Christmas in March

Last night I had a hard time sleeping.  My first-freshening LaMancha Starr, was restless last night as evidenced by the pawing that I heard on my bedside barn monitor.  I got up at 2:22 am and peeked out my window into the barn. I had left a low-level light on in the barn so I could actually see inside a bit from my bedroom window.  All the does were up which is unusal for them at night and I attributed this to the fact that Starr, the herd queen, was restless and on the verge of kidding.  As the old saying goes, "if the herd queen ain't happy then nobody's happy".  Since I was awake, I pulled my muck boots on over my pj's, and went the barn conveniently located 20 feet from my back door.  A couple of goats were munching hay and Starr was generally moving around keeping all the does awake.  A quick check determined that she was not ready to deliver anytime soon so I went back to bed.  As I laid there trying to will myself a few more hours of sleep, it crossed my mind that this was just like Christmas when I was a kid.  I'd go to bed with butterflies in my tummy from excitement and anticipation of what I might find under the tree in the morning.  Now 50 years later it is the same feeling as the goats are nearing their delivery date with the same butterflies and the same getting up in the middle of the night.  The only difference is that  now I always make sure I'm there before Santa arrives so I can witness the miracle of new life being born in my barn.  What a privilege and thrill to have Christmas in March. 

Snowy blowy days

Now that February has arrived, winter has decided to pay us a visit.  Howling winds over the weekend and frigid temperatures have me scurrying about to cover up even my south-facing goat barn with tarps and mats.  Also it is generally heathier for goats not to be shut inside a barn all day as long as they have a bit of protection from fierce winds.

Not pretty but effective.

The goats also prefer to have the south side of their barn open so that they can peer out to see what is going on, but during swirling, blowing storms, snow tends to blow inside so I temporarily cover everything up.  Even so,I often see a  head or two sticking out from behind the tarps, with this "where ARE you, is time to EAT" look.  Also tucked inside is a quite pregnant Nigerian Dwarf that is due any day now. 


Jamboree: "I'm waiting for the coldest, snowiest night to have my babies."
Me:  "PLEASE wait until we have a nice sunny afternoon.  April woud be good."  




















Even Heidi who usually spends her time like this:

sometimes tucks inside the alley way to snooze in the hay out of the worst of the weather.

Anyway, we are officially on baby (and weather) watch!

Special delivery!

It has certainly been a whirlwind week down on the farm.  After getting settled into a steady and generally relaxing three months of winter, March arrived.  With a vengance.  Followed by babies.  Lots of babies!
Friday the second of March brought tornado warnings to our area which is generally an uncommon event in our region, especially in early March.  I had five goats about ready to pop and I was willing them from the confines of my root cellar where I was sitting, NOT to go into labor now.  Fortunately they listened and waited until Saturday afternoon.  It was a pleasant, mild day so I spent part of my afternoon on baby watch sitting in the kidding stall reading.

Its' a boy!

Snickers was getting restless so I knew we were off to the start of our kidding season.  She went into labor and after a half an hour or so she was getting nowhere in her delivery.  I don't like to intervene but I just felt in my gut there was a problem.  I mixed up my lubricating gel, slimed my hand and proceeded to investigate.  All I could feel was a large bony something and it wasn't a head.  I think it was a butt.  It seemed to be wedged on the pelvic bone.  I sort of pushed and manuevered the kid around and it finally presented and popped out.  A beautiful baby boy!  He was followed in rapid succession by his two sisters.  Ginger, Snickers' stall mate and twin sister began helping  clean the babies and also started cleaning the afterbirth from Snickers.  Apparently all this motherly activity was just too much for Ginger so in 3 hours Ginger went into labor and literally popped out her first kid.  She was standing up at the time and before I could grab a towel the kid went sliding under the gate in it's slimy birth sack.  The next two came within a few minutes while I was still drying off the first kid.  Whew.  Six kids on the ground and doing well.  Don headed off to wash towels and get ready for the next blessed event.

I keep a baby monitor in the bedroom and I woke to the sounds of a squeaking kid at 4am on Sunday.  I thought a kid had gotten separated from its mother somehow so I went out to check on the six babies.  I did a head count and all seemed to be tucked in close to their mommas.  Why do I still hear squeaking?  Uh-oh.  It seems to be coming from the adjacent pen.  I go in there and I see three wet babies with Do-Dah working frantically to clean them in the sub-freezing chill.  Do-Dah is a stoic little doe and somehow managed to have three kids without uttering a peep, let alone the screams that usually accompany labor.  I was temporarily in shock. I finally regained my composure and yelled into the baby monitor which woke up Don, who promply came down to help.  I plugged in the heat lamp to help dry and warm the babies.  Two were vigorous and squeaking  and looking for a meal.  The third little kid seemed chilled so we brought her into the house and warmed her with the hair dryer.  Soon she took a bottle and she became our first bottle baby.

Jamboree, Do-Dah's pen mate also helped clean her two remaining kids.  Twelve hours later Jamboree decided it was time for her own babies to make their entrance and popped out three of her own.  She also decided that they were not hers because she apparently adopted Do-Dah's kids.  Long story short, it was easier to make them bottle babies than to fight with Jam over feeding them so three more bottle kids came into the house.  I just love bottle kids though.  Because I decided before the kids came that I was going to only leave two kids on their moms, I also took one each of Ginger and Snickers' kids and started them on the bottle.  Ginger and Snickers didn't seem to mind because between the two of them they were both feeding and tending 4 kids.  That's enough for any goat mom.

With four does safely kidded and all bottle babies fed, I settle into bed for my long winters nap, only to be awakened at 4am...again on Monday.  Tenacious my older doe was calling and nickering and generally making enough noise that I got up to check on her.  She didn't look like she was in labor and she has a history of a long preparation period involving much noise (talking to her babies I like to think of it), nesting and general restlessness.  Being the kind and considerate doe she is, she waited for an appropriate period of time which allow us to have some much needed coffee and a bit of breakfast.

Oh did I mention it was snowing really hard at 4am?  So much for considerate.  Anyway, at 9:30 in the freezing barn under a heat lamp she had beautiful twins, a boy and a girl.  All 14 kids arrived in the space of about 30-some hours and were doing well.  Finally we could sit back and relax and watch (and feed) babies.

Preggars!

These are two of my Nigerian Dwarf does, Zippity Do-Dah on the left and Ginger on the right.  They look relatively normal. Granted, this was before their first pregnancy.

This is a picture of the same does in Jan 2012 and they are 3 months pregnant which means they are approximately two months away from delivering their kids. Not so normal.  Last year these two does each had  triplets.  This year I think they may be going to have a entire herd.