We have babies!
On Sunday night, we decided that Phoebe was close enough to delivering that we needed to check on her in the night. Jan took the 1:00 a.m. check, I took the 4:00 a.m. check.
It was eerie and magical going out to check on her. It’s very dark here. We’re very remote. We have a motion-sensor light in the yard next to the milkers’ pen, and I took two flashlights with me. Still, it was all spooky shadows and funny shapes. Our wonderful herd-guarding dogs came with me, though, making sure no ghosts or goblins would get me. And, the goats all woke up and gathered around me, curious and snuffling. But, Phoebe wasn’t ready to deliver yet.
At sunrise, we had our normal morning chores, and while we were feeding the pregnant does, we noticed that Lulou, who was due two days later than Phoebe, was already in labor! What? We weren’t even checking on her yet!
We hauled her in to the kidding parlor, which we’d just set up last week. We sat with her all morning, and by noon she’d delivered a gorgeous little girl, and by 1:00 she’d delivered an enormous buck. Jan asked, “did you see the little white stuff on their hooves?” I had! Goats are born with little hoof protectors! Seriously, they have a disposable covering that protects their moms before the kids are born. (We didn’t remove the hoof protectors, they just . . . come to think of it, I don’t know what happened to them. When the babies were born, the mama goat spent so much time licking the baby off, and we spent so much time toweling the baby off - I guess the little hoof protectors just went away during that process).
We named these babies Lydia (the little black doe on the left) and Leroy (on the right).
Of course, we still had to cut the cords, and dip the babies’ bellies in iodine, and then make sure they figured out how to eat. The babies were on their feet in minutes, but goat babies, it turns out, have a hard time figuring out where the milk comes from. They try and try to get the milk from all kinds of places, and the mama goat guides them, but you’re not done with the birthing process until everyone figures out how to get fed.
We were done in time to do our regular afternoon chores - and already we were really sore. Sore from squatting for hours, from leaping up to grab things, sore from I can’t even figure out what.
After dinner, when we checked on Phoebe, she was looking close enough to delivery that we were thinking we needed to check on her every hour throughout the night. So, Jan picked the odd hours, and I picked the even hours. We had tried and tried to haul Phoebe into the kidding parlor, but she was having none of that. She had dug a big hole in the shed in the milkers’ pen, and she was determined to have her babies there. Ugh.
At 9:15, Jan rushed into my house and told me that Phoebe had already had one baby. Jan had gone out for her check, and heard the voice of a tiny newborn. I got bundled up, and headed out to the shed, where Phoebe’s first baby was getting cold, and Phoebe’s labor was stalled.
I started rubbing the baby, which we bundled up in a towel, and Jan needed to figure out what was going on with Phoebe’s stalled labor. She discovered that the next goat in line to be born was trying to be born butt first. She couldn’t find any hooves to grab. Phoebe seemed to have just given up. Jan looked up and saw that our neighbor’s light was on, and she phoned her and asked her to come over and help.
I can’t even explain how scared I was. Phoebe just couldn’t get that baby to come out on her own. Lee was finally able to get two slippery hooves in her hand, and pulled that second baby out by main force, and we immediately brought that goat up to her mama’s face so her mama could start licking her, when suddenly a third baby was born in a big whoosh - she just shot out and landed in the straw of the shed with a thud. So, now we had two babies who needed their airways cleared, and needed to get dried off. Plus the first baby, who was now yelling at the top of her very healthy lungs for food. Luckily, there were three of us!
Finally, we got everyone dry, and Phoebe seemed as if she didn’t have any more babies left, so we decided to try to get the goats into the kidding parlor, where it was at least clean and warm. Lulou, Lydia, and Leroy were still in there, but Lulou and Phoebe are friends, so we thought it might work.
After all the times we tried to drag Phoebe into the kidding parlor before she kidded, and she had just sat down on the ground, refusing to budge, I was amazed how easy it was to get her to come into the kidding parlor once she had babies. We each picked up a baby and headed to the kidding parlor. Simple as that. Phoebe came trotting after us, yelling the whole way. “Where are you taking my babies?”
We got all the goats into the kidding parlor, and began working on getting Phoebe’s babies to drink. Leroy came right over, pushing Phoebe’s girls out of the way, saying, “Hey! A new milk fountain!” And Phoebe tried to bite his ear off! That was not her baby trying to cadge a drink! So, we had to take Lulou, Leroy, and Lydia out to the shed. That was fine, they were all in great shape at that point.
Then we came back and worked on Phoebe’s babies. Finally, after midnight, we got them to a point where we felt that we could safely leave them alone for the rest of the night.
We named her three girls Petra, Polly, and Pippa. Welcome to the world, baby goats! You came at a really strange time. But we’re so glad you made it!