City Girl Survives Farm Weekend

My friend Alicia brought her two girls, ages 3 1/2 and 18 months, down to stay with us this weekend to have the whole "farm" experience. She was a trooper about the chicken poop on the back porch (I still don't understand the evening appeal for all 16 chickens convalescing there), her 18 month old eating a goat berry, and even the Bad Rooster attacking the girls. Did I ever mention that he does that? Yea, he's getting eaten. Soon. Her first impression of the goats left something to be desired Saturday morning, as it had rained all night before and the goat pen was a soggy mess. Then she got to see me feed them, never a pretty sight. Goats go feral when grain is involved. Then the unfortunate goat berry incident ensued, and pretty soon she was like, "Ok, I'm done with the goats and ready to go back inside." I could hardly blame her.

We gathered eggs after that, though, and she did seem to enjoy that. Hence the ridiculously adorable picture of her holding an egg. Yes, I know, I know: look at those dimples. *sigh* And her girls inherited them too. Sometimes life just ain't fair.

That evening after we put all the kids down, though, she followed me and Dustin out to do chores. This picture she took of me headed out to feed the masses (baby bottle included, of course) kills me. You can see how glamorous farm life is.













We sequestered Harmony and her babies in a stall so they could eat their larger portion of grain undisturbed, locked Tierra in the stanchion, and put down my new mega-sized pan of grain for the rest of the goats to fight over outside. I'm tired of distributing 11 dishes of grain and they're slowly but surely learning to eat together or go hungry. When I get the buck pen finished it will only be the three boys fighting over a dish and a few does over another, which should even things up a little more. Anyway, I digress.
As soon as I got Tierra up in the stand Alicia says, "OH! Can I milk her?!" How refreshing. I've made 2 other people do it who happened to be present at milking time, because I think if you're going to visit a goat farm you should at least be able to say you milked a goat. A squirt or two is all I ask, and they are always glad they did it afterwards. At least I assume they are.... ;) Alicia figured it out pretty quickly and thought it was rather cool how she could feel the milk escaping back up into the udder if she didn't squeeze the escape route off tight enough with her thumb and first finger. Here's a picture of her finally getting a stream of milk out, all over the stanchion, of course.After that the real fun began. I discovered something fun the other night. I had gone out to the goat barn to feed and milk the goats, but while there it started raining a deluge, so I decided to kick back and play with the babies for a while until the rain let up. As soon as I sat down I had 5 little goats all up in my business. On my head, my shoulders, my lap, fighting over who got to be king of my right thigh. Oh my! They especially liked it when I crossed my outstretched legs because then it made for more precarious footing. So, I found an old bath mat for Alicia to sit on and plopped her in one of the stalls with all 5 babies. Within seconds she was veritably boiling with baby goats, much to her delight. Each one has quite their own personality when it comes to mauling humans: Poe goes for the highest point, generally one's head; Mumble grudgingly has to do whatever Poe does so he generally follows, but makes it clear he's not nearly as excited about humans as his sister; Gypsy goes straight for something to nibble on, an ear or a collar sufficing nicely; Tiny prances up and down and up and down any body part available, never really with any agenda in mind; and Sable... well, Sable is a draper. She drapes herself over a nice warm fleshy part and expects to be coddled like a cat. She also likes to be picked up and goes totally limp and cuddly on you.

Think I'm exaggerating?

Sable settled in for a good cuddle:Gypsy giving Alicia's sweater the taste-testing of a lifetime:Tiny tap dancing the length of Alicia's thighs:And as for Mumble and Poe, I think this video expresses what they do much better than anything I can type. Not to mention it has the added benefit of capturing a charming story about Louie's attempt to ingest my "do." (Ok, so I just watched it again and I'm going to go ahead and admit something: I snort. I had no idea, but apparently I do.)

Some lose touch. I lose goats.

When I was told I was allowed to leave a personal story on the Gypsy's Dream blog, I was first stunned and then frightened at the prospect of appearing before so many of her fans. She has led you through the journey she and I take on a day to day basis without one iota removed, and it is not often that a story exists without her presence. But, here I am with a short tale that happened while Venus* was away. She was so tickled by its content, that she graciously gave up her seat as host to you all to allow me to share it from my first person perspective, and I am honored.

