Goat Explosion!

 We have had a major goat explosion in the last seven days.  Actually seven kids in five days from three does!!  Yeah, it's been an exhausting week.  I'm going to sort the post out between each doe to help keep things easy to understand.  First the disclaimers... the pictures are bad because.. well cell phones, low light and red heat lamps for keeping kids warm just doesn't make for very good pictures.  It was cold and rainy all week.  We literally had five days straight of torrential downpours. A third of our property was under knee deep water several times, but luckily no buildings flooded.  Then there was the scary storms and tornado threats.  Have I ever mentioned I hate spring in the south?  Also none of the kids have names yet.  I'm trying to wait until they are all born before I decide which name I want to give to which kids (I have some picked out, just have to match them up). So I'll try to keep it as organized as possible without names.  We actually have numbers that go to each kid that I'll share at the end of the post.

First up an update on Zephyr in case you've missed anything.  She had twins on January 25th and I've shared birth pictures and pictures of them going out in the outdoor pen already.  Here are a few more just because they are adorable.

Hubby took a bunch of these pictures.  In the one above he opened the door and it startled Zephyr's buckling and he locked up in the rear legs for the first time (these are Myotonic goats, often called fainting goats).  He has since fallen completely over one time that we saw when Georgia tried to head butt him for climbing in her hay.  I missed both times because I'm always at work.  I try to spend time with them every day after work, but it's too dark for pictures by the time I get home.

They have both started helping Zephyr eat her food.

The buckling likes to pretend he's terrified of humans, but he still loves sitting in our laps.  He's in hubby's lap in the above picture.  Any red or pink you see in all of these pictures is the glow from the heat lamps.

Both of Zephyr's twins in hubby's lap.

The little doeling is so cuddly and sweet and adorable and perfect......

She wants all the attention 100% of the time and LOVES cuddles and scratches.

Okay, so late in the afternoon on Sunday (Feb 18th) Topaz went into labor.  I was so glad she gave birth when I could be there because she's one of my favorite goats.  I was a nervous wreck.  I missed her giving birth last year.  I came home from work and she already had them.  This year I saw it from beginning to end.

In labor.  I have a picture of her stretching her neck up against the wall, but it was blurry.

She had twin bucklings!  They are both very dark headed just like her.  Topaz clones for sure!  We will most likely be selling these guys, so trying not to get attached.... so hard!  They are on the small side, but not as small as the ones last year.  Topaz is just a dainty doe.  The firstborn weighed 7.5lbs and the second was 6.4lbs.  I almost forgot to mention, she had the first one and then not a minute later gave birth to the second one in a breech position.  That was our first breech birth that we've witnessed and it scared me, but everyone was fine.  I've also never seen or heard of a goat giving birth to twins within minutes of each other.  They are usually about half an hour apart like how Zephyr had hers.

She took a break from cleaning them off to check in with me.

Once she'd passed the afterbirth we moved them into the stall where Zephyr was with her kids before they went into the big pen with Georgia.

Love this picture.  You can see Topaz passed out in the background.

Hubby got some adorable artistic shots.  Just wish the lamps didn't make them pink.

Only twelve hours old and already climbing all over Topaz to make her stand up so they could nurse.  Demanding boys!  She only got to keep them in the birthing stall for three days before we had to move them out with Georgia, Zephyr and her kids due to we needed the stall for Garnet.

Topaz was happy to be out.  She fought with Zephyr for a bit, then Georgia got involved and we had to separate her because they were ganging up on Topaz.  Once Topaz and Zephyr sort things out we can turn Georgia loose with them again.  Surprisingly Topaz came out on top in the hierarchy.  They all settled in well together.  Zephyr and Topaz's kids are even starting to play together a bit.

Zephyr's doeling bouncing toward Topaz lol.  So cute!

You can see Topaz's kids napping in the corner while Zephyr and her kids eat.  Topaz is eating off camera.

Next up to give birth was Coral.

She had twins!!!!  For the first time in her life she had twins.  I am so excited!!  I attribute it to better nutrition and apparently Jasper is just potent hehe.  She had twin doelings.  They are big too!  They both weighed exactly 7.9lbs at birth.

