And So It Begins
Our first kidding was accomplished last night. Bit of a surprise as I had been watching her closely and thought I was fine for another day so I hadn't cleaned the birthing stall. My bad. When she came in from turn out at 4pm she had already lost the mucus plug but was not having active contractions. I got goats moved from the pen and got it cleaned out and Lady moved in before contractions began. Went up for dinner and went to the barn an hour later and active contractions had started and I could see the front hooves. Waited for a while and nothing much was moving so went to the house to get some warm molasses water and to grab my CMPK to have available in the barn. By the time I went to the barn a few minutes later, Abbey was on the ground and being cleaned by Momma. She was already up and trying to walk before Momma decided to stand.
Abbey is up and around this morning and exploring her new surroundings. She is eating, her belly seems full every time I check her. Momma only seems to be producing enough to feed baby at the moment. I milked her for the first time this morning, she did great, no kicking or issues but only produced about an ounce of milk in the bucket. Mom will be milked twice a day to insure that both sides of the udder are drained to reduce the chances of mastitis.
Abbey will be available for sale in the next few days. She will be priced at $125 if purchased within the first 2 weeks. She will remain with Mom for the time being as I do not like to pull single babies to start on bottle until other newborns are available to keep her company. Goats are herd animals and the babies especially do not like being alone.
Today I will start prepping for the next doe to kid, which will be Rosie in the next few days. I need to get her current stall cleaned and then move Lady and Abbey into the smaller stall so that Rosie can have the larger kidding stall. I'm expecting at the minimum twins, but probably triplets (all girls) from Rosie as that is what she produced last year. Her due date is Feb 15th.
Corporal Cupcake a 2022 wether that was born on the farm went to his forever home in the Spokane area on Saturday.
More updates coming soon.