How We Got Started
As you know, Buddy was the force behind the discovery of Pygora
goats - once we knew a small fiber goat existed, we set out to find some. It
took about five minutes to see that there are very few Pygora herds in the
Midwest. This was only discouraging from the locating standpoint;
otherwise I thought it would be great to be an "only". The closest breeder
to us was Kathy Blackette of Snokist Farms in Iowa. We made an
appointment to go and see her goats, and began our adventure.
The first thing that we noticed about Pygora/Pygora goats was how BIG
they were! We were expecting something about the height of a Pygmy, and
the first Pygora we saw was Matisse, who is NOT little! Kathy pointed
out that little goat equals little fiber, and we have come to truly appreciate
her perspective. Matisse, a medium grey agouti, was our first Pygora
purchase, and he is the inspiration for our herd theme. Our next
purchases were the only two Pygmy/Pygora doelings that Kathy had
available, and I think we were lucky to get them, as our visit was in
October. Morisot, a solid black, and Valadon, a black, were named after
famous artistic women. All of these goats had Type "C" fleece. We
scheduled our pick-up date for December, which would give the doelings
time to be weaned, and went home happy. Well, Buddy would have liked
for them to be smaller, but there you have it!
Our next Pygora came all the way from Oregon. I was surfing through the
breeder's listing on the Pygora website, and I came across Fluffball Farms.
I really liked the look of Melody's goats, but what attracted my eye was her
"Shipping Thru the Skies" page. At this time, I was looking for goats
with Type "C" fleece, and Melody had one gal for sale, Mim, who had
Type "B/C". She was also a light caramel, which would bring a different
hue into our herd palette. When I called to reserve Mim, Melody
suggested that we have her bred before shipping, which would make the
whole expense much more worthwhile. We chose to breed Mim to KAF
Mario, a Pygora with a fabulous show record and a history of producing
wonderful kids. We arranged to fly Mim into Chicago's O'Hare Field on
December 12, 2005. My biggest worry at this time was whether the trip
would terminate the pregnancy.
We built a separate area in the barn for the goats so that we could give
them grain without fighting off the sheep, and we fenced in an adjacent
paddock that has a steep slope so they'd have something to play on. On
the morning of December 12th, we rented a truck, and headed for Chicago
around 7:00pm. As we were driving, it began to rain, which turned into
heavy snow, and by the time we got to O'Hare, we were in a blizzard. We
had not prepared for this contingency, as the Weather Channel hadn't
showed any precipitation in the forecast. SO we didn't have our big
plastic box with us. We weren't worried, though, because we knew Mim
would be in a carrier already. Little did we know that goats fit perfectly
into dog carriers, which are not very warm!
Once we got to the airport, we had the dickens of a time finding out where
the cargo was unloaded - this was not made any easier by the wind and
snow. We finally met an airport baggage handler who let us park in a
reserved area - I wish I knew his name so I could thank him personally. His
kindness was greatly appreciated! Anyway, by this time we believed that
we were late for the flight, so we were in somewhat of a panic...as it turned
out, there wasn't enough room for Mim on the first flight out of Oregon, so
she was put on the afternoon flight which didn't arrive until 1:00am. We
ended up going to the International Terminal waiting area and playing
cards for several hours. It was sort of fun riding the monorail around the
airport!
Finally Mim's plane landed, and we got to see her for the first time. We
were SO impressed! She had long, flowing, shimmering locks, and was
easily as large as Matisse. However, her travel experiences had totally
freaked her out, and to this day she remains nervous and rather unfriendly
around us. Now we know that goats travel better in pairs. Anyway, we got
Mim's carrier loaded into the truck, and started driving home. About half
an hour into the drive, we checked on her and found her violently shivering,
so we stopped at a gas station and wired cardboard to the carrier to give
her more protection. As it turns out, she was violently shivering "just
because", but I'm sure she was more comfortable after we got the
cardboard up.
We got home at 3:30 am, got Mim "settled" in the barn, went to bed for a
few hours, and then got up to drive to downstate Illinois to pick up some
sheep. When we checked on her, Mim was still trembling violently, so we
gave her some Probiotics and some warm molasses water. This didn't
change anything, but we felt as if we'd tried. Now we know that it would
have been better to pick up our Iowa goats first, so that Mim would have
had companions from the get-go. As it was, she stayed freaked out longer
than necessary. Her behavior did nothing to relieve my worries about her
pregnancy, so I made a quick call to Melody, who assured me that
everything was going to be fine, and that Pygoras are very sturdy.
On the 14th, we went to Iowa and got Matisse and The Girls - Kathy
also sent us home with Donatello, a Pygora wether, to act as a companion
for Matisse. This time we took the big plastic box, and everybody was dry
and toasty all the way home. You would have thought that Mim would have
been delighted to get some company, but she wasn't. It took almost a week
for her to warm up to the doelings, and she didn't really feel at home here
until she had her kids.
Yes, she did keep her pregnancy, and we got a buckling and a doeling from
her and Mario, both of which are in our herd today. In the Spring, we
added Bridget Riley, light grey agouti, and Emily Carr, light caramel, both
doelings from Fluffball Farms (once again an O'Hare trip that involved
bad weather and a long flight delay). Rather than go on and on about
them, let's just go to their pages, so you can see what they all look like. A
picture paints a thousand words.
