Within less than an hour the first kid was born, a doeling. After awhile, Lily started pushing again. When I took a look, I saw four feet. There are only supposed to be two! I slipped my hand in and realized there were two kids trying to come out at the same time. I grabbed hold of the feet that were furthest out and pulled with her next contraction.
Baby number two was a great big boy!
Soon the third was born, another girl.
Gruffy, my Pygmy buck, is the daddy, so these are Pygmy Nubian crosses or Kinders! This was the breed I wanted in the first place. Except I can't legally call them Kinders, because the breed is trademarked. If Lily was registered, I could register them all with the Kinder Goat Breeder Association, but since I can't, I'm not supposed to call them Kinders.
My photos aren't the best, but here are a few now that they're dried off.
Firstborn has moonspots like Lily!
At only an hour or two old, Baby Boy is already a stocky little hunk of buck.
Third born is mostly black. All three were up on their feet in no time, finding milk.
Whew, what a week. We've added eight new kids in the seven days! And I still have Zoey to go. She's not due until mid-May, however, so we can take a breather for awhile.
Lily's Turn! Triplets! © March 2014
29 comments:
wow that's a lot of little baby goats! Good thing spring is coming! Kids and flowers...so much fun! :D
Well, hasn't your goat herd grown! I'm going to start calling you Heidi. :)
Congrats on all the beautiful babies.
Wow! what a busy week everyone on your farm has had! They are all so cute!
Wow! You've got your hands full! Nothing better than a pasture full of fat and sassy goat kids!
A great spring with so many healthy babies!
Congrats on another beautiful set of kids. It's amazing how quickly a herd can grow, isn't it? Mine went (temporarily) from 3 to 10. Nice that you've got some good looking baby girls too.
Oh my. Too much cuteness. Way, way too much. I can't stand it!! (more baby goat pictures please :)
-Jaime
Cute! Cute! Cute!
Blessed many times over this season eh- couldn't be happier for you & your herd! Have you any ideas why your breeding program is more successful than in the beginning? Always looking to learn from other people's experience.
That's certainly a lot of goats and how cute are they? Your livestock numbers are certainly growing.
Renee, and now I need to come up with a lot of names, LOL
Theresa, so good to hear from you! If I get to be Heidi can I have a mountain to herd my goats on? :)
Thewovenspoke, too busy! LOL
Lynda, indeed. It is so lovely to see all those kids out hopping and playing. A real blessing
Tpals, I couldn't agree more. :)
Sue, Dan told me last night he thought it would take years to build up a herd. Obviously not! ;)
Jaime, so good to hear from you! I still have tons of baby goat pics and right now enjoy baby goats is the main thing I seem to want to do!
Sarah, thanks!
JW, the only thing I can think of is better nutrition(?) My first couple of years I followed commercial standards but have learned so much since then, such as importance of microminerals and nutrient balance. I honestly don't know why my first attempts at breeding for Kinders was a fail, except that none of my girls have been receptive to Gruffy until Lily.
Lynda, the hard part is that we can't keep them all. :(
What is it about baby animals that reduces me to a blubbering fool? Yea Lily!!
Yea 5-Acre Blend Babies!
Oh, my goodness you've been busy! So glad all the babies and mamas are doing well.
Beautiful, sweet baby goats! Are you wanting to migrate your herd toward all Pygmy/Nubian (Kinder) breeding eventually? Curious as to the master goat plan.
wow, you have a veritable kindergarten there now:) just thinking ahead - if all the babies from this year multiply like that next year....:) how many would you want as a maximum?
I'll let Darly know that you need some more names. ;)
You're going to have to tie same colored ribbons on each mama and her kids to keep everyone straight! Naming the little ones (at least the ones you know you'll keep) is such a fun part. Thanks to Lily for giving you such a good birthing experience!
Leigh,
Congratulations, more cute baby goats!!!! The pictures you took are wonderful :-)
Oh such cute babies, Leigh! The buckling has blue eyes! I love a blue-eyed goat. All of mine except for the wether, has blue eyes. Thanks for sharing the pics. Hope you find homes for them soon! Is the reason for the breed cross milk/meat? Just wondering! Blessings from Bama!
Obviously 2014 is the year to built your herd! Congrats on all the does! Any chance that Lily's boy will be kept for breeding?
I have a question....when a cow has a set of twins and they are a bull and a heifer calf...the heifer is called a free martin and is sterile...how does this work with goats?
Barb, I think they affect us all that way. They are too adorable to resist. :)
Cassandra, busy and now exhausted! LOL
Cherry, that's a good question. I would love to have Kinders but haven't had much success in establishing a herd. Plus there aren't any within several states. These actually surprised me; I'd begun to think that my Pygmy buck didn't have the goods! My Kikobians are still untested in terms of milk and meat production, but that will change next year. Breeding goals is something I'm going to have to re-evaluate.
Bettina, good question. I'm thinking a good winter number would be 6, 4 does and 2 bucks.
Renee, it was Darly's idea to give Ziggy's kids Z names last year!
Mama Pea, it's actually been a very good year for kidding except for Surprise's toxemia. Still I learned (am learning) something important.
Sandy, thanks!
Felecia, thank you! I don't imagine his eyes will remain blue as he gets older. You are correct for the cross. Rather than try to keep two separate kinds of goats, I'd like a dual-purpose goat. I think it would be better for a small homestead like ours.
Michelle, he's so pretty I would love to. I'll have to decide about breeding goals, however. As far as Kinders go, I'm at a genetic dead end. I was hoping to keep my Kikobians Kiko/Nubian/Nigerian. I'm just going to have to figure out what I want to do.
Fiona, how interesting. I'd never heard this before, but then, I don't know anything about cattle. No one in any of the goat books or forums I frequent has ever mentioned it, so I'm guessing it doesn't occur with goats. I did a search on free martins and found helpful information at The Free Dictionary. Apparently the fetuses share the same placenta because the male hormones circulate in the female's blood stream, inhibiting normal development. It occurs mostly in cattle and occasionally with sheep, but that seems to be it. Good question.
Freemartins can happen in sheep and goats too, but aren't as big an issue, since so many of the babies go to the meat market anyway. They don't always happen in cattle opposite sex twins either, but often enough that cattle people tend to cull against twinning (where sheep and goat people cull against singles). In all my years, I've had one verified freemartin (sheep; she weighed 300 pounds when we took her to auction at about 3 years of age).
OMG, more bebe goats! They are just so cute. They always make me smile.
Glad to hear everything is turning out well this kidding season. I don't know a lot about goats, but I'm learning more every time I read your blog. :)
I am so excited for you! They are gorgeous, and I can't wait to see them grow! I also read the update on Surprise and am so glad they are all doing much better :) Bravo to you!!!
I am also nearly done your book, and I just have to say...WOW! I cannot wait to finish and do my review of it!
http://caffeinatedhomestead.weebly.com/blog.html
Your lil mamas are cranking those babies out, phew! They are so cute glad you were there to help her on this round. Congratulations!
I always wanted to keep goats, as a child I remember seeing them at an Ag. Show and falling in love.
It's never going to happen, but I get immense pleasure in watching your flock instead, thank you for sharing :}
Have been browsing your blog for a couple of days now; its wonderful to see how far you've come over the years! A friend of mine has the same issue with not being able to officially call her kids Kinders. I told her to call them what my gramma calls all kids - "Chirrun" (cheer-run), because kinder is German for child, or children. Enjoy your beautiful babies!
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