Five new goat babies!

So it's a long story as it was a long night, that I'm not up for telling...too tired. But the short of it was both Rose and Xanadu went into labor last night. Xan kidded to the doeling above, a black and tan as well as the chamoisee buckling that Noah is greeting. Rose kidded an hour later to three good sized bucklings, two black and white boys and I guess the technical name is light red, although he looks butterscotch colored with white markings. I finished up at four a.m. All the kids and moms were well. This morning one of the kids was weak. I must not have got enough colostrum and milk into him before I retired to bed. He is in the house today and we've been feeding him with a drenching syringe. I hope to have him back with his mom and brothers by the time I go to bed. So that's it for kidding season, six boys, two girls and three does with nice big udders full of milk. I milked a quart out of Xoe's lopsided udder today. Can't wait to be swimming in milk. Tomorrow we take the first kids to get them disbudded. I think we'll also be putting up woven mesh fencing on the outside of the electric strands, so we don't have any kids ducking the wire and getting lost.

First of the goat kid pics of 2010

 Here are some pictures of the new kids at twenty four hours old. We have been dealing with serious computer issues this week. On top of that I've been having difficulties downloading pictures, ergh! The weather has been too nice to be inside frustrated with the computer anyways so I've been slower than usual in sharing pictures. Above, I'm drying off the first kid, a girl!

I got around to weighing the kids yesterday when they were about twenty four hours old. The doeling was seven and a third pounds, the first boy was six and a half and the second boy was five and three quarters. In this picture the smaller buck is on the left and the doeling to the right. Below is the youngest buck, he has the start of a white belt on his belly.

Above and below are pictures of the doeling. I think we are going to name her Asia. For those of you who are not in the world of naming goats, each year the American Dairy Goat Association recommends a letter to begin goat names with, as a way of keeping track of when goats were born. Obviously you can go along with the naming system, or not. I find it kind of handy. There are so many names out there, it is nice to have some guidelines. We bought our goats on an X year, so all of their names began with X! Then our first kidding year was Y, then Z. We are so ready to be past X, Y and Z names. If Xanadu has a doeling I'm leaning towards the name Avalon, another mythical place name. If Rose has a doeling I kind of like Apple, but I might try to find a flower name. I'm not to fond of Amaranth, Aster, Azalea or Allysum? We don't know if we will be keeping Asia or selling her. It depends on how many more kids we have. I'd like to keep two....

The first boy is on the left, not a very good picture of him though. I included this one because it was Noah's first meeting with the goats. Today we took a bunch more pictures with Avery and Grannie and the kids. Maybe I'll get those together tomorrow. I am pretty sure Xan is expecting. I trimmed her udder area yesterday and it looks like her udder is filling out just a bit. She and Rose are both due in the next week or so. Their early due date is Thursday and they could kid anytime the following ten days or so. It feels good to have Xoe's kidding behind us as she has been our problem mom, problem kidder. Rose has been doing lots of goat yoga, getting those kids into place. In the last two years she has kidded to a single white buckling the first year, and last year a white buckling and a black and white doeling who we kept, no issues either kidding and a great mom. Xan has only had a sole buckling her first year and last year failed to breed. I would love to have a doeling from her. She is as big as a house, so maybe there are a couple in there!

First Goat Kidding of the Season

Xoe kidded to a doeling and two bucks tonight!!!! They are all black and tan like mom and dad, however, the doeling has less tan than usual, all black around the mouth, chin and nose. I haven't weighed them yet but they are all about the same size, five to six pounds each I'm guessing. This is Xoe's first positive kidding/ nursing/mothering experience so we are all very excited. She has had traumatic deliveries and has rejected her kids initially her past two kiddings.

Two nights ago I was checking in on Xoe at four a.m. and was sure she was in labor. I ended up staying up a couple hours to realize that if she was, nothing was happenning any time soon. We've been watching her like hawks, maybe too closely, for the last couple days. We ignored her for most of today and noticed some obvious contractions mid afternoon. By six p.m. we decided she was in heavy labor, she was beginning to brace against the ground with her back legs during contractions, which were fairly consistent and long. After sitting with her for over an hour her labor began to stall, and it seemed as if the contractions were letting up. We decided I should lube up and go in just to see if I could tell what was going on. I could feel a head upside down with a leg in front of it, but the kid was way in there and not close to coming up. I didn't feel any other kids tangled or nearby and decided to back out and see if things would pick up, as I had popped her water while searching around.

Shortly thereafter she begin to push out a head. My bucket with supplies was about fifteen feet away. I had latex gloves and a tub of warm water and lubricant ready. Within a minute I was back with my right hand, gloved and lubricated pushing the head back before it came all the way out. I followed her neck down and felt the right leg, grabbed it and pulled it forward, switched over to her left side, another contraction almost pushed her head out again. I grabbed the left leg and pulled it forward and then grabbed both legs together and during the same contraction pulled the kid out, in less than I minute. Can you tell, I am proud of myself!  In case you are wondering, kids usualy cannot be delivered with their legs back against their bodies. Instead  their legs need to be in the diving position. The first kid was the doeling, an exciting start to the season! The next boy was upside down and backwards, a position which can be delivered in, and he came right out. We were busy drying everyone off and moma was busy licking her kids. I tried the bouncing technique described by Molly on her Fiasco Farm site and was pretty sure I felt another kid inside. Finally Xoe took a break from her kids to deliver the third, which came out in the proper position.

We moved doe and kids into the back stall with fresh hay, water (and molasses water), grain and a heat lamp. There we continued to dry everone and help the kids nurse. We made sure all three kids got several good sucks before we left them to rest a bit. It is now eleven p.m. and we are inside watching Xoe and her kids on the T.V. via surveilance camera. At the moment one is resting, two are standing and every once in a while they try stepping or hopping and fall into a tangled heap. So far Xoe is doing great with the exception of accidentally stepping on the kids a few times. We'll be helping the kids nurse one more time before we go to bed and again in the middle of the night or early morning. It takes the kids a while to get the hang of finding the teat and latching on. It is vital that they nurse soon after kidding and then every couple hours after that. We are highly involved in enabling and forcing the kids to nurse initially and then making sure we see them nurse every time we visit for the first couple days.


I'm hoping to get some pictures uploaded tomorrow....Been thinking of A names, thats right no more X, Y and Z, thank goodness. This year the official letter to begin names, (if you wish to be a trend follower or conformist) is A. We bought our first kids on an X year, then thought of Y names, then Z names and now we are finally getting around to something different. Other naming restrictions that we have imposed on ourselves are that Rose's kids have flower or botanical names, Xanadu's kids get place or mythical place names. I'm not sure about Xoe's kids, cute punky trendy names? Rose and Xanadu are both due next week, although we are still concerned that Xan might not be pregnant. On my four a.m goat check last night Rose (who is pure white) was standing in the middle of her pen doing yoga in the night. I'm not kidding. She was stretching, going into a downward dog like pose, and back up into cobra. Movin those babies into place. It was beautiful to see, wish I could have captured it on camera. Well here is to a sucessful start to our kidding season!