Cylon Rolling Acres
  • Home
  • Shop
    • Farm Store: Shop Now
    • Where to buy
    • Wholesale Orders
    • The Meat List: Notify Me
  • Goat Meat
    • Goatober
    • Benefits of Pasture-Raised Meat
  • Blog
  • Raising Meat Goats
    • Raising Goats for Meat Community
    • Online Class Replay: Raising Goats
    • Fav Goat Things
    • Fav Business + Marketing Tools
    • Breeding Stock for Sale
    • Speaking
  • About Us
    • About Us
    • Contact
    • Tours

Farm Blog

Raising Goats for Meat
Cooking with Goat Meat + Recipes

Three reasons why we kid later in the season

4/14/2020

0 Comments

 
doe and kidOne of our does tending to her newly born kid (from an earlier kidding season).
You don’t know how many times this winter (now spring) I’ve been asked, “How’s kidding going?” Each time I explain that we don’t have any babies yet since we’ve moved kidding to later in the season.  We’re set to kid in late April and then have the last batch of kids in May.

We’ve kidded and worked with baby goats in January through April, with both babies born on our farm and bottle babies we’ve raised since they were only a few days old.  The first few years raising goats we didn’t own a buck and our breeding schedule worked around the farm where we rented a buck.  We’ve also bred for earlier in the season (anytime between January and March) because that seems to be what most farms do in our area. So why not do the same? And, with raising bottle babies, we of course were on the schedule of the dairy farms we worked with.

There are many reasons farms kid earlier: raising for the show/fair kid market, having kids be at market weight in the fall, renting bucks like we have done, seasonal milking, and so on.

Here are three reasons why we’ve moved to late season kidding:
  1. Be in sync with nature. There’s probably a reason why deer have their fawns in the spring time.  Wisconsin winters can be downright frigid cold. Kidding later in the season gives new kids a greater chance of thriving rather than being a “kid-sicle,” potentially leading to pneumonia or even losing a kid.  It also gives new moms a little extra time to let their maternal instincts kick in or time for the shepherd to assist (my preference is the first option).  Shortly after kidding we’re able to get the does and kids out on pasture rotationally grazing, taking advantage of the higher quality pasture earlier in the grazing season.
  2. Reduce shepherd’s fatigue. Kidding or lambing can really be wearing on the farmer. Whether it’s a set schedule of late-night barn checks in person or by barn camera, it can get exhausting. That part isn’t going to change with warmer weather (as in not subzero temps). However, the increased effort, and even stress at times, to dry off and warm up new kids is reduced. I also tend to have a little more patience letting does clean up their newly born kids. Last season we also had a new baby (as in human kid) and it was harder to get out to the barn as regularly as I like to do so. Kidding later in the season gives us a little bit of flexibility on being able to bring my kids (again, human) down the to barn and a little more give and take on timing if I can’t get to check on a new set of kids immediately. 
  3. Reduce the need for heaters. Mother Nature permitting, kidding later also allows us to reduce the use of heat lamps and infrared heaters to keep kids warm in their safe areas in the kidding pens and in the creep area in the main pen. If spring comes earlier, we might even be lucky enough to not need the heaters at all. Reducing use not only cuts down on our electrical and propane (we also have propane infrared heaters) bills, it also reduces the risk for fire by not using the heat lamps or using them minimally. When do use the heat lamps we use the ones from Premier 1 Fencing, which have more safety features built in than the standard metal heat lamp. We also like using infrared heaters (we have both propane and electric powered ones - the electric are from Sweater Heater).
Even with our later kidding season, we can still run into Mother Nature’s seasonal mood disorder. Last season we kidded a week earlier than this year and ended up having kids during the spring cold snap (single digit temps). We can try our best to work with the flow of our seasons in the Upper Midwest.  Kidding later works well for our farm and family.
​
If you’re interested in learning more about what we do on our farm raising goats for meat, join our online community here.  

This post was originally published 3/27/19, and updated 4/14/20.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    About Leslie

    I own and manage Cylon Rolling Acres in northwestern Wisconsin. On my farm I raise Boer - Kiko meat goats on pasture.


    Friends + Family List

    Sign up to receive goat meat recipes + cooking tips, promos + farm updates

    Thank you for subscribing!


    Why Cylon?

    Cylon (pronounced Si-lon) is the name of our township in St. Croix County, Wisconsin. Sorry fans, our farm is not named after the robots of Battlestar Galactica.


    Archives

    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    April 2019
    February 2019
    December 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    February 2016
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    June 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015


    Categories

    All
    Accessibility To Farm
    Advocacy
    Ag Issues
    AgProud
    Animal Care
    Animal Health
    Auto Feeder
    Bear
    Beginning Farmers
    Boer Kiko Cross Goats
    Bottle Feeding
    Breeding Stock
    Broadband
    Brush Control
    Bucks
    Buy In Bulk
    Cabrito
    CAFES Alum
    Chevon
    Community
    Coyote
    Curry
    Cuts Of Meat
    Electricity
    Facebook
    Family
    Farm Bureau
    Farmers Union
    Farming
    Farm Store
    Farm Tour
    Farm Transitions
    Feeding
    Female Farmer
    Fence
    Goat Barbacoa
    Goat Chops
    Goat Meat
    Goatober
    Goats
    Grass Fed
    Grass-Fed
    Grazing
    Great Pyr
    Grilling
    Gyros
    #ILookLikeAFarmer
    Instagram
    Internet
    Investment
    Kidding
    Kiko
    Lac-Tek
    Lac-Tek II
    Leadership
    LGD
    Livestock Guardian Dog
    Meat Goats
    Milk Replacer
    My Favorite Goat Things
    Organ Meat
    Parenting
    Pasture
    Planning
    Planting
    Podcasts
    Predators
    Professional Development
    Raising Goats For Meat
    Recipe
    Rotational Grazing
    Rural
    Science
    Seed
    Self-Care
    Small Business
    Smart Farm
    Smart Fence
    Snow
    Social Media
    Spring
    Storm
    Succession Planning
    Trees
    Turkeys
    Urban
    UWRF
    Veterinary Care
    Vlog
    Water
    Whole Goat
    Wildlife
    Windbreak
    Winter
    Wolves
    Women
    Work Life Balance
    Young Farmers


    RSS Feed

Copyright 2015-21 Cylon Rolling Acres, LLC. All Rights Reserved
Deer Park, Wisconsin | hello@cylonrollingacres.com
Privacy Policy | Legal Disclaimer
  • Home
  • Shop
    • Farm Store: Shop Now
    • Where to buy
    • Wholesale Orders
    • The Meat List: Notify Me
  • Goat Meat
    • Goatober
    • Benefits of Pasture-Raised Meat
  • Blog
  • Raising Meat Goats
    • Raising Goats for Meat Community
    • Online Class Replay: Raising Goats
    • Fav Goat Things
    • Fav Business + Marketing Tools
    • Breeding Stock for Sale
    • Speaking
  • About Us
    • About Us
    • Contact
    • Tours