OK, enough thanks. Let's get to it. So yesterday (Monday) I was home alone with Ayden. I happen to have Monday's off now and spend my time with Ayden while Venus* is at the library. I do what I can in her absence. I let the chickens out, feed and water them, and then move to the goats for the same...typical things that need to be done, and things, I am finding out, that are becoming more and more enjoyable to do.

The babies have gotten to be a decent size to where we felt that it was time for them to venture out with the rest of the pack (I mean herd) into the wide open range of the back pasture. This past Saturday was the first day we let them out, and they did quite well. We laid out a blanket and had the joy and bruises of little baby goat hoofs bounding all over our backs, legs, shoulders, heads, etc...fun fun. Everyone stayed pretty close to everyone else.

So, yesterday when I let them out, I wasn't as skeptical as I had been about them getting lost, or dropping into an unknown well, or finding yet another mystery hole in the fence to which a goat could escape. I flew the gate open and watched as the newbies once again ventured into the wide world and then proceeded with the rest of my chores for the day (Mon. is my cleaning day). I kept peeking out at them just to make sure that none of my prior concerns had taken hold of our little ones. All was well, until...

I was in the middle of cleaning...what room I forget...when all of a sudden I here this blood curdling scream from the outside. It was the agonizing wail of a baby in trouble. No. BABIES in trouble! I rushed out of the house leaving Ayden behind in a trail of juice boxes and fruit cups to see what terror had enveloped my little ones. I couldn't see anybody as I bolted across the yard expecting the worst. As I leaped the fence I was greeted with an unforgettable sight.

On one side of a small ditch that occupies a part of the back pasture were Tiny and Sable wailing their heads off. On the other side of the ditch were all nine other goats wailing in response to the wailing of the "lost" two. Now, let me explain...this ditch is about a foot across and only about two feet deep. To walk around to the other side via the thirty foot gap at its beginning would take a person...ten steps tops. But by the way these creatures were carrying on, you would have thought that Hell itself stood between them and these poor helpless kids.

It only took Tiny and Sable a few seconds to notice me, but when they did it was as if someone had just pardoned their death sentences. They ran over to me (ten steps and they were already on the other side, mind you) licking and rubbing and crying and needing to be held and comforted. Everyone else bounded over making the same gestures while adding a butt sniff here and there (mostly Tierra) to the saved souls. I could hear and see Louie tug on his suspenders, lean back and guffaw, "Hot dog! Didn't think you were gonna make it!" as Sahara and Lucy harmonized in a sweet rendition of "When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder".

Within seconds, everyone returned to their normal grazing schedule, only after realizing their miscalculations of the ditch and the slight humiliation that inevitably followed.

Toddlers Learning About Goaty Birds & Bees

It's been a while since I've posted a blog. There are a few reasons for this. One is that I have been freakishly busy with all my new goat responsibilities. You would not believe how much longer my chores take me now that I have bottle babies! It went from taking 10 minutes in the mornings before work to feed and water the goats to 45 minutes to an hour by the time I wash all my milking stuff and get it around (heaven forbid I should do this before hand), gather all the feed dishes, segregate Harmony and her babies in one stall, Tierra's girls in the other, and lock Tierra in the main part of the barn while I feed the other lunatics and then go in and milk Tierra, pour the milk directly into bottles, then go feed the warm milk to her babies. Because Tierra does many things, but nursing her own children is not one of them. As we all know. Then of course I still have to feed and water the chickens and let them out for the day. So now I'm setting my alarm for 6 a.m. so I can have the privilege of getting my chores done before I have to run off to work. And then I get to do it all over again just before I go to bed and am tired and just want to curl up in bed with a good book. Am I complaining? Maybe a little. Perhaps I'd feel differently if I were swimming in goat milk and able to get a little cheese action going on up in this place. But as it is, not only are the babies drinking it all but I'm having to supplement with milk replacer because she's only giving me enough for 2 and I have 3 hungry mouths to feed. The time has come that I could start separating Harmony's babies from her at night and milking her once a day in the mornings, but honestly... I cannot bear to sign up for one more responsibility right now that might further lengthen my chores.

