And in the fall, we have shenanigans.

So yes I realize it is not technically fall yet.  But the bucks are starting to do buck things (aka standing around testing the equipment and peeing on themselves), and that means the does will be coming into heat soon, which means fall to me, even if it's still so hot I can barely move.

Hey LADIES...

I do not want January kids again.  Which means that the bucks need to go into lock down.  And the growing doe kids have been using the buck hut as a house.  You can probably guess where I'm going with this.

So I shut the does into the loafing shed, shut the bucks OUT of the barn yard (so they were stuck in the pasture), and brought the doe kids down into the barn yard.  This was the easy part, as they are still in that "follow mom she will protect and feed us" stage.  They almost tripped me like ten times but they didn't run away.  Baby girls safe, check.

The bucks on the other hand will wander around eating things if I don't keep a firm handle on them, so I was going to take them one at a time.  This was a great plan until Roosevelt starting freaking the hell out because he was "alone"... which Sobek the LGD puppy though was a really fun game.  For Sobek.  Roosevelt started running around screaming like he was being murdered.  Chocula is a pretty calm boy so I had my eleven year old daughter hold his collar while I put the puppy on a tie out.

This was Chocula's cue to slip his collar.  We are fairly fortunate that there was honeysuckle right there and he didn't go far.  Got the collar back on him and push/pull/dragged him up to the front.  Got the collar back and repeated the procedure for Roosevelt, who was much better behaved given that we were moving toward his buddy and not away.

But wait it's not over yet!  For ease of access to all the gates I had taken down the temporary fencing (it needed moved anyway).  It is now one o'clock in the afternoon, and hotter/more humid than hell.  But the fence has to go up.  I managed three lines before I felt like I was going to pass out - good enough to hold grown does.  So I plugged it in and let them out.  The babies are now screaming because they want out, too, but I need to cool off and get a drink.  One more line and, fortunately, it turns out that freeing them (at least into a little strip of pasture) was enough to get P. Bubbs to shut her hay hole.

So fingers crossed that a) nobody escapes, b) the dogs continue to behave, and c) I figure out how to integrate the baby does with the big does.  That would return the shenanigans to a reasonable level.  As long as I ignore the ducks...