Hewitt came into the soaproom on Friday and announced, “Payton has goo!” That of course are the magic words which sends everyone scurrying to the barn to check on Payton.
By the time I got there, there were two hooves already out. Emery had checked and said there was a nose. We waited. And waited. And nothing. That is not normal for the mama goat to not be actively pushing when the baby is engaged enough that we can see hooves.
Emery started gently pulling on the legs and discovered that the knees on the two legs were different colors. In the vast majority of goats (ours at least) the legs are the same color. This gave Jim some concern because he hadn’t confirmed that the two legs did indeed belong to the same baby goat.
Yes, you can in fact have two legs from two separate baby goats in the birth canal. The mom obviously can’t deliver either baby like this, so it is important to make sure you are pulling on the legs of the same baby goat.
Since Payton still wasn’t pushing, Jim decided that he needed to investigate further. This required pushing the baby goat back into the birth canal so Jim could confirm that yes, the head and both legs did in fact belong to the same baby goat.
After repositioning the goat, we tried to encourage Payton that she did indeed wish to deliver this kid. There was a chorus of, “C’mon, Payton, you can do it!” “Let’s go, Payton, push it out!”
It’s really cute to hear my children encouraging the mama goats.
Payton never did get really excited about pushing, but with some help from Emery (he pulled on the baby’s legs when Payton did push), we had a new buckling!
Meet Saturn! He is the CUTEST baby. I absolutely LOVE his coloring and am so sad that he isn’t a girl.
Payton decided to take a good break between kids and half an hour later delivered a doeling. She is all black with a tiny white spot on the top of her head. Definitely not as flashy as Saturn, but still a pretty baby.
Meet Secret!
Colter milked out Payton’s colostrum for Saturn and Secret.
And Brett fed it to them.
And then once they were dry and well fed, they got to meet Venice and the other baby goats!
Not the simplest of labors, it was a bit sluggish, but nowhere near as bad as the horrible labor and delivery that was to follow!
Three pregnant goats done. fourteen more to go!
Kid count: 3 bucklings. 3 doelings.
#GMSKids
2014 Goat Birth Stories
Awww! Baby goats are so cute! Seems like goats have twins a lot. Is this the norm? If you are looking for more cute twins name combos…my 22 month old twins are Frank and Greta! 🙂
Cute names, but our babies get named with the same letter, which comes from their mom’s name. Twins are pretty common as are triplets. Singles are more common in younger does. Quads and quints are possible, but rare. PJ
Good story. Great photos.
Thanks, Nathalie! PJ
Just curious, I notice you milk the colostrum from the mom & bottle feed the babies. Why do you not have the babies nurse from & stay with mamma? I don’t know much about goats but my guess is that since you continue to milk the mammas you can up their supply as well as control how much milk each baby receives. I have been wondering for a while now but never asked.
It’s healthier for everybody in our opinion. Here is a link to a blog post about why we do it. Hopefully that makes sense to you! PJ https://pjjonas.com/2012/02/19/why-we-bottle-feed/