I said I haven't posted lately for a few reasons, didn't I? Well, I received an email recently from somebody I know saying that they would like me to remove them from the blog update because they "cannot keep up" and to have a nice life. !!! So then of course I was left wondering if I'm driving people nuts with my blogging and have felt a little weird about posting since then. But honestly, if she didn't want to read them she could have done many things, including a) not read them or b) block the update emails and nobody would have ever been the wiser. Oh, well.

On a happier note, all the babies are doing fabulously and I've been letting them spend as much supervised time outside as possible. I'm not comfortable letting them come and go as they please yet for fear a hawk will try to snatch them. Here are some pictures of all my little ones (Ayden included) running amok outside.
Yes, Tierra is indeed wearing a blue rubber boot on her left leg. She's got a nasty spot on one of her hooves and I've trimmed it back and medicated it with Hoof n' Heel and she was still marinating when this picture was taken. She was not at ALL happy about the arrangement, but I'm tired of seeing her limp about. We'll see if that clears it up. Her belly is still rather low and floppy, but at least her teats are swinging clear of the ground now, which makes milking much less interesting. This other picture is a pretty typical attempt at getting a decent picture of Poe and Mumble. They are so bloody fast that I could fill and entire web page with blurry action shots that don't turn out because they're moving at warp speed. In this one you can see Poe has just gone airborne.

Some exciting stuff has happened recently. For one, I have decided to go into the egg business in a big way. I've been selling my eggs for $3/dozen and have had more people wanting to buy them than I've been able to provide for. We've been getting anywhere from 10-13 eggs per day, and thats from only 14 hens so I've been very happy with their production. Today I found the type of chicks I'm going to order to get started producing mass amounts of free range brown eggs. Here is a link to what our new chickens will be, Red Star Sex Link. I'm thinking of getting about 50 to start out with. They're called sex link because when they hatch the boys are yellow and the girls red so you can easily sex them. I also bought an incubator today to hatch out some chicks from my current chickens so I can continue the blue and green eggs also. It should be interesting as to what those will look like because I have both a Silver Laced Wyandotte rooster and an Ameracauna, so the eggs will produce either purebred Wyandottes, purebred Ameracaunas, or a funky hybrid of the two. Maybe the eggs from that hybrid will be brown and green swirled. ;) We're going to start our first batch of eggs to incubate this Sunday so that they will hatch on a Saturday three weeks from then so all three of us can be home to witness it. I'm going to try to time the arrival of my Red Star chicks with the hatching so I can house all the babies together. Unfortunately, any way you slice it these baby chicks will not be producing any eggs for 5 months, though. *sigh*

Today I took baby goats to Ayden's preschool, and you can imagine the hit that was. I took Mumble and Poe because I thought they'd be fun to watch bounce around, and Gypsy so they could see the size difference and those adorable floppy ears. Hindsight being 20/20, next time I will only take bottle babies if I have the choice. When I let Mumble and Poe out, they ran off to the side and cried for their mother the whole time. Gypsy, on the other hand, came stumbling out of the box and ambled directly over to the 40 some-odd toddlers lined up in anticipation. She was like, "Oh! People! I LOVE people!" The above picture was taken about 5 seconds after I opened the door to the carrier (You can see Ayden on the far right). I was able to catch Poe who was then more than happy to let little hands fondle her and stroke her, but Mumble protested and hollered for the duration, even after one of the teachers scooped him up for his rounds of merry-making.

I think the kids' favorite part was when Poe decided to show them her latest trick, mounting her brother. I guess she got tired of him doing it to her all the time and she's decided to give him a piece of his own medicine. Yes, he's been humping his sister since they were about 24 hours old. Crazy goats. Here's a picture of Poe doing her impersonation of Mumble. She doesn't care that she doesn't have the correct equipment.

Babies Underfoot

I finally got to spend some time with the babies this afternoon. I got off work a little early so after eating some lunch and warming some bottles, I headed out to the goat barn. The three girls managed to drink two full 20 oz bottles! Wow. At this point they are already drinking every drop that Tierra is giving me each milking, and the milk I stockpiled the first two days is rapidly disappearing. In one feeding they are drinking all the milk from the morning milking, and again that evening, leaving me nothing to give them in the middle of the day. I guess if this keeps up I may just have to supplement with cows milk. I let all the babies out to mingle for a while, and while Harmony's twins are still running circles around everybody, including me, Tierra's girls are starting to play a little. They're just adorable with their big ol' ears flapping about. Here's a video of their first time stepping foot outside.

