Double Buck (the Craigslist Chronicles)

Sometimes it seems like I spend way too much time on Craigslist. I've toned it down since the early days, when I would spend hours scanning the farm and garden section looking for free chickens (you'd be surprised) or people who wanted to trade vegetable starts or raw alpaca fleece or something like that. I used craigslist to meet other local farmers, to set up useful bartering networks (New To Farm Life: Trade Network 2012 (Craigslist Chronicles)), and occasionally, to get rid of commodities I no longer wanted - this posting, in which I offer 25 pounds of free chicken livers, is a particular favorite of mine:

New To Farm Life: My Latest Craigslist Posting

One of my bad Craigslist habits is that I seldom remember to go back and delete a post after it has outlived it's usefulness. Usually this means nothing much beyond an annoyed e-mail once in a while, but this week, my laziness paid off. I forgot to delete the post looking for a buck to service my herd. We bought a buckling, (A Buckling Named Boob) so I wasn't in the market for a buck anymore. However, when a lady called me offering me a practically free purebred, papered, tested, and proven buck, well, I could hardly say no. Haboob, cute as he is, is still a tiny little baby and may not even be capable of mating this year. If he is, it won't be until January. I had resigned myself to not having any babies until early summer next year, and no cheese until sometime in July. When this handsome fellow popped up out of the blue, I jumped on him.

The lady, A., is simply getting out of Nubians. She is going to pure Nigerians (minis) and had no more use for Paxton. I guess she hadn't had much luck selling him at a decent price (the goat market fluctuates wildly; this is probably an off year) and decided finally she just wanted his stinky ass off the property before he went and impregnated the wrong does. She even offered to transport him, which is wonderful, because our van is broken down.

Paxton arrived on the farm at about six in the evening last friday, and fifteen seconds later, everybody was pregnant. The does must have been in heat - I can never tell - because Paxton took one look at them and did his Buckly duty before he even got all the way through the gate. So, doing the math, I ought to have a very busy week sometime in early March. Hooray!

We are keeping Haboob, of course. We will just wait and use him next year. For the rest of this breeding season, we can rent out Paxton, for cash or for trade in hay. Back to the barter section of Craigslist I go!