Where To Begin?

I know that I haven't posted in a long while. But we are fine, I have just had a few health problems, a death in the family, a lot of halter orders to finish and get shipped and too much to do around the farm. I had promised to blog on Sunday night before going to bed but all of my plans were foiled again.

We were getting ready to leave the house for several hours on Sunday evening and I asked my DH if he thought that I should put Paris in the barn stall while we were gone. She was in the goat shed and had not come out when I fed grain to the others. But we had changed feed and she didn't like it anyway so I thought that was the problem. My DH said that I should put her up but that he had looked at her and he was sure that she wouldn't be kidding anytime soon.

Sunday was her due date but after I evaluated her, I didn't think that she was ready either. Her udder was not full or tight and she was not dilated at all.

I went into the house to clean up and change my clothes and was ready to leave when I heard the water pump running, I asked the DH if he had left the water running outside and he said, yes, so I put my shoes on and went out to turn the hydrant off.

I opened the door and immediately heard the sound of a doe in labor. I could see her from the door and she was pushing hard. I turned around and said, "She is kidding!". He said,"You're kidding?" and I said, "NO, she is kidding!". He ran outside and I ran for towels.

Nothing happened, she was in terrible hard labor but nothing was happening. My DH asked me for gloves and I came in to get them, then came back in and changed into my dirty clothes again. When I got back outside, still no bubble. He tried to open her up to see inside and we could see the bubble but she just was not dilated enough.

We gave her as much time as possible without waiting too long and then he went back in to assist the bubble without breaking it. His hand made her contractions harder and that helped more than anything.

After the bubble was out, still no feet, so we waited awhile then he went back in and found the feet and started pulling. The nose came out with the feet, so we knew we were in the right position. He pulled and she screamed with each contraction.

I tried to push back on the skin to work the babies head out but I could feel the head and it was enormous, I was afraid that it was a single and it was just too big. After a lot of pulling and working her big head popped out and when it did her whole body came out too.

He handed the white with brown headed doeling to me and I slung her around a little bit and really didn't expect her to be alive but she was. We wiped her mouth and nose area. Mama didn't get up and so we put a towel down at her head and since it was a hot day and Paris is a first freshener, we let her clean the rest of her up.

We waited and waited and nothing else happened, we were sure that there was at least one more in there. Finally my DH put his hand in again to start more contractions and she popped out a very tiny, black with brown points buckling.

Paris cleaned him all up and still just laid there. The kidlings were wanting to nurse but she would not get up. My Husband finally helped her get to her feet and from there on everything has been perfect. She passed both of her afterbirths and I let her eat them. She is a very good mommy.

We learned a valuable lesson, goats usually give birth on their due date whether they look ready or not.

More later...