Triple The Trouble

Annie, our Nubian goat, has had triplets twice before.   She has been growing and growing.  She was so huge that we were sure that she was carrying triplets again.  We have been waiting on her to kid for the last several weeks, every day thinking, "Is this the day?"  Well, Saturday afternoon as I was working in the garden I looked over and heard some grunting.  Annie had given birth to twins!  She was licking them clean - a buckling and a doeling.

Well, I thought, I guess you are not going to have triplets this time, old girl.  Well, I thought wrong.  After a little while, she sat down and promptly gave birth to a third.  My primary job was to stand with a stick and chase off the chickens.  They love to peck at the placenta and at the baby goats' hooves.

It wasn't very long until Annie had them all cleaned up AND had devoured the placenta.  We worked with the babies to ensure that they got to drink the colostrum.  One of Annie's teats was so engorged it almost drug the ground.  After the babies drank, we went ahead and milked it out.  Annie was being very motherly to her offspring.  It is neat how their instinct for caring for their young kicks in.

She has had 9 kids so far!  This time three - two boys and a girl.  Tricia got the kitchen scale to weigh them.  One weighed 5 pounds and the other two weighed 5 and a half.  It was a little difficult to get them to stay still on the scale!

One of the little bucklings has some nice-looking spots.  The other two are mostly black with tan and white markings.

And here is the deadbeat dad - Buckwheat.  He didn't even come check out his kids.  Off in the distance, he just laid in the dust disinterested.  He wasn't interested in helping out with discipline or care of his kids.  I told him that he owes child support, but he just rolled over and looked at me indignantly with his goatee.

While we had the scale out, Tricia walked over and got Salt and Pepper.  They are Oreo's kids and are a month and a few days old.  We weighed them.  Pepper was 9 and a half pounds and Salt was 10 and a quarter.  They are growing!

So we have five babies on the pasture now.  It is quite a zoo we have.  Our plans are to let the kids grow for a bit and then sell them.  We don't have the pasture (or the patience) to keep them all.  They are cute, though!

The Little Running Back And Why You Can't Cry Over Spilled Milk

One of our 3 triplet goat kids is named Georgie and she has a lot of personality.  Tricia has grown to be especially fond of her.  Georgie is the biggest of the triplets and as a result, she gets a lot of the milk.  When goats have triplets, the math doesn't exactly work out since a goat has 2 teats.  3 kids fighting over 2 teats means one is going to be left out.  When Tricia tries to catch Georgie to separate her so that the other 2 can drink, Georgie doesn't exactly oblige.

Georgie dodges, jumps, jukes and jives.  She's got elusive moves to the extent that Tricia calls her the "little running back."  When she finally catches her, Georgie is very affectionate.

She'll let Tricia hug her and kiss Tricia's cheek:

She makes ol' Tricia very happy and even whispers nice things in her ear.  I wonder if Tricia might like her "little running back" more than her husband!

Except that Georgie is mischievous.  All goats are, actually.  They are like having some bad little kids around your house - always into trouble of some sorts and causing mayhem.  When we milk the cows, it is about a 20 minute task, brushing the cows' bellies, washing the udders, lubricating the teats, and then hand milking into buckets. 

When done, we'll generally set the buckets of milk atop a table in the corner while we un-hobble the cows.

Pro-tip: You cannot do that when you have a mischievous little running back in the barn!  Curious Georgie jumped up on the top of the table.  (Goats can really jump!)  She promptly knocked the bucket of fresh milk off of the table.  We watched with dismay as the rich, creamy, fresh milk soaked into the barn floor.

But Tricia promptly said, "No use crying over spilled milk!"

Especially when Georgie, the little running back was the perpetrator.

Triple the Trouble on 3/3

On Saturday, March 3rd, Russ called me to the barn.  "Annie's in labor," he said.  Annie is our Nubian goat that we had been watching closely for over a week as her due date had come and gone.  As I looked in the stall, nestled in the hay, Annie was most definitely in labor.  She was groaning.  Trouble is, she was right next to an old deep freeze that we store chicken feed in.  I pulled her to give her kid(s) room to be born.

Wouldn't you know she stood up with two feet hanging out!  She seemed to stop having contractions.  I began to wonder if I should pull, but my better judgment won out and I let nature take its course.

Annie began to push and pretty soon the baby goat's back end was out...

