• Colin Flanders ©️ Seven Days
• Magic Mike

He's ugly, he stinks, he'll eat anything put in front of him — and he might just be Vermont's most eligible bachelor. Meet Magic Mike, a randy goat who's always ready to rendezvous.

The 200-pound buck lives at Bridgman Hill Farm in Hardwick, where he has emerged as the star stud among a small group of males kept solely for the purpose of procreation. He was thrust into the coital calling because of his aristocratic bloodline, but he has brought to it an unmatched enthusiasm — to the point that his farmers must sometimes mist him with diluted vinegar to separate him from a doe.

He has sired so many kids in his three short years of life that he can no longer fraternize with females younger than him on the good chance that they're his daughters.

It's not just his sexual appetite that makes him the ideal stud, though. Farmers are always looking to improve the genetics of their herd, and the best way to do that is by breeding animals with desirable traits. At Bridgman Hill, husband-and-wife duo Ryan Andrus and Annie Rowden are on a mission to raise an ultra-productive line of goats that can produce milk year-round instead of on the typical seasonal schedule. That would enable them to run their farm more efficiently and maintain a steadier cash flow, important goals in an industry built on razor-thin margins.

A secret weapon in achieving this vision: Magic Mike's DNA. His mother, Late Night, has been milking for 1,000 days straight, three times longer than the average goat. "He's now a full-size, big, mean, ugly buck, but his mom's still milking as if he's still a baby," Andrus said.

So-called "extended lactation" provides several main benefits over the traditional approach to goat farming, Andrus said. Because female goats only lactate after giving birth, farmers seek to breed them annually. But repeated pregnancies can be hard on the animals, and managing kids is labor-intensive. Plus, when goats are gestating, they're not producing milk. That can leave farms without enough product to sell in the winter, when demand for dairy is highest. Prolonging the time goats can stay in production helps both the animals and the bottom line, Andrus said.

Of course, making this vision a reality requires a ton of work. Andrus compares it to professional athletes: "You've got a nutritionist, a PT person, a masseuse — all these people that help manage their body so that it can operate at this extremely high level. For us, with extended lactation, it's comparable. It's high energy in and high energy out."

Andrus has come up with a specially tailored feed and says maintaining consistent daily routines helps reduce the herd's stress level. He also uses LED lights in one barn to simulate sunlight, which tricks the goats into thinking it's summer year-round. Otherwise, the animals ovulate in the fall, which can cause their milk production to decline.

But nothing beats out good ol' genetics.

Late Night appears to have the right stuff. Aside from her remarkable lactation longevity, she's also produced an average of 4.3 liters of milk daily over the past three years. That's like another "GOAT" — Tom Brady — who won his seventh Super Bowl ring at the age of 43.

Her most recent buckling, Magic Mike, was identified as a potential stud from the moment he was born. He was officially christened once it became clear he had all the other necessary physical traits — including a wide rump and a girthy tail.

While he may have been predestined for the role, there's no question Mike has made it his own. Even the most promising bucks can disappoint, plagued by low sperm counts or lackluster sex drives. Mike, however, is ready for action year-round. That's important, because breeding on the farm is dictated not by the seasons but by what the data say.

Bridgman Hill has roughly 450 goats, 300 of which are currently in milk production. The farm bottles its milk under the brand Oak Knoll Dairy and sells any excess to Jasper Hill Farm, which uses it in a variety of specialty cheeses. Does are equipped with tiny computer chips that Andrus uses to track their yield. Those that fall under a certain threshold are sent to be bred.

The process from there can feel analogous to "The Bachelor." Sometimes, Mike is placed in a pen with 20 or 30 females. Other times, when Andrus wants to ensure a specific pairing — perhaps because he wants to introduce Mike to another high-performing female — he will bring them into a pen for a one-on-one date. "Might take an hour to make sure they connect, and it's done," Andrus said.

Magic Mike does share a name with the male stripper in the eponymous movies starring Channing Tatum. But there's nothing sexual about the goat's moniker. It refers to the supernatural ability he had of escaping his pen as a kid, usually by jumping fences. This ability, too, seems to have been passed down; his father's name is Jumping Jack Flash.

Andrus named Magic Mike with the help of his young daughter and said he is aware of the movies but has never seen them. Like the main character in the films, however, Mike has emerged as the undeniable leader of the five bucks in the herd. It helps that he's simply much bigger than his counterparts.

"He's the boss, and he knows it," Andrus said one morning last week, leaning on a broom he was using to sweep up poop that had spilled into the barn's walkways.

Mike had just emerged from a small pack of females and placed his hooves on the fence of his pen to regard a visiting reporter. Patches of gray cover his snout and ears, breaking up his otherwise all-black coat; his eyes bulge out from the sides of his basketball-size head, the center of which sports a huge hump where his horns would have grown had he not been disbudded as a buckling. He remained like this for a few minutes, trying to decide whether the human stranger in front of him was a threat.

Eventually, a doe came over and nuzzled her head against his beefy haunch, as if to calm him down. The buck hopped down from the fence, bit off a few tufts of hair from the back of his companion, swallowed them, then laid against the wall of the barn with a huff.

Magic Mike can use all the rest he can get, as his services are increasingly crucial.

Bridgman Hill currently can't produce enough milk to meet all the demand for its bottled products, and Andrus and his wife have considered growing their herd. That's not as simple as just buying more goats; the animals are susceptible to diseases, and mixing herds can be risky. "It's kind of like a kindergarten classroom, where you just end up sharing endemic viruses," Andrus said.

Instead, should the farmers decide to expand, they would seek to grow from within. That means Magic Mike could eventually be an even busier buck.