And here's some footage of Mumble and Poe stretching their legs. I think Harmony is getting tired of being locked up with those two bundles of energy, she's just got that frazzled mother look going on. I keep telling her that its only until they reach 10 lbs and are safe from birds of prey, but she doesn't seem to find solace in that.

Here's a short video of me being mauled by Tierra's girls the second I sit down. Little piggies.


I was finally able to get some decent pictures of Mumble and Poe post-disbudding. As you can see, they are doing just fine. :)

Parenting Fifth Avenue Style

So. Tierra has decided to up and take an interest. I didn't know if maybe it was a fluke this morning when she did it, but when she again came into the stall while I was bottle feeding her girls tonight, I paid attention. She came right in like she had every right in the world, and was licking their butts and fussing over them like she'd never purposefully forgotten their existence. I mean, she has never so much as even looked through the slats of their stall until now. Now all of a sudden she thinks she's a soccer mom and oh-aren't-my-babies-wonderful-and-cute. That is, she is fussing all over them as a certain somebody ELSE (ah-hem!) is feeding them HER milk from a bottle. Her milk that this certain somebody just spent the last 15 minutes wringing from her body. When she came into the stall this morning I saw Gypsy down on her knees just about to get a teat in her mouth, and Tierra just stood there and let her. !!!!!! I had already milked her at that point so her teats were a do-able size and at a better height for nursing, and Gypsy was soooooooo close. She was licking and sucking all over it, but just couldn't quite figure out how to get the darn thing in her mouth. I waited for as long as I could for her to find it, because I would love for even just one of them to figure out how to nurse from her, but the clock was ticking and I had to get to work, so when Gypsy gave up I went ahead and gave her the bottle. So this is what I'm thinking. I am going to continue to let Tierra come in and spend as much time as possible with the girls while I'm there to make sure nobody passes out in the middle of the floor and gets stepped on. You think I'm paranoid, don't you? Well, this is what gets strewn all about the stall:Its like a mine-field in there, they just fall where they stand. And Tierra is less than graceful. The last thing I need to be thinking about lying in bed at night is a 175 lb. goat blundering around ontop of my sweet babies. Besides, this parenting from a distance thing seems to be suiting both Tierra and I, and as soon as Tiny is big enough and spry enough I will turn them all three out to be with Tierra. I think it'll be great for them to grow up with a "mom" (Let me get this straight, moms do generally FEED their children, right? I mean, isn't that one of the basic rules of if you're going to have children, its your responsibility to feed them? Am I wrong here?). She can teach them the mysterious tenets of goat wisdom, such as how to properly head-butt Puck and the most inconvenient places to poop.

Ok, so I am feeling more than a little guilty about my lack of attention paid to Harmony's sweet babies, Mumble and Poe. With the thrilling and goo-filled arrival of Tierra's babies, and then the subsequent storm of bad parenting and rage on my part, I have not even stepped foot in their stall! Everybody is fed and watered, of course, but I have not spent even one moment with the little boogers or Mother of the Year, Harmony. I guess its the age old predicament, that the way to get the most attention is to be horrible. Seriously, though. I haven't even mentioned in my blog that I DISBUDDED THEM! This is how neglectful I have been. I mean, that was one of the most traumatic things I have ever had to do, and its been 4 days and I haven't even breathed a word of it. What it boils down to, is that I had planned to do it Saturday, but then Tierra finally decided to have her babies and it was postponed until that evening. So, exhausted and still quite stinky from playing midwife, Mom, Dustin, and I undertook our first disbudding. You're probably wondering why on earth we would choose such a time to do this, but all I can say is that you're really supposed to do it when they're 5 days old, and by Saturday they were 8. I just couldn't bring myself to do it until they were a little bigger! Mumble's horn buds had just started to come in good, and Poe's were definitely on their way. First we shaved the top of their heads, which I think is just adding insult to injury, literally. Then we wrapped them in a towel and Mom and Dustin held them down one-by-one on the picnic table with a folded towel under their chin. I put my inner-ear headphones deep down into my ears and cranked up some angry girl music, and commenced to burn a ring around each horn bud for a quick count of 10 with my disbudding iron, turning it in a circular motion the whole time. You want a nice copper ring around the circumfrence of the horn bud, and then you also sear the circle in the middle with the edge of the iron. This is not a photo of one of my goats, but just a photo I found online showing what I am talking about. Disbudding is one of the few farm-related things I have ever NOT wanted to capture for my readers. I felt bad enough about it, the last thing I felt like doing was running for a camera. I know some of you out there think I am a monster right now, and those of you can read this and at least make an informed decision. It was really not as bad as my shaking hands led me to believe it would be. The second we were done they were fine and went in and nursed. Thirty minutes later they were up and playing harder than ever, if anything. I'll try to get a picture of them tomorrow. They're having a little adventure tonight. It's raining cats and dogs out there, and all the goats were hanging out in the barn anyway, so I went ahead and opened up Harmony and her babies' stall so they could mingle with the rest of the herd for the night, then I locked the door to the barn. I don't trust Mumble and Poe outside by themselves yet because they're so tiny I'm afraid a hawk will fly off with them. I saw a hawk attempt that with my chickens last week and it scared the bejezzes out of me. They're so fast now, though, that I think they'll handle themselves just fine with Tierra, Lucy, Louie, Harmony, Sahara, and Puck. Wow, it's getting crowded in there!

