Attended several sales this past weekend. If you are in Oklahoma and wanting to spend $1,000 or less on a wether, don’t even bother going south of the Red River. High, high, high. Saw a few pieces at Bob Allen’s sale on Friday night, but the decent one brought 2-3000 and the good ones more. Gallagher’s had a real nice set of wethers on Saturday morning. Don’t know what the average was, but over $3,000 with one bringing almost 13. Really good sale with a good crowd.

Then we made it into the Bleedin’ Purple sale. The cajuns prepared jambalaya that was way good. I had several bowls. These goats were well prepped and ready to sell. Big crowd and lots of hype. And lots of dollars changing hands. Mock sold a way cool wether for 20k and several more for a pile. Fleming and Halfman were trading their wethers for some dollars as well.

The buck sale of Helms kicks off today. There will be some dollars changing hands by Tuesday night when it closes. Lots of rumours about this set of buck kids. I’ve seen them and he was easily 10 deep in way good buck kids. These will probably be the best buck prospects offered all year. That 539x is a bad dude. He is wicked good. 2109 is a good one–super complete. 495x has the kind of rib, loin and hip that changes a herd immediately. I don’t need a buck, but these goats will make you think about spending a pile of money.

Showing animals is a unique endeavor. Kids are involved. It revolves around family. Some would argue and say it revolves around money, but I disagree. The money aspect is there, front and center; but it is about the kids and family. Some will spend more money to try to get a good one for their kids. Do I want to make money at this? You bet. But that is not why we do it.

We like helping kids and other families. Look at the mob of people that are around our pens at shows. It is parents and kids hanging out together, working together, getting large groups seated at restaurants together and hopefully, winning together. Our kids are friends and competitors. We have workouts at the house. I could find other things to do on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. But it helps the kids get better and the parents learn. It would also be way easier to just gather goats for Duke. That wouldn’t take me very long. But I like going, seeing and helping.

I have two rules regarding showing livestock 1–If you can’t help a kid, then why do it. 2–If I can’t have fun while doing it, I’m out.

Which explains why I have traded/bartered/negotiated for cherry pies, chocolate chip cookies, tamales, salsa, etc. It isn’t always about money.

Lots of people are barn blind on their buck kids this year. They sit at home and look at their goats and the goats seem to get better the longer they think about it. The good bucks bring a pile of money. The common ones are hard to get rid of. Seems like everybody is leaving the nuts in a lot of prospects. This is a trend that isn’t necessarily good. I’ve looked at wether prospects at numerous farms that I’ve offered $1,000 for to show as a wether. Nice goats, not great ones. Nope, we’re going to leave the nuts in him. Amazing. If it isn’t out of a proven doe and the goat won’t bring several thousand as a wether, he’s probably not good enough to be a buck. You have to cut a lot of those so called buck prospects if you want to be successful in the wether show ring.

The matings for a buck should be planned. A buck needs to come from proven genetics.

Several of the people that I help have wanted to leave the nuts in prospects. Would you use him? Would he help you build your herd? If no, then cut him. I’ve had several come to the house to show them what a buck prospect should look like. And I show them wethers that I have banded. I banded a pair that would bring a pile as bucks. Out of a proven mating. I want them shown. There is enough bucks in the world already. They realize quickly that they have no business leaving the nuts in their prospect. It is easy to get barn blind. But then, you step out into the bright light and you realize maybe he’s just a really nice goat.

Another sale complete. This one was interesting as the goats were not at my house for a change. Everybody waits until the last hour before these things close to start bidding. About 3 pm yesterday, I got a text saying “Does anybody know about this sale?” By 9 pm last night, that person had changed their tune. I wasn’t worried. My phone had rang constantly from the time the pics went up until about 8:45 pm last night. Thanks to all the buyers and bidders.

Now that this one is over, I have to decide what to do with the next set. There are 10 goats in this mid April set. 1 buck prospect, 2 dang good doe kids, 2 doe kids that I won’t price and 5 top shelf kind of wethers. All Joe Dirt’s on dang good mommas. They haven’t been seen by very many, but those that have call weekly to see what I’m doing with them. One showmen keeps trying to trade me chocolate chip cookies for the right to buy one of them. That may work. The answer is still….I don’t know. If I was smart, I would just keep them all and not go to another sale this year. I don’t know if I have time for an online sale. I may just draw numbers, play rock/paper/scissors or have an arm wrestling contest. I’ve got a week to figure it out.

