautiful beards get covered in the essence of pee and who knows what else (okay, okay, I know, I'm just not going to say it). Dante comes with a definite odor...it's not necessarily bad, it's just new...okay, it may be a little bad.

• On his first morning here, Dante managed to bust through the incredibly sturdy walls of our shelter in a very "Heeeere's Johnny" ala The Shining moment. This led to a frantic scramble on my part to screw the boards back on (what could be salvaged) before rigging a brace across the sides to keep him in. I then ran a string of hotwire inside to let him know walls were for looking, not touching. Dante was thrilled to have company so he spent the moment whispering sweet nothings in my ear while his beard smooshed against my face. Did you read the first bullet? Yeah, that same beard.

• This evening while out with the handsome man on our nightly walk we stopped to say hello to ol' stink face. And then we noticed it. Our shelter was most precariously leaning to one side. And my hotwire solution, yeah, he made easy work of dismantling that. Very quickly we made the decision. Dante had to go home. Our shelter would be beyond easy repair in the morning. And so, just 48 hours after coming to our farm, Dante took the walk of shame (well not really, he rode in the back of the truck with Mr. Nick, usually we put them in the actual cab but, as I mentioned before...the smell).

Of course, we'll see him again...just not like this. Lesson learned: People who keep bucks should be given medals.