The End of Kidding Season

Finally!  This has been an exhausting and long season.  I was able to be present at the labor of all but one of the does and saw all but four kids born.  Sixteen kids, eleven boys, and five girls.  Last year I got lucky and had mostly girls.  It's difficult to sell the bucklings.  Most people just want one buck for their herd, but several does.  So unless someone is looking for a herd sire, it's hard to find a buyer.

This was the last doe to kid.  She's one of the does that I bought from a dairy last year.  She's a couple of years old, so I assumed she had kidded before.  But, I noticed towards the end of her pregnancy that her udder wasn't getting nearly as big as the older does.  So I started thinking that this might be her first time.  She had a harder time giving birth than the other does and had to push very hard.  Then when the kid was born, her behavior just confirmed to me that it was her first time.  She seemed shocked that a baby had just appeared and was unsure what to do about it.  

She finally figured it out and was an old pro by the time the third one appeared.

A boy and a girl.

And this little boy.

Since the doe is kind of an unusual color (registered as grey, but she's actually kind of a taupe color), I was hoping for some kids that looked like her.  I was disappointed that all three look very much like the sire.

I'm Seeing Moonspots

Hey, more babies were born yesterday morning.  See, I was waaaay off on the due dates (21 days!) for the two does that I bought last summer.

I had to go to court for my CASA volunteer job in the afternoon, but I could see that she was in early labor in the morning when I went to the barn to take the goats out.  Also, she didn't want to go out, which is very unusual for her.  So, I spent the morning watching her.  I was afraid I was going to miss it, but she had her first one about 15 minutes before I had to go get ready to leave.  Thankfully, daughter-in-law was willing and able to take over my midwife duties and she made sure the second was born safely and I didn't have to worry about losing any.

First one born.

These babies were from a doe with what is called "moonspots".  People who have goats seem to really like the moonspots.  The are pretty cute.

Second one - black like Billy, moonspotted like the mom.

 

Aw.  I *heart* him.

Will have to come up with a flower name that also has "heart" in it, but all I can think of is a Bleeding Heart.

Oh yeah, and...

The guineas started laying eggs this past week.  The eggs are about half, maybe three quarters the size of chicken eggs.  I haven't eaten any yet, so I don't know how they compare.

Liam the Goat Wrangler

Liam is a great help in the morning with the milk goats, Daisy and Hyacinth, and their kids.  They stay in the barn at night so I don't have to bring them in in the morning to milk.  After milking, they all go out to the pasture.  Daisy is still a bit reluctant to come out of the barn and start the walk out to the pasture for the day, mostly due to her fear of Harry, and of course, Harry has to be present.  Sometimes, I have to run back and forth carrying the babies so she'll follow.  It's hard for me to carry the feed bucket and pick up kids and if I set the bucket down, Hyacinth will raid it and tip it over and generally wreak havoc.

  So, Liam carries the feed bucket and walks on ahead; Hyacinth and her kids follow him while I stay behind and urge Daisy past Harry.

  Once she's past Harry, she's fine and everyone moves quickly to the pasture to join the other four does and ten kids.

Afterwards, we walk back to the barn to clean up the stall (or, "snall" as Liam calls it) so that it will be ready for them to come back to in the evening.  He likes to get a rake to scoop goat poop and get the hose to fill up the water bucket.

The End of Kidding

All the goats kidded within twelve days of each other.  We have fourteen in all, having lost one of Daisy's triplets.  It was discovered with the sac still over it's head just moments after she gave birth to all three and was almost done cleaning them up.

The surviving two girls, brown like all the others she's ever had.

Buttercup, the Boer had two chunky little females.

No wonder she was so enormous.

Evil Kiko surprised me by having triplets.  They were the smallest of all the kids this year.  True to her nature, she threatens me when I try to handle her kids.  They'll probably turn out being the wildest of the bunch.

Two females - a grey one and a multicolored one

and a brown male that looks almost identical to Pansy's brown ones.

After a few days in the barn for some taming time, they've all been transitioned out into the pasture.  I definitely don't want to add any more does.  Fourteen kids is too many for me to handle.  The only change I might be making is replacing Hyacinth because of her udder problems.

It's That Time of Year Again

It's kidding season and we've had seven babies so far. 

 

Hyacinth had her two black kids like she always does, a boy and a girl - the spitting image of Billy.  And, as usual, her udder is congested and as big as a basketball.  I'm milking her for the colostrom (only getting about a cup) and adding it to the milk I froze from last year and bottle feeding the kids.  I'm also trying to get them to nurse as often as possible so they won't be totally dependent on the bottle.

The following picture is gross, so if you can't take gross, close your eyes and scroll down.

 

I'm posting it because it is also pretty cool.  Nephew Jordan happened to be in the barn when Hyacinth went into labor and he alerted me.  We were able to watch the kids being born.  Jordan took video with his phone.  If you want to see better, click on the picture to make it bigger.  What you're looking at is the head of the second kid coming out of the birth canal.  You can see that it's head is still completely enclosed in the sac and it's eyes are open and little tongue kind of sticking out.  It stayed like this for several minutes.  I actually was getting a little nervous about it because I sure didn't want to have to go in there and assist.  She finally did pop it out all at once, thank goodness.

And here are Pansy's triplets.  She was still cleaning them up this morning when I went into the barn, so they had just arrived.

 This is the boy.  He's a big 'un.

This one's a girl.  Isn't she a doll?  She must have been first because she was all cleaned up.

 

Another girl.  I thought she was black at first, but when she got mostly cleaned up, it turns out she looks very much like her sister.

We have three does to go.  Hopefully, they'll all be done kidding within the next couple of days.