The girls have been driving me crazy since last Monday. Bri was supposedly due that day (the 24th), but she still has yet to kid 10 days later. . . Oi.
Piper and Baerli both went over the due dates that I had calculated for them, but when I looked back at my breeding date notes, Baerli may have actually kidded right on time.
Piper went 3 days over her due date and had nice big triplet bucks!
They were 8.2, 9.3, and 8.4 lbs respectively. Her labor was fairly uneventful other than the first kid was born with one leg back, instead of the normal both-feet-first position. She was still able to have him without too much intervention, but we had to help her out a little by stretching her vulva some in order to get his shoulders out. By "we", I mean myself and two of the neighbor girls who actually have more goat experience despite being in college and high school. Piper's labor had been taking longer than I thought it ought to (probably delayed by the position of the kid) so I called them over for advice/assistance in case I needed more intervention.
The other two bucks came out fairly easily and in the correct position. They're all doing well and the boys are full of spunk! Paul calls one of them Knight, but hasn't decided on names for the other two yet. I call the biggest one Greg. If you "Like" my La-Maa Goat Milk Soap and La-Maa Alpines pages on Facebook, then you probably saw where I had a drawing and a follower got to name a goat. He picked Greg. So Greg it is.
Baerli kidded with two BIG buck kids just after midnight on Monday morning. I had to help pull both of them because their heads were rather large. Since Baerli is "Bo's goat", I let him name the kids. He picked Licky and Black. Not very creative, but that's what happens when you let a 4 year old choose.
Have you ever seen baby goats play? It's only one of the cutest things on Earth, backed by the fact that there are several videos of goats playing that have gone viral over the internet. So it must be true.
This video was taken when Piper's kids were just a couple of days old, so they're not quite up their max bouncing power. In a couple of weeks, they'll be in full-on Tigger mode.
Then there's Bri and Annie left. . . Now, Annie typically goes over her due date by about 5 days. She's due March 14th, but I'm not really going to get too excited until around the 19-20th. . .
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| Whoa Annie! |
Bri on the other hand. . . She's on day 160, 10 days over her due date. Now, I'm pretty certain of her due date, but I'm not going to say that there isn't the possibility that she got bred at a later date. . . Many a doe has gotten bred through the fence behind the back of their watchful goatherd. If she did, then I'm calculating her due date as March 17th, St. Patrick's Day, AND her birthday.
While it's an uncommon thing for humans to have a child on their birthday, in livestock it's quite common. There are many times that we go to record a birth for one of our cows and find that she's calved on her own birthday before and usually within a day of the date that she calved the year before. Not all cows follow this pattern, but it's not uncommon on our farm. So it's not impossible that Bri could actually be due in a couple of weeks.
Now, the issue is what to do with all of these buck kids. . . only the best bucks with the best genetics get to stay bucks. The rest are wethered (neutered). I usually sell mine to kids as 4-H projects, I prefer my wethers to go to these homes because I know that they'll have a cared-for life and most likely be pretty spoiled before they go to the auction at the end of the fair. The goats are taken care of, and I'm helping support today's youth both with a project for them to learn from, and they get to keep any money from the sale of their animals in the auction. Yes, most wethers wind up at the butcher's shop. It's part of farming, just like with cows, pigs, and chickens. Right now there is actually a growing demand for goat meat in the ethnic markets and among those who want a backyard source of meat that they know has been raised to their own standards.
I really hope to get at least 1 or 2 doe kids out of Bri or Annie, otherwise you might have to suffer through a grown woman crying. . . While I'm thankful that my girls are able to carry big healthy babies to full term, I can't keep all of these boys and my herd won't grow and improve without having doe kids.
Maybe this year I'll take the money from all of these boys and buy a new doe?
Husband would just be thrilled I'm sure. . .