Apparently I Just Adopted Quadruplets

Its been a rocky few days here at Gypsy's Dream Farm. Within and hour after Tierra gave birth on Saturday, I was able to get three of her four babies, the girls, to nurse from her at least a little bit. They were not great at it, but neither were Mumble and Poe (by the way, that is Harmony's doeling's new name) so I didn't worry about it too much. Tierra's little buckling would not nurse and refused to even suck when I tried to get him to take some colostrum from a bottle. We ended up squirting it in his mouth with a tiny syringe, but even with that it's hard to say how much you're getting down him. We brought him into the house, and my mom, God bless her soul, got up with him every 2 hours that night and tried to force some more colostrum down him. He was totally lethargic, and did not even try to stand up like his sisters. The ironic thing is that his sister who looks exactly like him is considerably smaller, yet she is just as vigorous as her huge sisters.

Meanwhile, trying to get the girls to nurse from Tierra was proving less than fun. Tierra was running away from me as I chased her with a baby in my hands trying to get in the general vicinity of her teats. It was horrible and I ended up pretty much wigging out on her and tying her in a corner and pinning her with my body all the while trying to get a baby to suckle. She would stomp and carry on as if I was torturing her, and even managed to step on the tiny little brown doeling's foot. Ahhhh! At this point I was at my wits end and called my goat mentor, whom I bought Tierra from. She said that Tierra's first owner raised her as a show goat and on that farm they did not dam raise, but immediately took the babies from their mothers and bottle fed them. Last year was the first time that she was allowed to raise her own babies, and Casey said that she also had to tie her up and pin her against a wall to let the babies nurse. That went on for a few DAYS before her mothering instincts kicked in and she realized that feeding her babies was an acceptable thing to do. Well, I don't have the time, energy, or patience to force her to be a good mother, and the responsibility of that was bringing me to the edge of my sanity. So, I made the only rational decision available, I decided to make them bottle babies. That meant I had to bottle feed them 4 times a day the first couple of days, and now thank goodness we're down to only 3 times a day. Working 2 jobs, raising my own child, and taking care of my own family does not leave much room, but you do what you have to do. Its ironic, but the minute I decided to bottle feed them my stress level greatly diminished. I had felt so worried about them starving or being stepped on with Tierra, and all that was gone. Instead I had three healthy little girls locked in their warm, dry stall, and the peace of mind that they would neither be stepped on or starve. How is that a bad thing?

And Tierra? Well, when I locked her out of the stall she just walked away and went off grazing with the other goats in the back pasture. She never even looked back. She was like, "Yeah, that was fun and all being a mom, but I'm done now." Heavens.

