Goat Sale Day

Friday we walked a mile rounding up all the goats to have near the barn for Saturday morning. 

Saturday morning they were out of the lot and getting ready to wander off again.  

Luckily, they were not any more trouble to corral.

We started off with them in the large room of the barn, letting out the nannies we were keeping.

Maggie was trying to keep an eye on things, but the dogs were soon banished to the outside for being in the way. 

After the group got smaller, we headed them into the chute and small pen.  From there we could pick out the doelings that we were keeping.  Once all the nannies and doelings were selected and turned out, we had to catch each one we were selling and ear tag them.  There is a USDA scrapie eradication program that requires sheep and goats to be tagged when arriving at the market.  The market can tag them but they charge $1 per head.  I already have the tags and tagger, so we just did it ourselves and saved $69. 

The herd looks really good now without the old or thin or limping nannies. 

Then, the sale barn live streamed the sale on Facebook.  This is a screen shot of 45 kids averaging 53 pound each.  I think they looked pretty good.  In all, we sold 51 kids and 18 cull nannies.  That left us with   68 to expose to the two billies.  April 18 is the estimated kidding date.  I just hope things go better than this year (referring to all the deformities and still births).  Oh, and we were happy with the price, 15 cents per pound more than last year.  At last, inflation (albeit minor) on something we are selling and not buying.