We have been wanting to get a great video of a baby goat being born. Tuesday morning it became obvious that Persephone was in labor, but our videographer wasn’t due to arrive for another hour. We called him and told him to hurry and then we all started to pray that the birth would go slowly.
We all waited while Persephone paced and circled and pawed the ground. Then she paced and circled and pawed the ground some more.
She finally started pushing. She was pushing pretty well and we saw the front two hooves and the nose.
Unfortunately, that’s all we saw. Even though she kept pushing well.
Jim was just about to start helping Persephone when our videographer arrived. He quickly got set up and Jim helped pull on the kid while Persephone pushed. It turns out the shoulder was a little stuck, but with Jim’s help, she delivered a single buckling!
We named him Patriot. He weighed in at 12.5 pounds, which is very big for a baby goat (around 7 lbs is our average). Feeding pregnant goats can be tricky because you don’t know how many babies they are carrying. You need to give the does enough food to sustain all the babies while trying not to overfeed. In this case, Persephone, who usually has 2 or 3 kids, had just a single kid.
Patriot was born with one floppy ear. Sometimes that happens, but it usually perks up. Sometimes it takes a few hours and sometimes a few weeks. But we’ve never had a floppy-eared alpine yet!
We managed to get some good video footage of the event. You can watch Patriot actually be born in this video.
It never ceases to amaze me how miraculous every birth is. Have you ever seen a baby animal born?
Fourteen pregnant goats done. Three more to go!
Kid count: 10 bucklings. 16 doelings.
#GMSKids
2014 Goat Birth Stories
- Castro and Cedar
- Vanish and Venice
- Saturn and Secret
- Rampart and Reluctant
- Quality and Quest
- Idina and Iliana
- Elvis and Esther
- Factor and Ferocious
- Java and Jericho
- Tapioca and Tempest
- Lampy
- Yahoo and Yesterday
- Happy and Hera
- Patriot
- Zea and Zany
Hi – thank you so much for sharing this wonderful video! I was wondering why the baby goat isn’t given back to the mom to nurse. Wouldn’t that make for a happy and healthier kid?
Please keep on sharing the great videos!!
Actually – we’ve found the exact opposite to be true. Everybody (goats and humans) are a lot happier when the babies are bottle raised. Here is some more information for you: https://pjjonas.com/2012/02/19/why-we-bottle-feed/
PJ