Weaning gets under way.

The first batch of 2012 crias that were born back in May have now all been weaned and moved down from the Arena. As such, the Main Barn is temporally a bit of a whiney place again as the newly arrived weaners adapt to life without their dams. In our experience some are pretty much fine just a day or so later, while others will suck their proverbial thumbs for weeks, though in the end all will be fine. Just so we’re clear, by the way, some of those “babies” were close to 100 lb. at weaning so it was most definitely time to go. In fact if one were using body weight as a criteria we probably could have weaned several of them over two months ago.

For now the weaner pens are filled primarily with white colored kids, primarily the result of Elite Legend’s time here in early 2011, though as weaning continues over the next 5 months there will be a decided shift towards fawn, brown, and even bay black as the first wave of Matrix Majesty kids comes into play. Safe to say that our 2013 show string, to say nothing of the entire birth class from 2012, will have more color in it than any in our farm’s previous 15 years. Interesting times are ahead.