Slept all the way till 2 am this morning. No Law & Order, so the only thing somewhat worth watching was the turtleman. I watched 4 episodes of “live action” this morning. How do they make a tv series about that? Duke had showed me a youtube piece of the turtleman a couple of years ago and now he has his own show catching critters. Good for him.

Sounds like the Texas sales were plenty high again this year. No matter how much you spend, it still comes down to hard work and knowledge. But its going to take some cash to buy the good ones again this year. The next two weeks will be busy studying and buying wethers.

The videos and pics are up for the online sale. Call with any questions. This is a really good set of wethers and a complete set of doe kids. The doe kids have got a lot of value as show does, but there are some really nice breeding pieces in this set.

The number for the day is 4. Because we had 4 sets of kids today, sired by 4 different bucks. K22 (1st time Joe Dirt daughter) had a pair of Freak On A Leash doe kids. K31 (1st time Joe Dirt daughter) had a buck and doe sired by Joe Dirt. Yes, that would make them Double Dirties. K151 (twin to res. div. 5 at 2011 Tulsa) had a Rainman wether. The old H15 doe had a buck and doe sired by Goofy. We’ll find out if Goofy is worth a damn or not as she has clicked with every buck she has been bred to since 2006.

Stayed home today. I literally mean I stayed home today. Didn’t go to work. Didn’t go to Texas. Kela was home. So we just took care of animals and fat dogged it today. I did band a good SOB today. He could have brought a pile as a buck. Oh well.

This goat game can be rather frustrating. The management required to raise good goats is staggering. The money to buy good goats is getting unreal. I don’t like working with common animals, which is why if a given doe doesn’t produce good ones, she will find her ass on a trailer to Perkins. If a person really wants to produce lots of good goats, they have to have lots of does and /or a flush program. With a flush program, you still have to have a lot of does, most of which will be recips. Numbers means more time in managing them properly. Flushing means more time.

We only have about 40 producing does at our place. This means that I only sell about 20-25 wethers per year that were born at our little piece of paradise. Add the fact that I kid about 10 does in Dec/Jan, then some in April, then a few in May and the rest in June/July. The earlier wethers normally go north, the rest of them get scattered around the county. Usually, the top end stays in OK. Take into consideration a couple of bucks and that doesn’t leave very many goats to try to put into premium sales. Of the wethers we sold last year, there were several in the Tulsa premium sale, one at OYE, several at Enid and Woodward. We had 8 that placed in the top 5 of their class at OYE. That is a very high percentage of high placing wethers. If we have 1 in the sale at OYE, then a breeder with 400 should have 10 to be on the same percentages. By the time a good one gets kidney stones, hangs himself or gets mis-managed, not having a lot of #s can be detrimental.

This brings up mutliple decisions. We either have to be happy with what we are doing or get bigger and raise more goats. Tammy and I both have good jobs which makes it hard for one of us to say “I’ll stay home and raise f-ing goats.” We both drive to work, which eats up several hours a day for each of us. Although our facilities are better than most and not as good as some, if we are going to have more does, we will have to have more barn space.

Another decision is how to sell the wethers. Everything has been online the past couple of years. But I like to make sure that animals end up in good feeders hands. The sale means more money, the private treaty sale insures good feeders, which is a must. Another decision is whether we should keep the best for Duke or sell them and show something else. I normally buy wethers from breeders that are using similar genetics to bucks that I am using. Which explains why I feed a lot of Helms wethers (Joe Dirt) and Gallaghers (Freak on a Leash). Even though the wethers weren’t from me, Duke is feeding very similar genetics.

Things to think about on a drizzly Thursday morning.

What a crappy morning. I slept from 9:30 last night to 5 am. this morning. That is unusual for me. No law & order, no sportscenter, just sleep. Made it to the barn to do chores and sure enough things went sideways. Had a doe that we were watching. She didn’t get marked when she bred, so I wasn’t exactly sure when she was due. I just knew what bucks she had been with and when. She was 13 months old when bred, so she wasn’t small.

