Izzy's birthday surprise

Tuesday we celebrated Izzy's 11th birthday.  That same day, Lucy was due to kid for the first time.  Before leaving for work, Teresa asked Lucy to wait until Thursday so she could be home for the delivery.  All day, as Eric checked in on Lucy, she was showing no signs of labor.  Teresa was very happy to arrive home and learn this, hopeful that Lucy would indeed hold off until Thursday.  

Around 6:30pm, we both ventured into the barn for a quick check after dinner and Lucy had an amnion hanging out!  (sneaky goat.) After about 45 minutes, she started pushing and out popped baby #1 (boy)!

We continued to wait for her to start pushing again, but she never started.  Typically if they don't start pushing again within 30-45 minutes, something isn't quite right.  After a little over an hour of waiting, the decision was made to reach in and see what was going on.  

Flashback - Deja vu:  Last year when Abby kidded (Lucy's mom), Lucy's brother (Andre the Giant) had to be manually extracted after Abby failed to start pushing.

Turns out, baby #2 was butt first with his legs tucked under him, so after some maneuvering, then panicking and more maneuvering, Teresa manged to get him untangled and pulled him out by his rear legs. He is a perfect mini-me of Oscar, white stripe on his side and all:)

So happy birthday Izzy...

and welcome to the farm, Sherman and Zeek!

Aerial Predator

And now for some COVID-19 reading material...

Today was a busy day of cleaning the goat pens of a whole winter's worth of bedding pack.  It is a smelly and back straining job but we had a beautiful day for this necessary task.  The goats were in the pasture and the chickens were contentedly pecking about in the yard.  Suddenly, from the front of the barn, a proper ruckus could be heard around the corner.  Chickens were squawking and feathers were flapping.  Rounding the corner to investigate, Eric determined that the very large bald eagle that was swooping out of a nearby maple tree was to blame.  The chickens scattered into the barn and the eagle flew over the yard and house, circling and climbing into the sky.  The poor chickens cowered in the barn for the remainder of the day and the eagle was not seen again.  Interestingly, we lost a very old and slow moving chicken last week to an unknown predator.  It now appears that this was not the eagle's first visit to the farm and had returned for another chicken meal.