Chat
05-05-2016, 09:22 PM
We celebrated Cinco de Mayo by welcoming two more little ones into the world! I believe this is the first time a Goat-O-Rama gal has kidded right smack dab on her due date. We've got a little boy and a girl and we haven't named them yet, but I'm quite sure the names will be Hispanic in flavor given the holiday. Both are sundgau (I was expecting cou clair!), and the boy has some flashy little white markings on his face, legs, and side.
Petunia delivered the little critters all by herself like a champ (no going in and fishing anyone out like last time!), but true to her nature she was quite dramatic about it. There was a lot of build-up before the blessed event actually got underway. Petunia kept lying down, getting up, pushing, grunting, groaning, stretching, baa-aa-ing, looking at her side, grinding her teeth, and giving me pointed looks as if to say "Could you please DO something besides just sitting there staring at me??" I think she expected me to have the kids for her!
After almost an hour of preliminaries Petunia finally resigned herself to the fact that I wasn't going to do her job for her. Once the first baby started to come she really turned up the volume, but I tried not to let her theatrics frighten me into intervening too quickly. Once the feet came into view I gently helped pull, but I let her do most of the work and we soon had a healthy, long-legged baby boy on the ground. Phil got behind and was ready to help ease the second kid out, but she flew out too fast for Phil to do more than clean up the face a little before handing her to mom.
So all in all it was a nice, stress-free kidding. The babies are big and healthy (I didn't remember to weigh exactly how big because I forgot to put the hanging scale back in the kidding box after I took it to the WCGE two weeks ago). Petunia is enamored with her new babies and won't quit talking to them. There's been an endless stream of babble coming out of the kidding shed all day. Petunia was somewhat indifferent to her first kids two years ago, but not to these. She had a lot of good reasons why she wasn't a great mother the first time which is why I gave her another chance. I won't keep a goat that's a poor mother. But she's definitely redeeming herself this time around!
Petunia delivered the little critters all by herself like a champ (no going in and fishing anyone out like last time!), but true to her nature she was quite dramatic about it. There was a lot of build-up before the blessed event actually got underway. Petunia kept lying down, getting up, pushing, grunting, groaning, stretching, baa-aa-ing, looking at her side, grinding her teeth, and giving me pointed looks as if to say "Could you please DO something besides just sitting there staring at me??" I think she expected me to have the kids for her!
After almost an hour of preliminaries Petunia finally resigned herself to the fact that I wasn't going to do her job for her. Once the first baby started to come she really turned up the volume, but I tried not to let her theatrics frighten me into intervening too quickly. Once the feet came into view I gently helped pull, but I let her do most of the work and we soon had a healthy, long-legged baby boy on the ground. Phil got behind and was ready to help ease the second kid out, but she flew out too fast for Phil to do more than clean up the face a little before handing her to mom.
So all in all it was a nice, stress-free kidding. The babies are big and healthy (I didn't remember to weigh exactly how big because I forgot to put the hanging scale back in the kidding box after I took it to the WCGE two weeks ago). Petunia is enamored with her new babies and won't quit talking to them. There's been an endless stream of babble coming out of the kidding shed all day. Petunia was somewhat indifferent to her first kids two years ago, but not to these. She had a lot of good reasons why she wasn't a great mother the first time which is why I gave her another chance. I won't keep a goat that's a poor mother. But she's definitely redeeming herself this time around!