windthread

Sunny Ray.    His sire was Gideon the Glorious of All.    

When we arrived here,   there was a buck forest prepared.    Divided by a fence.   Thought was,  Sunny Ray and his wether Jumpin Jack Flash on one side,   Tenzen and Nogal on the other.   All hell broke loose.   We separated the forest with a 6ft corridor.    it continued,   them  smashing through and over the fencing,  breaking totally free and wild to mingle with the Doe Goats before being captured and subdued ….moved….try again and i think   3 times till we reached the configuration we have had today until it changed again.  Buck Goats are driven.   Some more than others.   Nogal and Tenzen,  gentle Gentlemen,  still had their moments and in the end….Tenzen's final year,  had to be separated.  The final times for a buck Goat is a slow sadness.  (to watch)  (for them…i don't know)   In the wild it would just go.   They would no longer be able to prevail and then they would no longer be able to even live a fair share.   The younger bucks would take them down and they would surrender their lives to other animals of prey of their community.   

Back in New Mex,   Sunny Ray reached a point where he had to be separated from TenZen.    He was and was given Jumpin Jack Flash,  a wild minded little wether from Quibeyne Farm…Jan Gribble.   I don't remember if his father was in fact Sunny Ray himself or Tenzen????  i just emailed her to ask….she was using both bucks with her does at that time.   Either way,  he has been with Sunny Ray a long time.   Bonded.    Wethers are neutered male goats.   They do not have the ability to breed or really,  the insatiable interest.   The two little boy Goats here,  Black and Minion are wethers.  They retain some of their buckness  but mostly of spirit,   take their place in a herd in their own way.   They are paired with intact bucks to give the intact buck  relief from his buckness.   The bond is strong.   The intact buck is dominant.  The wether accomodates that.   I could go on,  but…eeee  it gets uhhhhhh,   well,   more than i'm up for this evening.   Enough to say that for years,  Sunny Ray has treated Jack Flash like a girlfriend.   But Jack was also feisty.  They did well with each other.  Until maybe 6 months ago  when something signaled a shift.   Jack wasn't so much into it anymore and Sunny Ray began really noticeably declining as a virile dominate male.  He had less interest.   Jack noticed and began challenging him.    We all thought….well,   pay back.    But then it got sad.   Jack would run back and forth between his food and Sunny's,   wanting to lay claim to all of it.  There was a lot of Challenge…the rising up and clashing horns,  rising up,  clashing horns.  For a while Sunny held his own and then he couldn't.   Last couple months Jack would ram him and he would fall…it's a Hill..fall and roll a few times before he could get up.   And then…i don't know how it happened,  but Sunny held his own again for a little while but in the last week or so      he couldn't.    If you search online about how people deal with this,  you don't find much or anything.   People do not keep bucks beyond their days as potential herd sires.  But we are us and SR is SR.  and so   it's 104 degrees today and we figure it out.   There were different possibilities but we ended up moving Sunny Ray up to the original buck forest.   Jenny and her man secured the fencing with additional t posts and repaired anything ify.   I  secured the back gate and switched water tubs.   Got alfalfa pellets in the Scoop,  found the lasso and we went forward.  I went in to Sunny and Jack's space.  Sat down.  Called him…..pellets in hand and in pocket,  lasso ready.   He had been very tame when young but in these intervening years  in the company of the untouchable Jack Flash,  become wary.   I've been working with him tho ….so this year's Evacuation might be easier for Alyssia and it payed off.   Slipped the rope over his head and with the pellets as the lure   we exited the gate and made our way up  the road  accompanied by all the Doe Goats pushing and shoving because they wanted the pellets too and we made it…..EZ.   we got there and he went IN.

That was about 4:30.   

since then.    Jack stands at his gate staring up.   Not knowing.   He is alone for the first time in his life.

Sunny Ray has moved up and down his fence,   the Doe Goats have gone there to see him.  Come and gone.   

Nogal is where he's been,  where he knows.   

it's almost dark now.    How will it go.   ??????