This morning’s barn chores were very exciting. Following our normal routine, we made bottles for the calves and filled a bucket with water. I had to give the barn door a good hit with my hip to get it open as it had frozen shut over night. It’s been doing that lately. As I set the buckets down and peaked into the female goat pen, I knew that we would have an interesting morning. I called out to Teresa that Abby was in active labor. There was a puddle of fluid on the floor and she was pushing. The head and front legs of the first kid were already showing by the time we opened the pen and, before you knew it, the first kid of 2019 was on the ground.
Abby went about cleaning the little buckling off and we settled in to wait for the next kid. We waited. We waited some more. We started to get twitchy after 45 minutes or so and no sign of kid #2. Teresa stayed in the barn while I consulted some of our resource books and, ultimately, called our large animal vet for some input. The recommendation was to assist Abby with delivery. Teresa stepped up and earned her stripes as a goat midwife. After a quick iodine scrub, she proceeded to reach her hand into Abby's uterus and blindly felt around until she found two legs. She gently pulled and out came a large buckling. We were helping Abby clean him off, when a few minutes later, a third large buckling followed. Feeling as if things were under control, I called the vet back to let her know that things were looking good. As soon as she answered, kid number four surprised us. A little female. That makes three males and one female from Abby. In one morning, we have doubled the number of goats in the barn! Lola hasn’t even kidded yet.
