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