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Saturday, February 25, 2012

Any day now...


Well overdue for a goat update. The number of goats here at on the mini-homestead has fluctuated quite a bit, but currently consists of 3 LaMancha does, all pregnant, which means our herd numbers are going to fluctuate again. Our 3 year old doe, Raindrop, is officially due March 1st, but I doubt we'll have to wait that long. She's gotten huge (care to guess how many kids she's got in there?) and as you can see by looking at her lovely udder, she's bagging up. This is the goat I always have a hard time keeping weight on...here's a reminder of what she looked like after her last freshening...
I've been watching her really closely the past few days & I have noticed some of the other typical signs, such as stretching to get the kids into proper position and restlessness as it gets harder to find a comfortable position the larger she gets. I have the baby monitor set up in the barn so I can monitor night time noises that might necessitate me venturing out in the cold to check on things.
Needless to say, we're really excited to see her kids, and to start enjoying her fresh goat milk again! That said, I'm also a bit nervous since this will be our first kidding experience. We're hoping to be able to witness (and photograph) the birth without having to assist to much (and really hoping it all happens in the daytime when we have a better chance of it not being so cold)!
Speaking of cold, I've been busy preparing for kidding. Besides reading up on the wealth of info on the Fiasco Farm site, I was excited to stumble upon this blog which has a ton of great info related to kidding as well. In this post, she shows what her kidding kits consist of, including instructions on how to repurpose sweatshirt sleeves into kid sweaters, which of course I had to do, because who knows what this "winter" will bring weatherwise.

4 comments:

  1. Your lovely lady looks like mine and she isn't due till the 19th of March! I was looking at her yesterday just wondering how many were in there. This is her 3rd kidding and we have never seen her so big before. The poor thing just looks like she is misserable!

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  2. It was so fun to see your new kids! Are you using the kid sleeves? How are they working for you?

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  3. Amy, initially I put the sweaters on the kids, but then after talking to Vicky I took them off & they have done fine without them. They seemed to be in the way when Raindrop was trying to lick them. Mama licking the babies is a big part of bonding & bringing milk in, so I didn't want to interrupt that. I think they would work better if I shorten them a bit, but since they are doing fine without them, I haven't bothered to do that.

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  4. Good to know. Makes sense when you think about it. Thanks!

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