Goodness and Mercy

Yesterday morning in Morning Worship, we sang the hymn, "Surely Goodness and Mercy."  It is such a happy, catchy, fun song to sing.  The hymn is based off of the Scripture Psalm 23:6 "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever."

I remarked that Goodness and Mercy would be great names to name sheep or goat twins!  Wouldn't that be the perfect names?  Just so happens, Mathilda is very pregnant with her first kids.  This morning at sunrise we went to the barn for our daily chores.  I put together all the feed and then I began to milk Clarabelle, the cow, as Tricia was feeding the chickens, opening nesting boxes and getting the goats in their places.  She said, "Mathilda is in labor!"

She updated me that Mathilda had feet poking out of her.  As she brought her into the barn and separated her in the stall, I could immediately tell that there were some problems.  Legs were protruding, for sure, but from the feet, you could tell that it was a breech birth.  Labor was not progressing and to make a long story short, Tricia timed Mathilda's contractions with pulling and was able to deliver the kid.

It was a female, but unfortunately, it was dead.  But, Mathilda wasn't done.  There was another kid coming.  Her labor was not progressing and Tricia had to assist with this delivery as well.  This was a male, and he was dead, too.  A very sad morning, to be sure.

The female, on the right, below, looked just like Mathilda.  The male, on the left, below, was spotted.

We are watching Mathilda closely after this ordeal.  She is very swollen from the stalled labor and delivery.  We were hoping to be able to be able to name these twins, Goodness and Mercy, and have them follow us all the days of our lives, but we'll save those names for later.  We'll have more twins come along in the future!  

The First Batch of Spring Kids Arrive!

We have been expecting Oreo, our La Mancha goat, to go into labor and deliver her first kids.  On Tuesday, things started happening.  But it was slow.  Too Slow.  Tricia was worried that she was in trouble, so she called our veterinarian.  He was in surgery but told Tricia to bring Oreo in.  She and Benjamin loaded Oreo up and made the one mile trip to the vet.  Tricia left Oreo there.

A little while later, the office called Tricia and told her she could go pick "them" up.  Oreo had delivered two little doelings.  It was a good thing that Tricia brought her in as she had trouble delivering the second one.  The second doeling had her head turned backwards and Dr. Jody had to turn her head around in order for her to be able to kid.

They mentioned that there was a little problem.  Since Oreo was a little early, they theorized, her hormones weren't quite right and she had no interest in her little kids.  Uh oh!  Tricia had the appropriate shirt on for the occasion!:

You've Goat to be Kidding Me is right!  Oreo is not being motherly to her twins.  So now WE are tasked with being the twins' mother!  We put Oreo in the stanchion and got the twins to begin nursing.  It is so important that the little ones get colostrum.  It took some work.  They would suck for a little while and then lose it.

Here they are.  One is light tan and white.  The other is black with white patches.  The tan colored one is strange in that neither the mom, Oreo, or the Dad, Buckwheat has any tan coloration.  I guess there is a recessive gene somewhere.

Tricia wanted to weigh them, so we brought the kitchen scale out to the barn.  The black one weighed 3 pounds 15 ounces, and the tan-colored one weighed 3 pounds 7 ounces.

The kids' father is a Nubian goat.  They have long, floppy ears.  The mother, of course, is Oreo, and she is a La Mancha.  La Manchas have strange little "elf ears."  The kids have traits from each one.  The little doeling has long Nubian ears like Buckwheat.

While the little tan doeling inherited the trait of having little La Mancha "elf ears" from Oreo, the momma.

We are several days into this adventure and Oreo hasn't shown much motherly instinct.  She will let them nurse, but she's not really interested in them at all.  Tricia noticed that Oreo must not be making a whole lot of milk since they nurse and nurse and when finished, they still cry like they are still hungry.

Fortunately, we have plenty of cow milk, so Tricia has been making up two baby bottles full of cow's milk that she supplements Oreo's milk with 3 times a day.

We're hoping this will end pretty soon.  Especially because we have more baby goats on the way.  Annie, our Nubian goat, is very pregnant.  She is as wide as the barn door and should kid any day.  As big as she is, we're thinking triplets...