Bizarre Buford Behavior

Recently, Buford has been having some peculiar behavior compared to his normal sweet loving nature that we have enjoyed. First he started urinating on our outdoor couch and luckily the cushions are washable. He has been grabbing my mom with his horns and pulling her towards him. Then while my dad was in the chicken coop he knocked over his beer and decided to help himself to it. It was a bit of odd behavior but not too terrible.

My dad and Hunter mowed the yard(they are hoping for the last time this year) and dad cleared some more along the fence line. It is very important to clear around the fence line to be able to make sure the fence is all intact and no repairs are needed. As we get animals on the farm we need to make sure we can keep them on the property.

My dad was able to find a guy to deliver firewood to the house and then him and Hunter would just have to stack the firewood for cheaper than the cost it was for him to drive to get it and have to unload it and stack it themselves. While they were stacking the firewood that got delivered Hunter and Buford took their relationship a bit further than Hunter would like. While Hunter was bent over picking up firewood Buford decided to try to mount him. Let’s just say Hunter was a bit traumatized by it. Unfortunately for us they weren’t expecting it and didn’t get a video. I asked Hunter if he could recreate it for educational purposes on my blog but he said no.

Buford is in rut. Rut is when a male goat (buck) has a surge of hormones raging through them. Usually this happens between the months of August and January, and they are ready to mate with does (female goats). They can breed all year long but during rut breeding is the only thing on their brains.

After doing extensive research I have learned a lot about goats in rut, and lucky for you I will share some of what I have learned with you. It is advised that a buckling be moved away from their mothers at 3-4 months old because they can start breeding and may impregnate their mother. In fact, a buckling can technically breed a doe at 7 weeks old, but luckily it is not very common.

During rut bucks can have a stinky smell and it can be pretty intense. You definitely want to stay up wind from them. The smell actually comes from their own urine and from scent glands behind their horns. Apparently the does like it, and the smellier they are, the more chances they have of getting to breed with the doe. Unfortunately, some bucks urinate in their beards or on their faces to get really stinky to flatter the does. Not sure Buford will get a lot of snuggles from me during rut. Hopefully he doesn’t do this part. Ewe, just ewe.

In the midst of his rut my dad found a new baby goat that we added to our farm. Her name was Jill but that is my mom’s name so we had to change her name. At first I wanted name her Maybell but it just didn’t fit her and we ended up deciding to call her Sugar. She looks like a bag of sugar. I can’t wait to go to the farm and snuggle her. She is about 3-4 months old and cute as a button.

Sugar was pretty scared and confused when she got to the farm. Her life as she knew it is now completely changed. And Buford’s raging hormones just got worse. Dad even asked if we should change his name to Chester the molester because he was trying to mate her. She is wayyyyy to young for that and they had to be separated. She was very vocal the first day about her life changes. It is usually best to separate new goats from your current herd in case of they have sicknesses and then you won’t have to treat your whole herd but we only had Buford.

After she got there some more rut behaviors began with Buford. Flehmen is when bucks utilize nerve endings in their lips to smell an exciting smell. It looks quite hilarious because they stick their lip up and stretch their necks up as far as they can to the sky.

Other behaviors that bucks do that is pretty disgusting is that they will run up to a squatting doe to smell or drink her urine. Other than her urine releasing certain hormones about her readiness to breed I don’t know why they do this.

Like normal men trying to show off for women, bucks try to do the same. They stomp, strut around, stretch in funny ways (to us human folks). Trying to be fancy for his girls he will grunt, stick out his tongue, and make other weird noises. Your buck may also surprise you some day during rut by masturbating. He may do this in a colorful variety of different ways, but just know it is normal and their is nothing wrong with him. I tried to keep that as PG as possible but you get to learn right along with me. some bucks even get aggressive during rut but not all.

In a not so awkward conversation, my dad built a firewood storage rack that I wanted out of Oak boards. There is an Amish sawmill down the road from our farm and they cut the wood to your likings and the price is amazing. Since they are solid oak they are super heavy.

Since the boards were so heavy my dad designed and cut the boards then assembled them in the house. It would have weighed close to 300 lbs assembled. I love that some of the boards have a live edge on them too. After building it they carried firewood up to fill it up. It holds about a half a rick of wood. It looks so good, don’t ya think?