Then everything but the baby goat's front end was out...

Plop!!  In a very unceremonious entry into the world, the baby hit the ground.  "It's alive," Russ said.

In a minute or two, Annie began straining again, only to deliver ANOTHER baby goat.  She went to work cleaning them up by licking on them.  Wow, twins!  Annie wasn't even that big.  How could they both fit in her?

I walked back to the house, leaving Tricia in the barn for a minute.  When I returned, she looked through the window and said, "Rosie had a third one while you were gone."  Amazing.

Just like in her previous kidding, Annie has delivered two little doelings and a buckling.  She was being a good momma, taking care of them and making sure all three of them were tended to.

It didn't take long at all for the babies to struggle to their feet on wobbly legs and start looking for some milk.  Tricia helped them find what they were looking for to ensure that they got colostrum - a necessity for a good start.  Annie patiently (for the most part) let them nurse.  A goat has 2 teats and there are three goats.  The math doesn't quite work out, but the goats seem to get enough milk.

Baby goats are the cutest thing.  They make Tricia happy just to watch them.

I put them atop the deep freeze to get a good look at them.  They don't have as many spots as Annie, and one has a mostly white face.  They are curious creatures.  Curious looking, too.

Tricia keeps really good records.  She came outside later and informed me that two years ago ON MARCH 3RD, Annie gave birth to her first set up triplets!!  What are the chances that she would deliver triplets again exactly two years ago to the day?!  Goats have a high probability of giving birth to triplets or twins.

It will be fun watching the babies grow (we haven't named them yet), but we are running out of space on Our Maker's Acres Family Farm and we will be looking for buyers for Annie's triplets from two years ago.  Hopefully we'll be able to find a good home for Buckwheat, Darla, and Jane.

An Update on the Kids

Annie’s kids – the buckling, Buckwheat and the two doelings, Darla and Jane, are four weeks old now and continue to grow.  Tricia likes to just sit outside and watch them play.  They are rambunctious and funny!  They also get into trouble.  In the mornings when Tricia and I are milking the cows, they’ll squeeze through the holes in the cattle panel and come jump up on the milking stool beside me.  It would be fine if they’d just stay there, but they inevitably hop down and play between the legs of the cows.  That’s just an invitation for the cows to kick them or stomp on them.  So Tricia will generally stop milking, scoop them up in her hands, and put them in the feed room. 

The feed room is enclosed with no way for them to escape, but that doesn’t mean they behave themselves.  They bleat constantly, crying for their freedom.  When we’re finished milking and open the feed room, they rush out, leaving behind them a feed room in disarray.  We pick up everything that the bad kids have knocked down.  It is hard to be angry with them, though.

We have been keeping a close eye on them to ensure that they are getting proper nutrition.  Goats have two teats.  Three kids on two teats mean that someone is going to get left out.

Hungry Kids!

As we watch Annie letting them nurse, we noticed that they will all run to her and she will let them nurse for 10 – 15 seconds and then she lifts her legs and walks away from them.  We inspect her bag from time to time after they nurse and find that one side is empty while the other is full.  She’s not letting them nurse very long at all on her right side.  We checked for mastitis and found that the bag is not hard and there are no lumps in the milk, so that's a good sign.  No mastitis, but she does have some cuts from the kids’ sharp little teeth.  I guess they are being rough when the three fight for position near her two “milk spigots” and she’s not allowing them to empty the sensitive side.

That can present problems if she’s not emptied, so Tricia went to the store and purchased 3 baby bottles.  While we feed Annie, Tricia carefully milks out the sensitive side into a quart sized mason jar and then pours equal amounts into the three bottles.  Then, like babies, the kids get their bottle of milk!

Sometimes they sit in her lap.

Hittin' the Bottle

 Sometimes they’ll stand up on their hind legs to drink!

Getting Every Last Drop

Russ even got involved with giving bottles to the babies when he was in from college on Spring Break.

Some drink - some beg...

When we pick them up, Jane seems to be the heaviest.  She must be getting most of the milk and Buckwheat and Darla “pick up the scraps.”  Supplemental bottle feedings, even some we’ve given with cows’ milk, will keep the kids growing and healthy until we wean them at 3 months old.  At that point, we’ll finally have goat milk for making kefir and soap-making.  Right now, the kids have a monopoly on all of Annie’s milk production.