There's a funny story actually (it was stressful at the time).  Hubby went home on Jan 22nd to check on the goats during his lunch break.  We had Garnet and Coral in the same pen because we didn't think Coral was due for a few days.  When he walked into the barn, there were two kids and Garnet was in active labor while cleaning one of the kids.  So we thought one went to Coral (since she always had singles) and one belonged to Garnet.  Long story short, those two kids belonged to Coral and I'll tell you about Garnet's in a minute.  Lucky for us Coral accepted both of her kids even though she was separated from one for a while.  She is a bit wigged out about having two kids since she's never experienced that before, but she's a good mama and is taking good care of them. Her doelings look a lot alike!

This is the firstborn.

Second born.

Another picture of the second born.  She was annoyed I woke her up with the flash.

Both of them.  Ignore the red light from the heat lamp.  

Look at that sweet face!!  They are going to look so much like Jasper!!

Next up is Garnet.  If you counted then you've probably figured out by now that she had triplets!!!!

Closer view below.

To be honest we were wondering if she would have triplets.  Look at her belly a few days before she gave birth!  She looked ready to pop at any second.

 Here are her mismatched triplets.  The one is the middle is a buckling and the first born.  He was a whopping 8.6lbs at birth!!  Hubby had to help pull him because he was halfway out of the birth canal and Garnet wasn't making as much progress as we like.  She probably would have been fine without help, but better safe than sorry.  Luckily I was at work because otherwise I probably would have had a heart attack.  The red one on the right is the doeling and second born.  She looks so much like Andesine did, but she has more white.  She was 7.5lbs.  The one on the left was the last buckling and he was 7.9lbs.  He had some trouble with weak legs, but with some BoSe (selenium/vitamin E supplement) he is fine.  So she was carrying twenty four pounds of baby!!!!!!  Could you imagine giving birth to triplets all weighing the amount of an average human baby??  All without pain medicine!  *shudder*  She did fantastic though.

Again funny story.  Hubby had moved Coral and her kids into a different pen and was making sure that Coral would accept the one she had been separated from because Garnet had two kids at that point.  When he walked out of the stall he thought Garnet had passed afterbirth, but nope it was a third kid!  He was so shocked!  I am so proud of her.

 Here is the doeling.  She is adorable!  She has a white star on her forehead, a belly splash and white on all four legs.  The left front leg has very little spot of white, then short socks on the diagonal pair and a tall white sock on her right hind.  Check out this picture of Andesine when she was born last year.

This picture doesn't show her color very well.  You can see the white star and belly splash though. Here's another one in the sun.

They are going to look so much alike when they are both grown!!  I guess Garnet has a thing for red doelings hehe.  Here are a few more pictures of the triplets.

 The eldest buckling is going to be a Jasper carbon copy!

 He sleeps in such adorable positions.

 Look at his face!!  He's a mini Jasper!!

 A picture of the doeling right after she was born.

Hubby sent this picture in a text when I was at work. I could not concentrate on my work!!

So we are up to nine kids on the ground so far this year!  I am so pleased and happy with our amazing mama goats.  They are such great does.  The only ones we have left are Georgia, LeeAnn and Amethyst.  We know LeeAnn has had kids before and Georgia is a propro I'm not worried about them.  I'm curious what LeeAnn's kids are going to look like since I've never seen any of them.  I'm concerned about Amethyst since this is her first time and she's my favorite.  I don't know if I will survive watching her be in labor, but I hope I get to be there.  She's due in the middle of the week in early April though so I may be at work and miss it.

I'm so ready for birthing season to be over for the year. This is exhausting!  I don't know how the breeder we got the Myotonics from birthed out over seventy kids this year!  It sounds like a nightmare to be honest.

 

 A picture of proud papa Jasper.  He's busy trying to get Big Mama and Dottie pregnant right now.  They are on a hormone treatment plan right now, so fingers crossed.  That's all for now.  I have to go play with all my kids!!

P.S.  I almost forgot... here is the list of letters/numbers attributed to each kid.  It's how we keep track of them in our excel spreadsheet until they have names.

