Like any good nerd, as soon as results were posted and I realized I drew the tag books were ordered.
1. A Beast the Color of Winter
2. Life on the Rocks
I also scoured the internet for anything I could find to try and understand goats better. After reading these books I realized I didn’t know as much as I thought I did about these animals.
From a conservation standpoint, I found it interesting that goats weren’t native to this area. Transplant efforts started in the 1940’s and though natural range expansion they colonized into the surrounding areas. One being the mountain range my tag is good for. So, all things considered, they’re relatively new to the area.
I learned Nannie’s will carry their winter coats longer into the summer. This ended up being a very helpful trick for determining nanny vs. billy on some of the early scouting trips. Anyone that’s wrangled young kids knows it can be a lot of work; the theory is the billies have more time to tend to their coats because they're not dealing with the duties of raising kids.
Early on, determining Billy vs Nanny during the hunt was another concern of mine. After months of scouting and observing goats I feel like I’ve got a decent handle on this. I've been fortunate to stumble across a dozen plus billies thus far and after a couple minutes of observation, their tendencies/behavior patterns are pretty distinguishable. I've had multiple dry lone nannies observed from miles away cause me to burn a lot of boot leather but after getting in close It was obvious I was fooled.
Dry/old nannies play a critical role in the dynamics of the heard. The matriarch females help pass down knowledge to the up and coming nannies.
My goal is to find a mature billy with quality hair. Ideal timeframe is now through the end of the season.
Determining a mature billy can be a challenge to a novice like myself. One of the books mentioned a young Billy will already have 90+% of its horn length by age 3 to 4. You can imagine when you're dealing with only 8-9" of horn the challenges that could present. A small face with large horns can make them look exceptional. Through talking with people more knowledgeable and reading I'm learning that body size and behavioral habits are far more important than horn length when trying to target an older age class billiy. I'm also realistic on size expectations. The unit is not known for high scoring goats, not a top priority of mine anyways. Here are a couple photos the rocky mountain goat alliance had on their webpage. I thinkg they highlight the challenge of judging. Ideally I get in close enough to see rings, but to be honest as shown below I'm not sure I could even accurately determine what counts as a ring.
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I am liable to still screw this up but with the time I have and the billies I've seen I think there will be an option that will fit the bill just fine. The more mature one's ive seen are hanging in groups. I'm hopeful if I get in close enough and having the ability to compare the decision will become clear.
My little cheat sheet from a stock google image:
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We're starting in May lol...giving you a little insight to the way my brain operates.
