We work very hard to be present at the birth of all of our goats. Sometimes we miss, but that is very rare. People often think we’re over-vigilant and worry needlessly. I’ve been told before, “They’re goats, birth is a natural process, they’ll be fine.”
To which I respond, “Yes, many goats (like people) can deliver without any problem for mom or babies. But, there are many goat (and human) deliveries in which help is needed if both the mom and kids are going to survive.”
To think it is natural and every birth will go smoothly is naive. The more goats you have and the more deliveries you handle, the greater the chance of something going wrong. Since we have taken responsibility for the goats in our herd and in our care, we make sure we do everything possible to not lose any of them.
Normally we’re living at the same location as our goats. But this year is a little different. Our new house is not yet complete, but our new barn is. So the goats are living there while we commute back and forth.
Goats can deliver plus or minus 5 days from their due date. This is a pretty large window. Most of our goats tend to go late, but not always. So kid watch starts five days before our first due date. We check the goats regularly. At night we have webcams in the barn so we can watch and see if anything is happening that we need to go out and check. We’ve gotten pretty good at telling when a goat is getting ready to kid, although there are still some that take us by surprise.
Since our current house is about 25 minutes from the new property, for the first part of kidding season we would stay late with the goats, go home, check the webcams a few times throughout the night, and then return early. But there came a day we no longer felt comfortable being that far away from the goats.
Thus began the saga of sleeping in the soap room.
Brett had Colter take out the seats to the Hulk. She laid it on its side and slept on that:
Indigo, Jade, Hewitt, Fletcher, Jim, and I slept in the media room:
And Colter, Emery, and Greyden slept in the barn:
It got old fast, but it wasn’t too terrible. The boys in the barn had it the best. They eventually made big beds out of bags of oats which they claimed were really comfortable. Jim and I had it the toughest because we had to sleep with Fletcher who likes to talk in his sleep. LOL
It would have been very easy at any point during those two weeks to convince ourselves that the goats didn’t really need us and that it was ok to go home. (Especially when I needed to give Jade a bath in the soap room). But we persevered because it was important to teach the children that being responsible (especially for a live animal or person) isn’t easy and often requires sacrifice.
Overall, it’s just another part of this crazy and wonderful life we call Goat Milk Stuff. Some day, I’m sure the children will all reminisce about it and laugh… “Remember when Mom made us sleep in the soap room for two weeks?”
Until that day, we’re all still trying to get caught up on the sleep we missed!
