I'm usually not too keen on winter kidding, so I tend to wait a few heat cycles in the fall before letting the girls visit the boys. This year, however, it was later than usual before the girls showed any interest. This wasn't particular to me, as evidenced by a discussion on the Holistic Goats group, making quite a few goat owners wonder what was going on. When Daphne finally went into heat, I didn't want to miss the opportunity. The result is a kidding date at the end of this month. To prepare for potential cold weather, I'm busy knitting baby goat coats.
The pattern is called "Hand Knit Kiddie Sweater" and is
free at Fias Co Farm website. I've made some modifications to suit my stripy color pattern, and so far I'm pretty happy with it.
As the post title says, these mark my third set of baby goat coats. My first baby goat coat was for a March-born kid. I was worried about dipping night temperatures, so I made a
kid coat out of an old sweatshirt sleeve.
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| Alphie in his sweatshirt sleeve baby goat coat |
This added warmth for sure, but the problem was that baby boy goat anatomy is such that it got wet every time he peed. Good thing a sweat shirt has two sleeves.
Last year I found a
pattern for a dog coat and made several of those.
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| Helen and Woody in his doggie pattern baby goat coat |
Again, it added a layer of warmth, but as you can see, it didn't fit well. Plus, I had the same problem with the bucklings that I'd had before, so that the coats were always getting wet and needing to be changed. This year I hope for a better coat!
I'm planning to do four or five little goat sweaters, just to be prepared. It isn't uncommon for Kinders to have quads and occasionally quints. They knit up fairly quickly (the sweaters, not the goats), and the only problem I had was when I couldn't find my collection of double-pointed needles. I have almost every size imaginable, but with my studio being used for storage while we work on the house, I could not remember where they were. I ended buying a new set.
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| Working a short sleeve. |
The new ones are acrylic. I like the swirl pattern in them, but I don't like how they knit. I'm using acrylic yarn, and it catches on these needles so that the stitches don't slip smoothly from one needle to the other. Also I don't like the sound they make! They don't make the customary "tink tink" of steel needles; they creak. I don't like that. Creaking is not a comforting sound.
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| Looks like there are quite a few kids in there. |
With Daphne due in about three weeks I'm working diligently on these. It's a nice indoor project on a cold or rainy day.