Tierra's first born, the little buckling, I simply did not have enough time to give the attention he needed if he was to make it. This is a picture of him the morning after he was born, and I'd actually gotten him to stand up for a minute. My friend Lynn had mentioned to me that if Tierra had a boy to give her first option at him, so the morning after he was born I immediately called her. I told her that he had made it though the night, and my mom and I had finally gotten him to suck at a bottle for the first time since he was born and he'd taken about 2-3 ounces. I made her the proposition that if she would like to take him and nurse him, she could have him for free. I normally would have sold him for at least $250 when he was older, but I am happy to have him go to a good home with people who can give him a fighting chance. Here's a picture of her husband, Joe, holding him. The last I heard, Lynn had gotten 1 ounce down him every two hours for the next 24 hours. I haven't heard any more since then, but I've been praying that he'll pull through. But if he does not pull through with such devoted care as that, then he simply was not meant to.

Since then things have steadily gotten better, as I'm getting back into the swing of milking Tierra twice a day and the girls and I figure out this whole bottle feeding thing. Dustin has discovered that he actually rather enjoys bottle feeding the girls, and for their part they are getting much better at it. This afternoon Ayden helped me feed them and even gave them a bottle himself for a minute. It would have lasted longer, but the two big girls were fighting over the nipple and it was stressing him out. ;) The two big girls have gotten so good with the nipple that they can actually be fed standing up now instead of draped over our laps. What a mess! We're talking warm sticky colostrum all over everybody.
We've finally come up with names for the new girls, which was no easy feat! I found out last night that we will be able use our new registered herd name with them, so that is really exciting. So let me introduce you.
This is Gypsy's Dream Twilight, but she will go by Gypsy.
This is Gypsy's Dream Sable Afterhours, or Sable for short.
And last but not least, this is Gypsy's Dream Tiny Dancer, Tiny for short. (My mom came up with this one!) She is so itty bitty that she can wear the little sweaters I made for the Nigerian Dwarf babies the night they were born! This picture gives you an idea how much smaller than her bruiser sisters she is.

Tierra The Baby Machine Exploded

It finally happened! Tierra did finally decide to have herself some babies, and even at a time when not only I could be there to help, but my mom also, and Dustin to act as photographer for the grand event. I was correct yesterday when I thought she was in early labor, because at about 1:20 when Mom went to check on her, she shouted from the goat barn, "I think a baby's about to come!" I grabbed my birthing stuff and went running. Tierra was lying down in her stall and the anxiously-awaited amber colored goo had made its appearance. Within about 15 minutes, things got serious and she started pushing in earnest. I could see her vulva start to bulge, and the next thing I knew a bubble had popped out with two little white hooves presented, picture perfect!You can see the nose sitting on top of the front feet and it's little tongue sticking out. I popped the bubble with my fingers and pulled one of his feet forward a little since its elbows were obviously back. As soon as I did that, it popped right out! I'm telling you, she made this stuff look easy. This is a picture of Tierra with her first baby, a little buckling that looks just like her except he has a few white moon spots on his back and one on the back of his head. After she'd licked him off good mom wrapped him up in a bed pad since he was shivering a little and held him in her lap for a while where he looked quite content. About 5 minutes later Tierra started to push again, which was no surprise for us since she obviously had a belly FULL of babies in there. This one came out tail first with it's back legs folded up against it's belly, but it was so tiny it came out in one good push. In this picture you can see she was half out and I quickly pulled her the rest of the way so she could take her first breath of air. Here is a picture of Tierra with her second baby, a little doeling. Yippee! I was obviously hoping for as many girls as possible, as they will be the only ones I get to keep forever to be a part of my milking herd. This little doeling is so TINY! She's about 2/3 the size of her brother, and even though I have never seen a newborn Nubian, I suspected he was pretty tiny himself. I'm going to do better than tell you what happened next, because Dustin caught the next birth on video! This behemoth of a baby is way way bigger than its brother and sister! And guess what? ITS ANOTHER DOELING! YAY!! She looks solid black, although in the light you can see she's actually more of a deep dark chocolate brown. Gorgeous! At this point I was just ecstatic to have two doelings out of Tierra that the whole thing could have stopped there and I would have left a very happy woman. But apparently Tierra was still not done because before we could even finish wiping baby number three off, she started pushing and another pair of hooves came out! The legs were almost completely out and I still did not see a head and I began to get a little worried. I was afraid this one's neck could be turned and I'd have to go in and find it, one of the most difficult presentations to correct. So I stuck two fingers inside (WOW! I did not even think twice about it, either!) right on top of the legs and I could feel teeth and an open mouth about 2 inches inside the birth canal. So, the head was properly placed but had just not come out yet. Thank goodness! So with her next push I grabbed the legs and pulled. Out popped the most BEAUTIFUL little goat I have ever seen with my own two eyes. It was as big as the previous black one but with with silver and white spots all over its body! And you wanna hear something else? It was ANOTHER DOELING!!!! This is incredible! Here is a video of me cleaning her off and dubbing her with the special name I've been reserving in hopes that one of Tierra's babies would turn out to be a girl. Tierra had four babies in all, three of them girls. Absolutely unbelievable. Her whole pregnancy I tried hard not to get my hopes set on any girls for fear I would be disappointed. No worries there!Next we tied off all of their umbilical cords, dipped them in iodine, and gave them each a shot of Nutri-Drench. I got each of the girls to nurse for at lest a few seconds, but the little boy was so lethargic that we had to squirt the colostrum into his mouth with a syringe. Then Tierra got a pan of grain and some warm molasses water. After that I took a must needed break. As you can see, birthing is a messy business!Here's a close-up shot of all the babies after they had dried off a little bit.

