A Winter of Celibacy at the Stud Barn: Now Girls Put Your Ears Back and Say “No, No, No!”

So this morning I did (facilitated would be a better word) what should be the final 2010 breeding within the CCNF foundation herd, that is females which we own whom will most likely be birthing out here in 2011. In recent times we have tried to get more and more disciplined about trying to constrict our birthing season to certain months. Way back when we first started using Matt Best and his wife Jozi to shear for us, Jozi had asked us how come we didn’t birth out all of our dams in one set period instead of spreading the due dates all over the place from April to November. Admittedly, at the time we weren’t birthing out quite enough crias for it to make a huge difference in the feel it gave to summer and early fall. Plus we were young, energetic, and excited. And anyway what the heck did she know? Well Ian, as it turns out someone who has been raising livestock probably since you were in diapers in fact knew exactly what she was talking about you nimrod. I guess we had to experience the chaos of 60+ births spread over almost 7 months to fully appreciate the wisdom of shortening that window, even if we weren’t necessarily lessening the actual number of births itself. The philosophy is simple: if one must be at the barn checking for newborns each day for one female anyway, you might as well have others due at the same time. Duh. Yes, it can make for crazy moments (three almost simultaneous deliveries) but birthing season and all of its attendant nuisances doesn’t go on and on this way. This year the crias started popping out in May with most of the birthing action (probably 2/3rds of our total) taking place in July and August, a smaller number in September, and then a trickle into late October and early November. We’re not there yet but it’s getting better. The final cria was born 3 weeks ago and in the normal course of things its dam, Juliet, would probably have been held open for next year were it not for the fact that her chosen mate (Snowmass Elite Legend) will only be here until early summer next year, then gone for an entire year back to Idaho. We’re all for birthing calendar discipline yet sometimes we must play it safe and make hay while the sun shines.

I do remember many years ago going out to eat with another breeder and having them say that not only did they breed year round (something for which some folks are admittedly equipped) but also that they enjoyed the possibility of a “surprise” any time of year. Perhaps his mother dropped him a lot when he was little. To each their own I suppose. I can think of several words and phrases used to describe a hypothermic bottle baby born in the middle of February but surprise is definitely not one of them. Offseason with beer, warm fireplaces, and reading aloud to my kids: good. Offseason with midwinter dystocias and high maintenance newborns, not so much. Long live the off season! At least until April.