Sunday, September 28, 2008

Head Shot of Cherokee, the heaviest unofficial milker in Ohio

This is Cherokee, aka Grandma, taken probably the year before we lost her. I have other pictures of her body but they are not digital and I never seem to organize myself enough to get them somewhere to scan them.

She was a beautiful doe, with a champion body and an "old fashioned" udder. My hands couldn't take the milking. I had to have someone relieve me, milk her more and then I would finish her off.

So, if you want to see her pedigree, look up Natl. Trail WSWN Cherokee on ADGA genetics.

Best Oberhasli

For a while I couldn't quite make the seasonal adjustment from summer to autumn. It was so hot so long. This week we have finally got our 50 degree good sleeping weather nights and a few dry leaves are starting to hit the lawn. Pumpkins, gourds, mums decorate the yard.

And the bucks smell to high heaven.

Our new buck Pete is doing his buck job. He's in with the girls and I seeing him chasing one, then another. He's a busy guy. I haven't seen him actually breed any of them but I don't have to. I know he's doing his job.

On OberhasliTalk@yahoogroups.com recent we had a discussion about memorable Oberhasli goats we have known. I told the story of my first modern Oberhasli. I wanted to copy and paste it here but can't seem to find it. Airhead me must have deleted it. So I'll just tell it again.

In 2001 a really beautiful Oberhasli looking doe fell into my lap. She was half wild. Wouldn't come to me but would milk or lead nicely if I cornered her. At the time we had the goat pen (3 goats) under an apple tree on the east side of the house. We moved it because in the winter the wood stove smoke blows that way. Knowing that smoke isn't good for people I figured it couldn't be good for goats either.

Anyway, we called her "Grandma" and she freshened in the spring with twin bucks, a habit of Grandma her whole life, bucks, bucks, bucks, bucks, doe, bucks. Yes, one daughter in all those years we had her. The goats lived in a shed which was basically a large dog house. I drug my old milk stand out of my dad's barn and put it in the corner and started milking her.

She ate as much as she wanted basically. I milked outside. I milked by hand. If it was raining I didn't milk at all. Here's the neat part. The old girl started filling up the gallon ice cream pail that I was milking into. Then she filled one and part of another. Then at her peak she almost filled up two gallon ice cream pails, two times a day. Yes, that's almost four gallons of milk a day.

And I thought, man, these Oberhasli can really milk!!! That would be about 30# more or less milk and definitely in contention for breed leader, had we been on test. Well, she was a once in a life milker and that was her one glory year. She was a good milker, a persistent milker, but never milked her brains out like that again.

We tracked down her tattoo and the people were kind enough to give me her papers and transfer. Yes, she really was an American Oberhasli with a pedigree going back to some really great Seneca Valley lines and others as well. She was linebred on Seneca Valley Hedrick 20+ times that I counted. Her grandsire on maternal side was Barabbas, a well known buck in this area.

We lost her at 10 years old and even though she was always a free spirit, miss her terribly. Hubby especially liked to treat her. Her took her out apples, starlight mints, crackers, and other treats. In that way she was thoroughly spoiled. I should have called her "Beginners Luck."