Daisy Goat had triplets early this morning. She didn't come out to eat with the other goats, so I went down to the shed to check on her expecting that she probably had her babies. There were three, but two of them were dead. They were big healthy looking kids. I don't know what happened, but I expect that she just had them so close together that she couldn't get them all cleaned up in time. I feel bad that I wasn't there to help her. The babies probably would have survived. I'm kind of beating myself up over not being attentive enough. I knew she was going to have them just at any minute.
The one that lived is a boy. He has Billy's signature frosted ears, but the rest of him looks like his mom, as did the other two.
Daisy's teats are HUGE and the baby doesn't seem to be able to get them in his mouth or find the tip. He just keeps trying to suck on them halfway up. He can't even do it when I show it to him and squirt him in the face. So I looked up on the internet what to do if this happened. The sites I read said to milk the mother out some to reduce the size of the engorged teat so the baby could latch on and he'll figure it out in a couple of days.
As far as I could tell, he hadn't been able to eat all day, so I milked Daisy for a few minutes and got about 10 ounces. This is an eight ounce bottle, which I filled and fed to the baby. I had to force it in his mouth, but after he got the first gulp, he sucked the whole thing down. He still wanted more and I tried to get him to latch on to his mother, but he still couldn't do it. I guess I'll be getting up in the middle of the night to do it all again.
When we drove up the drive coming home from church, we saw that Pansy had her babies while we were gone. Two boys. In three seasons of having baby goats, we have only produced one surviving female. I guess Billy has the boy gene or something. Hyacinth should be having her baby soon. Hopefully, she'll have a girl.
I think Daisy is going to produce huge amounts of milk and she was sooo easy to milk - nothing like when we first got her and she was a wild and kicking. And nothing like obstinate Hyacinth.
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2 comments:
Oh, thats so sad. Isn't it kinda rare that they have 3? Hopefully the 3rd will survive Daisy won't be so upset. Life on the farm is rough. I don't think I could do that.
No, I think it is rather common for them to have triplets. The surviving one is very healthy, but still has been unable to nurse. It's not that he's weak, it's just that he can't seem to FIND the end of the teat.
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