Expanding goat herd

Our goat herd will be expanding this summer (Lord willing). We got the wonderful news from my wife's father and step-mother this week. They live in the UP (that's the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for those of you outside of Michigan) and had a lot to do with us getting our first two girls. If it hadn't been for the postitive things we heard from them about the joys of goats we may not have ventured forth and purchased our own goats. Regardless, they informed us this week that they're don't want to have all the chores associated with the goats, and that we could have an early Christmas if we wanted their beautiful buck "Billy" and their does and kids. They are all Lamancha goats and we're absolutely thrilled to know that they felt led to give their small herd to us. Billy, the buck, is a remarkable animal and will add some great strength to our small group of goats. We're going to attempt to get them over Memorial Day weekend when we go up to visit them . . . although we have not finalized this with them so it may be July before our group of goats expands. We're planning to put the does and kids in with our does and sheep - although we need to figure out how to de-horn the does as our goats don't have horns and the does we're getting do . . . a potentially lethal combination. I'm confident that disbudding the kids will be relatively straight forward, yet I've heard that de-horning the does could be quite a tramatic experience - for them and us. I'm going to be calling our vet this week to determine what he recommends. We're fortunate to have a vet in the area that specializes in goats and sheep . . . they're insight has been very helpful in the past and we're thankful we can call on them once again for this.