B1 - Zephyr's first born doeling, black with white markings.
B2 - Zephyr's second born bucking, brown and white.
B3 - Topaz's first born buckling, chocolate brown and white, he has the spot on his back and hock spots.
B4 - Topaz's second born buckling, chocolate brown and white.
B5 - Coral's first born doeling, blonde and white with sharper more defined edges to her color.
B6 - Coral's second born doeling, blonde and white with more muddy colors and less defined edges, her camp extends down her neck more.
B7 - Garnet's first born buckling, blonde and white, looks a lot like Jasper.
B8 - Garnet's second born doeling, red and white.
B9 - Garnet's last born buckling, blonde and white with more muddy colors and less defined edges.

Yep, they all just have letters and numbers for now.  As soon as I've made a decision on names I'll let you know.  If you have any suggestions our theme this year is musical terms like Treble, Symphony, Tempo, etc.  You get the idea.  For now we are only naming the females!!

Rearranging Goats

These three girls are always underfoot whenever we go out to the pasture.  They are so adorable and friendly.  I know raising goats as pets can make them into pests, but I sure prefer kids raised with handling over ones that are raised basically feral.  Last weekend we spent three hours doing annual vaccines, deworming those who needed it and trimming everyone's hooves.  Having friendly goats makes those chores so much easier.

Anyway this post is about some rearranging of living situations with some of the goats.  The does all stayed where they were, but we moved the bucks around.  I'm going to let the pictures break up the text.  Please forgive the blurry cell phone pictures.  I'm saving up for a new camera (can't stand not having one), but it will be a while.

Andesine is so cute, chewing on hubby's glove.

First off we moved Jasper into the pen with Dottie and Big Mamma.  We're working with our vet to try out a couple of options to see if we can get them pregnant.

 Big Mamma put on a big show at first, but they settled in quickly.

 Dottie got all bucky as usual, sticking her tongue out, blubbering and being a pest.

 Jasper, the real buck, sticks his tongue out too.

Sorry the goats are so gross, it's rainy and muddy.

 He flirted with Big Mamma a bit, but mostly they were calm.

Dottie on the other hand challenged him multiple times.  They fought a bit, but it wasn't serious, dangerous fighting.  Just establishing their place in the pecking order.  Jasper, weighing twice as much as Dottie, obviously is top dog hehe.

Then we let Daniel out and introduced him to the wethers Champ and Taz (Jasper's sons).

He was more interested in attention from us than the boys. Sorry for the blur.... really wish this one turned out better because I love it. The tear in his ear is years old from where his scrapies ear tag got infected before we owned him.

 Champ just waited outside the feed room, hoping for a snack.

We used a bucket of feed to lure Daniel to the buck pen because it's across the property and he was leery about leaving the Myotonic girls.  I was being lazy and didn't want to find my collar and leash even though Daniel is leash trained.

Once he was settled in with the boys and eating, he was fine.  They didn't fight at all really.  Daniel is not interested in them at all.  He called out for his girls for a long time, but he will settle into the new situation soon.

We fed everyone else breakfast and I snapped the above picture of Coral eating food from hubby's hand.  She has gotten so much calmer around us!! It's hard to believe she's the wild goat we brought home that went over a four foot fence and forced us to chase her around twenty acres of forest on a four wheeler before we could catch her!!!  She's come such a long way and I'm so proud of her.

Then we turned Zephyr and her kids out with Georgia so they could have room to play, stretch their legs and zoom around.  That's why we had to move Daniel, because he could get Zephyr pregnant again even though she's nursing kids.  That would be way too hard on her physically.  She needs to focus on her kids and then wean them before she gets pregnant again.

Here are a couple of videos of the kids playing.  They are SO adorable!

Direct Link

Direct Link

Here are a couple of blurry pictures of the kids.

 I have to borrow my mom's camera and get some better pictures of them.  They are so cute!

Sorry I've been quiet again.  Things have been crazy.  This year has not started off very well (the two things I'm most thankful for is Chrome surviving his colic and the healthy kids), but I'm not going into a bunch of detail.  All of the animals are fine.  Hubby and I are sick, but it's nothing dangerous.  Our fridge went out and all of the food in our fridge and freezer is ruined.  It is going to take TEN DAYS before they can repair it.  Then a tree fell on our goat pen gate....

It didn't cause a ton of damage though so I'm grateful for that.  Anyway, I'll leave it there.  I hope the goats brighten your day as much as they do mine.  I love all of these furry little brats!!