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.