Could Today Be the Day?!

So you guys have probably been expecting a post from me for days now announcing the arrival of Tierra's little ones. Well, lets just say that a whole lot of "expecting" has been going on here since her due date came and went FIVE days ago, but so far not a single thing to show for it. My mother stayed the night here last night to be on goat watch duty for me (God bless her, I haven't had a full night's sleep in two weeks for checking on goats!). I have never been so disgusted to not be woken at 4 a.m. in my life. I keep telling myself that they have to come out sometime. They simply cannot stay in there forever. The laws of physics are against it. I received one particularly insightful suggestion by one of my readers that perhaps she is keeping them in there until they are weaned and everything, just skipping all the middle business.

But... I do believe today is the day. When I half heartedly went to check her tail ligaments this morning I recoiled in horror. I cannot sufficiently describe it, but to perhaps say that where yesterday there was normal bony goat flesh, today there is something the consistency of warm pudding. It feels absolutely unnatural, and even Dustin said "Ugh!" when I had him feel it. There have been no discernible ligaments for weeks, but this is another whole thing entirely. That combined with the way her udder looks this morning, (GINORMOUS!) and the fact that her udder feels like stretched leather leads me to believe that it will finally happen today. Not to mention the fact that her vulva is finally a bit swollen.

Here are two pictures of Tierra's udder, the first taken 2 months ago in December, and the second taken 5 minutes ago.
















Quite the difference, huh? When I went out to check on her she'd gone into her stall and is standing in her favorite corner, and had obviously been pawing at the ground making herself a nice nest because I actually had to move a bunch of bedding away from her udder in order to get the picture. Her teats are literally dangling about 2.5 inches off the ground. Lets just hope that her belly rises back to a normal height right when the babies are born otherwise they'll be having to find a teat thats down by their ankles!

Here's a picture of her standing in her stall getting ready for her babies to come. Take a moment and really LOOK at that belly. I mean.... geesh. And you know what I love about her? She's not worried about stretch marks. Or her saggy boobs. Or if a man goat will every find her attractive again.
I'm suspect that a small part of her fortitude and strength of spirit might be due to the fact that she's growing not only healthy babies, but A BEARD! (This one goes out to you, Marigold!)

Adventures in the Sunshine

Today is Tierra's due date and still no babies. At this point I am still sleeping with the monitor on and now getting up in the middle of the night and traipsing out to the barn to check on her. Lets hope it will happen tonight so I can be put out of my misery!

I have not had much time to spend with Harmony's new babies, as Ayden has been sick all weekend and now of course Dustin and I have it. Between my 3 year old walking petri dish bringing every germ in the county to our doorstep and lack of sleep from watching Tierra, it was inevitable. But, here are some pictures and videos I took of the babies this afternoon when I had a little time between coughing/sneezing fits.

As you can probably see, Mumble has perked up just about as much as his sister, and his new favorite thing is to stand on his mom. She let them play king of the mountain on her for a good 5 minutes before she got tired of it and got up. Her and the babies had their fill of sunshine today because had the entire goat pen to themselves today with nobody but slow-moving Tierra to bother them. She left them alone unless they got too close then would swipe half heartedly at them with her head.