Well, she decided to go this morning. She needed help. I grabbed a horn to catch her and then halter her. Guess what? The horn came off in my hand. Smooth off!! I got her haltered and tied to the fence. I felt for the baby and the feet were right there. Easy enough. I pulled. Nothing. I pulled harder. Nothing. I got my calf pulling chains. Put them on the feet and pulled. Nothing. I tried pushing the baby back up the canal and rearranging. That worked. I put the doe on her back to change the angle of the pull. I got it out to the front knees. I pulled harder. Nothing. Did a C section. The kid was a single and already dead. Small pelvic opening. She wasn’t ever going to have a kid.

Lets end this with saying that I didn’t save a kid…or a doe. Somehow I didn’t lose my temper. I was planning on being at the store by 7 this morning, but that isn’t going to happen. Hope your day starts better than mine.

Busy weekend around our place. Got home from the store Saturday afternoon and went to work with the goats. My scholarly-deficient son had cleaned goat turds out of all othe corral pens. Maybe he’ll learn to turn in homework next year in school. I then let him shear a set of wethers. Kids have to learn to do things at some point. We sheared, trimmed hooves and wormed this set. Then I made the rounds to pick up a few more wethers to fill an order.

Sunday morning, I loaded 10 head of wethers and headed to OKC. I met a couple of Texans. One came from south of Houston. He was an ag teacher that needed a set of wethers for their county this fall. He was also meeting a guy to pick up two lambs from up north. The guy with the sheep was none other than Fred Urban.

Fred lives in Odessa. He drove from Odessa to Dallas, picked up a trailer and took it to Missouri and met his brother Kenny. Kenny brought the sheep to Fred and got the trailer. Fred then drove to OKC to meet up with us. He brought me salsa and chips from Manuel’s in Odessa. I have been known to trade a goat for a pile of tamales from Manuel’s. Good trade.

Fred also brought Duke a gift. He told me that he bought Duke a couple of bottle rockets in Missouri. A couple turned out to be the whole damn passenger seat full. Along with a variety family pack of fireworks. If you don’t know Fred Urban. You need to. When I taught at Waynoka, he used to give the little kids M&Ms. He would tell them to keep them in their pockets. They would always leave some in their pockets, then their moms would wash them and dry them. Of course, the M&Ms would melt in the dryer. This would make for some pissed mothers.

I made it back home. Then headed to Cleo Springs. We photoed/videoed online sale goats. We had a very efficient crew yesterday. Seelke’s, Poe Cat, Big Bill, Tyke, Session’s, Big I, Milligan and myself. You can tell this crew has done a photo shoot before. Very prepared. Smooth operation.

There will be 10 wethers and and 10 doe kids in this sale on the 11th. Pics should be up by Wednesday. There are 7 Joe Dirt wethers that are very good goats. There are 3 Fade2Black wethers–all black headed that are kind of wicked. There is 9 Joe Dirt doe kids and 1 BlackJack doe kid. Most of the goats are at Cleo Springs at Seelke’s and Sessions’. They are easy to look at. Way more accessible than coming to my little piece of paradise. Four of the goats are in Shattuck at Tyke’s.

I recieved a text yesterday afternoon saying that Kelly had sold out. I was later told more and then I read Coltin’s post about the Mike Kelly family selling their entire herd. The Kelly’s had built an unmatched show wether producing herd. They are the ones that introduced POWER to the goat industry. Nobody put more muscle and bone into goats then they did. Non-goat people knew about Mike Kelly and his breeding program.

900 was a legend in the stock show industry, not just show goats, stock show animals, period. He produced more champions than any other sire, and more importantly, his sons & daughters and their progeny are producing for a large number of breeders. I have been impressed how they were always able to keep expanding the limits of what a goat could look like. About the time, you thought others were catching up, they were able to produce a new buck that kept them at the top.

Thompson and I have bought a lot of wethers from the Kelly’s over the years. We’ve won OYE, State Fair (several times), Enid and numerous premium sales at OYE, Tulsa, Phoenix, Denver, Enid, Woodward, etc with wethers from there. We’ve joked that Thompson helped build part of the additions to Mike and Susie’s house with all of the wethers that he has bought over the years.

Susie is the best at bottle feeding babies. And she makes a killer good banana pudding. Mike is a true expert in the art of feeding and fitting a show wether. They are the ones that taught the rest of us about “Kelly clipping” a goat.

Congrats to the Kelly family for a job well done.