Welcome Donald!

Moon kidded on Friday, July 10th, on day 145.  It started out as a normal kidding, and then stalled out completely.  She stopped contracting and pushing, and just lay down for a rest.  It seemed she was saying, "Please just make this go away."  I went in for a feel, which made her contract, but there were a number of parts that didn't match all jumbled up, and I couldn't seem to sort it.  A dear friend went in with the same results.  So, it was off to the vet, another dear friend and my boss as well (we'll call her K), for some help.  Here's Moon with her new little buckling just after his birth.

  Donald (named after K's 98 year old father, who passed away the next day) was the first baby pulled, followed by a stillborn doeling.  The doeling was all broken and twisted inside the doe.  So strange.  I imagine she got hit by another doe some days before the birth.  Because it was so tangled up, it's back end as well as it's front were presenting at the same time.  Hence the confusion with all the body parts.
It's sad to have lost one, but I'm thankful Moon seems to be doing so well, and little Donald is such a friendly, quirky little guy.  We're enjoying him a lot.  Here are a few more pics from K's yard after Moon was all finished up.  She went straight for the raspberry bushes. :) Smart girl.

Introducing Starlight's Triplets!

Starlight kidded uneventfully (thank God!) on Sunday, March 10th.  She had triplets, a buckling and two doelings.  #1, blue eyed doeling, 2 3/4 lbs.  #2, brown eyed buckling, 3 lbs.  #3, blue eyed doeling, 3 1/2 lbs.  All are doing well, bouncy and nursing great.  Starlight has more than enough milk for all of them.  Either buckling or doeling #3 are sale pending!  I'm a very happy, tired goat mama!

Triplets are Shere Country SH Starlight X North Forest Farm Shamrock

Laboring Starlight

baby #1

Our awesome new goat go to gal, Alisa, with one of the triplets.

Baby #1 and #2

Alisa dries off baby #2

Japanzy's Blue Eyed Doeling

Japanzy kidded on Saturday, March 9th with an adorable little doeling we've nicknamed "Kimmie" in honor of the veterinarian who helped her into this world.  Kimmie is a black and white, blue eyed doeling.  She weighed 3.8 lbs. at birth.

Kimmie had a twin who died sometime before birth.  The stillborn twin was seriously holding up the birth process, and was tangled up with the live twin trying to be born.  I couldn't untangle them so we made a trip to the vet.  Little Kimmie came out breech but pretty easily.  The twin was coming out front feet first, head wrapped over her back.  We had a long struggle getting that kid out, and it wasn't pretty to say the least!  Japanzy is hopefully recovering, but she's sore and moving slow.  She's on antibiotics to prevent a uterine infection now, and I hope she makes a full recovery.  She's such a great mother, and a great milk maker too!

Here's little Kimmie (Frostbitty Japanzy X North Forest Farm TR Aspen)

Kimmie already has a sale pending!

Blue Eye Mystery Solved

We finally got to the bottom of the mystery of where all the blue eyed kids came from!  I was beginning to fear that we had a fence jumping buck when we ended up with blue eyed kids from all our does.  One parent must have blue eyes for the kids to end up with them.  I found out last week that BOTH the bucks we used (Maxwell and Trevor) have blue eyes.  I had thought that only one of them did.  We ended up with 5 out of 6 kids this year having blue eyes.  It looks like we'll have a lot of blue eyed kids in our future!  I certainly wasn't breeding for blue eyes.  I want good milk, and as much of it as possible.  Blue eyed goats do seem to be pretty popular with people, though, and it looks like I'll be able to accommodate folks in the future.  Both the bucks I'm going to keep have blue eyes, as do the doelings I'm keeping.  Now that the exhaustion of kidding season is over, I'm already curious about what we'll have next year.  This is addicting!