Shearing went off well today. It was a beautiful, sunny day at about 50 degrees. No rain, no wind, no snow... It's a good thing that I didn't try to plan for shearing to be a social event, because the shearer ended up way off schedule. "Sometime between Saturday afternoon and noon on Sunday" turned out to be more like 2 PM on Sunday, so I ended up missing out on CK's last regular hockey game. CK helped me catch all of the back field animals and get shearing set up. Q_Goat showed up and took over the shearing support while CK took off for hockey.

We sheared and toe-trimmed all 16 Angoras without major incident. (Even Sancho got a pedicure.) I amused the shearer with my Pied Piper version of corralling the big boy goats - I grabbed the grain bucket and walked up front. I opened all of the gates, then walked back to the back field where the shearer was set up. The boys dutifully followed right after me. Cookie balked at going into the stall, so we had to corner and catch him. However, at that point he was in with us in the small right field, so it wasn't too hard to pin him.

After passing out hay to everyone, Q_Goat took off and I did the rest of the pickup/cleanup. I got inside just in time to miss CK's call home saying the hockey game was over.

Shearing lets you see the body condition of your animals, spot problems, etc. And it looks like we may have a problem. Despite having cycled into heat at least twice since she joined us in November, Talla may be pregnant. I'll be calling the vet tomorrow about getting her sonogrammed and a due date pinned on her.