The Fat Lady Has Sung

Well folks, the fat lady has finally sung. When I did my chores this morning I looked at my last pregnant goat closely. I knew it would be today or tomorrow but you know how they have been plotting to have their babies while I am gone? Well I decided to go to town and do a few errands; fooling her into thinking I would be gone long enough to have them without me. Hah, I fooled her good, came home sooner than she expected and caught her with the first beautiful little 6 pound doeling fresh on the ground. Look at those georgeuos spots.

 I quickly moved her into a birthing pen and waited some more. I was thinking that due to the size of this little girl and the huge size of mama I could get a whole lot more babies. A half hour later another kid is coming. Wow, another doeling! And she is super cute too. Black with a white splash and with a black spot right in the middle of the white splash. But she is huge compared to her sister, 8 pounds 4 ounces. Five minutes later another kid is coming, a buck this time and he is big too at 8pounds. Again super cute, tons of spots! Here is a shot of mama drying off babies.

 I sort of expected at least one more kid due to shear size of mama lately but I guess those big kids were taking up a lot of space.

 Here are all three

All of my waiting has been worth it and God has surely blessed me. Now I am excited to get enough milk to make some cheese.

Did the Fat Lady SIng?

You've heard it said that it ain't over till the fat lady sings? No one has started singing yet but the day is not over. I looked down into the barn today and thought that one of the goats was in labor. Here she is:

Doesn't she look like she is just going to burst?

I headed down to the barn to check and as soon as I rounded the hay feeder I saw two brand new babies from the only other doe that hadn't kidded yet. Of course she had them in the only spot that I can't see from the house. What did I tell you? They are plotting to have them without me. I scooped them up, took them into the milk parlor and finished drying them off. Two very large doelings. 8.6 and 8 pounds. These babies are already about the size of Saturdays largest kid. I had to put red collars on them just to tell tham apart. This is one of the new doelings.

In this picture you can see the one with the collar in comparison to the others

 Here is a picture of the percentage boers that were born on Sunday. Don't they look comfortable napping in the sun?

 I'll let you know as soon as the last fat lady sings.

A Watched Goat Doesn't Kid

Everyone has heard the old adage that a watched pot doesn't boil; well I contend that a watched goat doesn't kid. I have been watching and waiting for weeks now. Anxiously awaiting the birth of my cute little goat babies. I have been looking forward to spending time in the barn and especially looking forward to watching the babies jump and play as they grow bigger. Thursday night I dreamed that I went down to the barn and there were babies everywhere. This is not good since I try to attend every birth, take the babies from the moms and bottle feed them to ensure that they bond with me. This makes for a friendlier milker in the future. In my dream, panic set in as I tried to scoop up babies as fast as I could. I woke up in a sweat, went to my window, got my binoculars and peered into the barn. Nope, no babies yet, whew! The next night I dreamed that all of the babies were born while I was away. I knew that I did have to take an out of town trip soon so I called my niece to come over and give me a second opinion on when the goats would kid. We decided that they could go anytime from a couple more days to a couple more weeks. No one looked too awfully close to giving birth so I decided that I would take my day trip the following day. I went down to the barn the next morning to feed before I left and checked everyone again. I thought that the spotted doe looked like she was getting closer so before I left I asked my hubby to check on her throughout the day. Well, birthday shopping with youngest and middle daughters took longer than expected so I got a later start home than I would have liked. About 4 o'clock I called home and told hubby to have next to youngest go feed the goats and I asked him if he had checked on them. He assured me that he had and that nothing was going on. About five minutes later I get this panic stricken phone call from next to youngest, "Mom. There are babies everywhere!" She did goat 4-H for 4 years and assisted me with most births for the last 6 years so I was confident that she could handle it with the help of her dad. When I later got a status report I found out that we had two moms give birth- six goat babies-one that was dead when she was found. I think that the mom had too many kids and just missed getting her out of the sack in time. That is why it is important to attend the births. We think that one doe had quads and the other had twins, unfortunately in the frenzy of the moment my daughter didn't pay any attention to which kids belonged to which doe. Oh well, she did very well with the situation considering her state of panic. The next day while I was feeding the kids our percentage boer doe gave birth to two doelings and a buckling. We have two more does to kid and while I am still watching them closely I am pretty sure that they are scheming to give birth the minute that I am not home.

There are a couple of short videos posted in my flickr photos check it out

Wordless Wednesday-A Not So Flattering Moment In Time

Wordless Wednesday-A Not So Flattering Moment In Time

One Of These Things Is Not Like The Others

Only one of these does is not bred, can you guess which one? Looking at them from this aerial view in my hay loft reminded me a lot of Sesame Street. Do you remember that little song they used to sing? Maybe they still sing it; my kids are too old for it now. One of these things is not like the other. I know you are singing it in your head right now. This view really shows how big the girls are getting.

I expect babies any day now. My Boer/Nubian (that is the white one) doe, NutMegan should be first. She does not really want to leave the barn today. Usually the girls all go out to the big pasture together to graze. NutMegan has not been very willing to follow today. She looks at the other does longingly. She wants to follow but her instincts tell her to stick close to home. That is a good sign that she is getting close.

I will post more pictures and updates as the babies start coming so check back often.