If you have been following our blogs you know that I have been obsessed with goats since I was about 10 years old, but I really wasn't in a goat-centric (if that's a word!) family. My parents enjoyed the few goats I had growing up but breeding was out of the question, but my passion and my goal of owning, breeding and milking goats never faded. I went through the natural progression of life with college, marriage and then looking for land to have my own farm and finally at 30 years old I completed one of my goals of breeding, kidding and milking my own doe. All thanks to Zoey! It was not an easy road as we have bred Ivy two years in a row without her settling. (her cloudburst pregnancy will be another blog) Finally, through the purchase of Zoey I was able to have my very first kidding!
I am someone who likes to be prepared, so I double and triple checked my kidding kit weeks before her due date to ensure I had all the tools I needed. I also called around to several different vets making contingency plans, because my vet does not do emergency calls on off hours. Finally, I slept with my barn camera on the night stand next to my bed with the volume on to alert me to any impending kidding. I even made my sister move her 21st birthday party closer to our home in order to be close in case Zoey went into labor.
I checked tail ligaments every day for weeks to understand what normal felt like and the night of April 1st Zoey had very loose ligaments and was dripping milk. I came in and told my husband we are going to have kids in the next 24 hrs. Sure enough when I went to the barn to do chores on April 2nd I saw hay stuck to mucus on Zoey's tail and I said today is the day. I completed chores and got my kidding kit, book and my computer and decided to spend as long as it took in the barn with her. She labored until 2PM and did not make a sound. Around 2 PM she laid down and pushed twice, so I started by timer for 30 minutes, knowing that if we did not have progress by then something was wrong. After about 5 pushes I saw a beautiful pink nose presenting!
Zoey silently delivered a beautiful black and white doeling! I quickly cleaned her off and suctioned her mouth out and gave her to momma who began cleaning and licking her immediately. Seconds after that another beautiful brown, black and white kid was born, a little buckling! He had a significant amount of fluid in his mouth which took longer to clear, but soon he was breathing smoothly and joined his sister! Then to my great surprise a third kid emerged! She was half the size of the other two, but a strong and vibrant little doe!
I continued to dry the kids, clean up the pen and wait for the placenta to pass. During this time I was in awe as to how textbook perfect the delivery was and how easy Zoey seemed to manage her first kidding! All of the kids were up within an hour and had received colostrum, so I left the barn to give mom and babies some time to bond.
Come back next week to learn more about our new kids!
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