For many of us kidding season is winding to an end- we HAVE SURVIVED yet another year of nights with no sleep, quick dinners, blurry eyes watching goat butts frantically, not leaving the house for ANY reason, wrinkled fingers from hours of making sure we have surgical gloves donned and ready, and the blessing of tiny hooves, pink noses, and the sweet smell of those precious baby goats. I hope your kidding season was successful and all you were waiting for. At GetYerGoat goat gifts, We are celebrating the end of kidding season for the 2009 babies hitting the ground. At the GetYerGoat farm we have had a minimal kidding season, with 6 baby goats born this year; 3 doelings and 3 bucklings and all just beautiful- with 4 of them blue eye'd beauties. For those of you still expecting your precious baby goats I do have a great kidding article to help guide you through the kidding event at Goat-Link.com.
Typical Signs of Early Labor (Not necessarily in order):
- Appears restless, shys away from herd
- Eyes glossy or luminous
- Paying much attention to her sides and smelling the ground
- Pawing at bedding or dirt
- Looking behind her and talking to her sides (typically in a voice you have never heard="mama talk")
- Talks to you alot as if she is telling you she is getting ready (she is, so listen)
- Gets dreamy eyed or star-gazy (euphoric)
- Looks less pregnant than she did before-sides have hollowed out, under-belly is full
- Lifts tail frequently and urinates frequently, usually not much urine at a time
- Lays down and gets up more than usual-figidty
- Udder begins to fill more-looks tight and shiny-teats get full
- Vulva becomes flabby then looks flat and opening looks longer
- White discharge (this may or may not happen) changing to an egg-white looking discharge, sometimes may have some blood streaking in it.
Make sure you have somewhere clean, draft free and warm for your doe to kid in winter and cool,shady and airy (yet draft free on the ground level) in summer. Whether it’s a covered shelter in the goatyard, a place in the barn set up just for her or a spot you are willing to share in the house - don’t laugh! I’ve had many babies born in my house. Some of my more spoiled goats demand it and WILL wait until I let them in to kid!
Here are a few of the baby goats born in 2009 at my farm- these are the pygora babies born, I will try and get a couple of good pictures of the angora goat babies born this year. I do have a spoiled bottle baby as you can see basking in the sun on the bed.I hope your kidding season is going well and keep in mind I do have a great selection at Goat-Link.com of baby goat articles to help you with everything from feeding bottle babies, to giving enemas to baby goats- how to tube feed baby goats, castration and disbudding. I also have a new article on comparing milk vs milk replacers for feeding bottle babies
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