Showing posts with label SonRise Acres. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SonRise Acres. Show all posts

Friday, January 20, 2017

And Then We Were Done ...

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This has been a crazy 13 days and an even crazier 48 hours. 13 days ago our first babies on the farm were born ... 2 days ago our little Jacob was born. Today our last pregnant goat started baying and pacing like mad. She had a lot of discharge. She would not stop crying out in that telling way. The problem is, I had to go to town and couldn't change my plans. I will admit to praying she wouldn't have her baby(ies) until I got home.

She was quite polite and waited. She is young, younger than I would have allowed to breed. This was her first pregnancy. I was really worried about her and, obviously, the baby(ies) since first pregnancies for livestock often have a stillborn.

She did wonderfully. She birthed those babies quickly, cleaned them up fast, and had them nursing before you could say "Bob's your uncle". They were nursing so well it took me a while to find out their gender. I didn't want to mess with them when they were doing what they should.

Finally I picked each of them up, checked them over, listened to their breathing, and did the flip and check to see what we had.

First up is our first born. We quickly learned we had a little girl. This picture is not great, but she is so colorful. She is black in the front with white on her head but she's brown in the back (like she's divided exactly in half) and then her underneath tummy is brown.

And her name? Esther. Yes, nice Biblical name. Our younger son came out of Sunday school this week asking if we had a girl could we name her Esther because he really liked that Bible story.


Second born is our little boy. We were hoping for all girls, but he's just so cute. He is mostly brown with spots all over him in random place that are white and black. His brown is much lighter and more orange/red tint than Esther's brown.

His name? Esau.


They both received names starting with E because their Mom's name starts with E (She's Evie). We do this with first generation as it allows us to know who the Mom is for each goat. Second generations will receive a different letter. 

Thankfully we are done for a while. All of our does have had their babies. We have no one else pregnant so we have months until we breed again and probably the end of the year before we have babies again. I am tired, so it will be a welcome break.

Thankfully these babies have a wonderful Mom. She cleaned them, cared for them immediately, and got them to nursing fast. She has been our best Mom so far, and, amazingly, she's a first time Mom.

Praising God that SonRise Acres is growing. All of our goats are now duplicated, and that's a beautiful blessing.

Wednesday, January 18, 2017

To Be or Not to Be ...

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Our newest goats came to our little farm pregnant. We were told they were just about 3 1/2 months along. I looked at them that day and thought that might not be right. But I figured time would tell.

Well, I am pretty sure time is telling. Our new 2 year old goat, Judah, is showing signs of labor. She is so restless, baying like mad, has bagged up (means her milk bag has filled and it's grown in size tremendously), and she is having discharge.

We might see our new little kids tonight, maybe in the next day or so. I will keep you updated.

Sunday, January 8, 2017

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Barn

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We were sitting outside after the snow stopped and the sun came out just enjoying the day when our very pregnant doe started to act odd. She laid down in weird positions, was nervous, did NOT want to go to pasture, and just wasn't herself. I told my husband, "bet she's going to have those babies". He replied, "nah. she just has gas today." We have a running joke that she just had gas and wasn't pregnant because she's shown us so many signs of being ready that we honestly stopped watching.

He no sooner got that out than I looked over to see something happening. I hopped off my chair, got down low, and sure enough here came a sack. 

Let me stop here. If you have never seen a goat go into labor, it is a site to behold. They look like they are all but dying and it is so loud. No, loud is not even a good word for it. It is beyond loud. 

A minute later we saw hooves. Then about 45 seconds later we saw a nose. It wasn't long before we had a little head sticking out. We kept letting her work on her own naturally, staying close by in case she got into trouble. A few minutes later we had our first little kid. 


She surprised us with her second. She stopped cleaning baby up but was totally silent for his delivery. Yes, we had a little boy on our hands. 


We helped her clean them up a bit, let her do what she needed to deal with the umbilical cord and after birth, and then started to help her get her babies up and standing. Once they were up a little bit we moved them over to the udder. The little girl figured it out fast. She is a nursing machine. The little boy was having troubles, but we got that little tail wag which means he was getting mama milk.


She is such a good mama. She is calm and confident. She allows us to help her and to handle her babies. She's very attentive. Poor thing. We walked out late last night to check on them and she was passed smooth out! She didn't even hear us walk up. 

I would like to introduce to you, Macabee (boy) and Maggie (girl) born 1/7/17 at about 4:30pm. 


 

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