But wait! There's even MORE!!!

Just before getting up, I can hear our dogs and other dogs howling in the distance.
Mike says, "I hear a new kid".

"You're hearing coyotes or dogs."

"Every once in a while I can hear it."

I can't. I am in disbelief. But when he goes out in the 26-degree weather to feed the animals, I sense he may be right. But I'd never tell him.

I prepare our lunches and coffee and clean up the kitchen a bit for the afternoon when we both return from work.

He comes in twenty minutes later.

"I was right. Twins. They're beautiful. They look like Boer, not like 9 or her other kids."

That makes sixteen healthy kids, now, and three more nannies who will be kidding soon! Gah!

barn creature pics

<--Blank - "pfffthhhhh" (just look at that tongue)


Mike and one of 17's kids. --->

<--19 with her new kid. and below, six and her new kid.

Keep 'em comin'

Oh, boy.

When Mike and I went to work this morning, there were no more kids... but he just arrived home and went to look in the barn.

19 had her kid (first picture)... a big one! We've had her 'put away' for about a week so that she could kid and she's been giving us false signs for a while.






Blank had her kids - the first trips that actually look like they're going to survive. She was about the size of the side of the barn, so this is good.. but she had them in the wooded area.

While Mike's on the phone with me telling me this, he also says that he can't find 215. She was due as well -- then he sees her and says, "two more! they look just fine!" (also in the wooded area) And Brisket was defending her against Mike. At least the dog's doing his job.

A kid bleats loudly, waking us both up at around 5:45 this morning.

"Stuck kid or lost?"

"Dunno." He puts on his robe and shoes and goes out to the barn. Then I hear his feet coming back a minute or two later, more quickly.

"Get up. Delores had triplets. One's dead. She's in the middle of the entrance to the barn."

Okay. Clothes first, and I grab some for Mike, too. He's getting stuff in the kitchen for Delores - probably molasses water at this point. I dress quickly and we take towels out to the kids. We have to get them into a stall along with Mom so that the other goats don't trample them. Delores was already defending them against Brisket, so that was a good sign. We needed more good signs, though.

One of the kids seemed dead, but wasn't. It was the smallest, probably not weighing more than ten ounces or so. It died about ten minutes after it was born.

We left the other two with her in a stall- the one that was screaming was the healthiest and largest of the three, but still very weak and not able to stand. Delores, while Mike was heating goat milk, would not deal with her kids and seemed very hungry. That's all she really cared about was eating so we thought that giving her as much grain as she wanted would help her to go back to her kids and start taking care of them. Mike tried to get both of them to drink from Delores' teat, but nothing doing. Neither kid wanted to.

I had already wiped the smaller of the two with a towel, but the other one was still quite wet. So it seemed like Delores had everything under control and we left. We ate breakfast and read the newspaper, then went out again.

This time, things were a little different. The littlest goat was barely moving and the other one was still quite wet. Delores, despite having stolen a kid from another goat last year, just wasn't interested in these. We took both of them into the house and sat by the fire to warm them up. We cleaned them and gave them some formula that was frozen from last year.

But the littlest one wouldn't do much but breathe... and Mike gave it milk, but the kid wasn't destined for this life. The other one I fed successfully and dried off. It has a healthy set of lungs and will be a screamer. These are both male.

After the littlest one died (pictured), we took the healthier one (above) and cleaned it more, then put it back into the stall with Delores. She nosed it, and I really wondered if she would accept it back. She was crying for her kids when we left and when we came back to the barn with it. We put it on the ground in the stall and she held her nose to it. I think that's just how they get the kid warm. She also tried to nuzzle it to see if it would stand and eat, but nothing doing. I think, at this point, it was exhausted from our terrorizing efforts of trying to keep it alive. I also think it will survive, but it will take some encouragement and the ability to stand - to be able to reach Delores' teat.

And did we expect Delores to kid? To have TRIPLETS? Hell, no. But this has definitely been a surprising kidding season and it's only just begun.

And Mike says,

"It feels like we've already had a full day."

"You didn't expect to get anything DONE today, did you?"

Just wait 'til all the rest pop - all at once, all while we're out somewhere leading our lives.





THIS JUST IN: - We went to sleep for an hour and what happens? We both get up to new screaming. At first I thought it was Delores' kid, but then Mike went out and, again, came back -- but in less of a hurry. Two more kids from 71. She'd been in labor when we were out there, apparently, and had two beautiful kids - one buck, one doe.

That's ten. Five today and five on the 19th of January.

We tested Delores' nipple and found that it squirts well. We put the kid up to it (can't yet stand) and she fed.






BUT WAIT! There's MORE! Six just kidded. One very large one. In fact, it may be larger than any of the ones so far. That makes six today.












As a follow-up, we lost all three of Delores' trips - they were just born too early and not developed enough to stand on their own. It's always sad to lose one goat, but three is a lot more difficult to bear, particularly when you've tried to keep them alive for so long.

Yet to kid this year (but pregnant and due SOON).

Blank 6
71
215
216
9
205
19
28
201

That's a lot of goats. That's a lot of kids.

Kidding!

Really. It's kidding season, but we have about ten pregnant goats. Today, two kidded. Last night, one died while kidding. One also (about two weeks ago) aborted its kids (213).

But tonight, we have five nannies in stalls - two stalls for those who kidded today (at around 10 and then again about 1pm, when we were out trying to return the cage that we had for the dog. Oops.. that was something else, too. Our new dog, Brisket, is entirely too wild to capture by hand.)

Wait. The goats. And why we have five stalls occupied at the moment. Two goats kidded (32 and 17). Thirty-two is a brand new mom and didn't quite GET how to clean its kid up and allow it to feed. Seventeen had her kids first, in the woods, and without notice. Hell, she wasn't even in the running for 'first to kid'. But she did, nonetheless. Had twins. The second one we thought she was going to just leave in the woods, so we had to show it the teat and allow it to feed -- after we dragged 17 and her kids into a birthing stall so they'd be safe from predators. Our dog, Brisket, probably ate the first afterbirth, but we don't know. He was licking his lips, though, when we went out to get the feed dish, scoop and water bowl that we'd left for 17.

So 32 kidded while we were out getting hay, but had no idea how to actually clean her kid off. And frankly, I think she was a little put off at first that it actually wanted to feed from her udder. I think it's all cool, now, so we don't have any bottle babies... yet.

So 12, one of our finest and smartest goats, is putting out major signs and we put her away today.. she may have her kids tomorrow or even late in the evening tonight.

Blank was just acting strange and doing what we thought was a first 'push', so we also put her into a birthing stall of her own. I think she appreciates the solitude.

And then there's 215 - Mike saw white goop coming out of her hiney and we put her into a birthing stall, as well.

This comes at the end of a day of canning 10 cans of chicken stock, putting wire on a stall just in case we had some that were birthing (oh, gee... just in time). And doing a million other things in the day, as usual.

But then there's Brisket. Yesterday, we set the trap that Mike got from the Bastrop Animal Control people a few days ago. We did capture poor Brisket and Mike was late this morning, but dropped the dog off at the vet -- I was following behind and had the day off... We thought Brisket would have to be anesthetized so that the vet could work on him, but that wasn't the case. We got him back around noon today - yes, you guessed it... just in time for kidding season to really get going. Brisket seems slightly less timid of us -- probably because now he knows that there are a lot crueler people out there that want to stick him with needles (vaccinations) and such. The collar came off and he's happily eating. Poor pooch. We just torture him so...

Tired. That's it for now.