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.