I reckon I'll start with the bad news. On March 30th, my sweet River gave birth to a single stillborn doeling.
River loves babies, so it made me doubly sad. She cried for her for about a week.
The good news is that nine days later, Willow had twin doelings.
The is the first year I've had 100% does! And I've never had this much milk this early in the kidding season. Usually I only get the leftovers from the kids, but River is in full production, so I milk her twice a day. And Saluda's production has doubled since winter. She kidded last year and I've milked her all through the winter and she continues to produce. This has been the first winter I haven't had to buy milk to make our kefir.
I may possibly breed for a fall kidding. It's nice to have milk all winter long.
Sorry for your loss. Do you place one of the twins with River so that she can be a momma and share her milk? I remember seeing farmers doing that on "Yorkshire Vet".
ReplyDeleteDaisy, if she had been interested in Willow's kids I would have tried that. But I guess too much time had passed, so they didn't poke her maternal instincts.
DeleteSo sad about the lost baby. And about her mother. Will she help with the others? Do goats do that?
ReplyDeleteLiz, ordinarily they don't. I have heard of kidless does "stealing" kids from the moms, but I think it's pretty rare. If they had kidded closer together, I probably could have grafted one of the kids onto River. It's mostly about smell. If River was recently fresh I could have smeared some of her birth discharge onto Willow's kid. Or at least that's what I would have tried.
DeleteSorry for River's loss. Farming is exactly that - good and bad.
ReplyDeleteDicky Bird, that's exactly it. Thankfully I've had more successful kiddings than tragedies, but I know they are always a possibility.
DeleteGood news and sad news...that's it in a nutshell, isn't it? And on we go.
ReplyDeleteQuinn, yup. That about sums it up.
DeleteOur livestock was pigs and perhaps because they didn't have small litters, stillborn never seemed to be mourned much if at all at least to my eye. I'm sure they likely were in some form, just not in a way I could detect.
ReplyDeleteEd, if River had twins, I'm thinking she wouldn't have mourned the dead one. I was so hoping for a second, but there wasn't one.
DeleteI do think animals mourn differently than us, but as you say, it's hard to tell how.
I am sorry, Leigh. It is the actual way life happens sometimes, but it does not make it any easier.
ReplyDeleteThanks TB, it was just one of those things.
DeleteThat's sad about the stillbirth. I had a friend whose Cocker Spaniel had a stillbirth and proceeded to carry around a rock for a while, as if it were her pup.
ReplyDeleteKelly, aw, that is sad. I left River's dead baby with her for about an hour. I'm not sure that it helped except she would lick it every now and then. It was sad to see.
DeleteSad to hear about River and losing her kid. Even when you know it can happen, it's still sad and upsetting. Nice getting unexpected does though.
ReplyDeleteThanks Nina, yes, head knowledge and emotional reality are often at odds. Unfortunately.
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