Surprise, Surprise!

The surprise was wonderful, but just a little distressing. It was exciting, but disappointing. It was expected, but unexpected. And we were unprepared. Very unprepared.

Let me explain.

I told you last week that Bess was due soon. And she was. However, we were expecting her to be overdue, because she really wasn't showing any signs of being close. We're not experts on goats yet (a fact which this whole experience so perfectly proves), and we were very foolishly expecting Bess to be a lot like Betty. Not that we thought Bess would be exactly like Betty, but we were using Betty as our standard since that was all we had ever experienced. Let's just say that Bess was very different.

Like I said, Bess had been showing pretty much zero signs of being anywhere near giving birth. Yesterday morning, Mom and I went shopping and left Isaac at home. It was around three in the afternoon, and we were almost home when we got a call from Isaac saying that he had gone out to check on the goats and found Bess with two babies! We had absolutely no idea that she would be kidding so soon, and we were all completely shocked. Oh, did I mention that she was two days earlier than her due date as well?  There's not much more of the story to tell really. She had twins, a boy and a girl. We sure were happy that everything was okay and that she delivered just fine on her own, but I was disappointed to have missed the birth. I can't emphasize enough how surprised we were. I think I'm still kind of in shock over it all.

Okay, enough jabbering; I'm sure you want to see pictures of our two newest adorable babies!

Aren't they adorable?  They look very much alike in my opinion; only their colors are different.  The white and black one is the girl, and the brown and black is the boy.

We haven't named them yet.  Isaac very kindly gave me the privilege of naming the little girl, but I haven't been able to think of one that seems fitting.  Got any suggestions?

~Kiah

Another Adventure on the Farm (In which we decide that three baby goats just wasn't enough)

Well, I'm very sorry if you are growing tired of posts about the farm; however, that seems to be our life just now.  Today I'm posting about our newest adventure--Boer goats!

We got an opportunity last week to take two baby Boer (Boer is a meat breed) goats for free. The people we got them from have over 300 Boer goats that live on thousands of acres and live off of the land.  Once in a while during kidding season, the owners have to go through the herd and make sure there are no little babies that are sickly or may not make it in the wild.  Last week they had found two of these--one buck who was the runt of triplets, and one baby girl who was abandoned.  They both were very sickly and could not walk when they found them, so they brought them to their house and began to take care of them.  We got them when they were approximately four days old. They both had several different problems and we were not sure if they would make it or not.  They are doing much better now though, and we think that they will be just fine.

This is S'more.  He had a sore on his leg which I think he had rubbed raw by crawling.  That is much better now, and out of the two, he is the healthier.  He's the one you will see running and jumping around just like a little goat kid should.  (By the way, S'more's eyes are not really blue; they were just reflecting that way in the picture.)

 
This is Bordeaux.  She is still a little frail, but adorable nonetheless.  She has a little raspy cough occasionally and one cloudy eye that it seems will simply not get better.  We are afraid she might be blind in the one eye, but we are not sure.

These little guys are simply adorable.  They are living in the house for now until they get a little stronger, and I think we've spoiled them because of it.  But we can't help it!  S'more simply loves to be held and cuddled, so much so that we call him the lap goat.  He will cuddle right into your lap and either sleep or just rest, completely content.  You can see the truth of this from the pictures below.

 Bordeaux and S'more are not related, but they've lived together since the first or second day after they were born, so they are absolutely inseparable.  If we let them out (which we do occasionally) and S'more realizes that Bordeaux has wandered off and he can't see her, he will start wailing and running around looking for her until he finds her.  It is the cutest thing to see.

Here, both Daddy and S'more fell asleep in the chair and I just couldn't pass up this shot!  Talk about spoiled, huh?

 On a side note, I want to announce that spring is here!  We are definitely having warmer weather and it would be lovely if only the wind would let us enjoy it!  Unfortunately, the wind is unrelenting--at least for now.  Hopefully it will let up enough for us to enjoy the beautiful spring time soon.

~Kiah

Kiddos!

Tertius - white and black

Adah - brown and black  (she had a goofy little floppy ear for a while, but that's better now)

Apollos - black and brown with white boots

~Kiah

What a day it has been!

Praise God, our days of waiting are over! Betty gave birth to beautiful, healthy triplets today!  Here's how it all went down:

It just so happened that both Mom and Dad left early this morning to go visit my Grandma who lives two hours away.  Isaac and I stayed at home just in case Betty delivered.  About 8:00 am Betty started showing some serious signs of impending labor.  Isaac and I gathered all we needed, went out to be with her, and called Mom and Dad to let them know that Betty was going into labor.  We thought we were going to go through the delivery by ourselves, but Mom and Dad surprised us about an hour later by showing up.  They had decided to turn around and come home.  That turned out to be a major blessing, as it would have been much more difficult had we been by ourselves.

Isaac did a terrific job through the whole labor.  You would have thought he had done this hundreds of times!  Betty too, was a trooper!  This was her 4th freshening, and she did a great job through the whole thing.

By about 10:00 we knew for sure those babies were coming soon.  Betty was losing a lot of fluids, pawing the ground, and lying down then standing up repeatedly.  We didn't have to wait very long.  At 11:00 there were two little hooves and one little black nose sticking out.  At 11:05 the whole body followed and we found that Betty's first kid was a little girl!  She was in perfect position, and Isaac just helped out a little by pulling on the feet as Betty pushed.  Isaac named her Adah.  I want to pause here for just a moment to say what a miracle this was to watch!  It is such a wondrous thing to watch a life that God has created come into the world, even when it is just a little goat.  I couldn't stop smiling through the whole delivery.  It was just so amazing to see!

We were still cleaning up the first kid when Betty began having more contractions.  This next one came out very quickly, so quickly in fact that Mom and Dad didn't even know she was having another one until it was delivered.  This second kid, born at 11:22 was a buck, which Isaac named Apollos.

Now we were busy cleaning and drying the babies.  We were all in awe at everything we had just seen.  There is a technique called "bouncing" in which you can sort of feel if there are any more babies inside the doe.  Isaac tried this on Betty and initially said that he thought he felt something in there and thought she might have another one.  Time passed, however, and when Betty showed no signs of another kid coming, we decided that she was only having twins, which we were all completely fine with!

We had called some friends when Betty had first gone into labor and they decided to come over (and that's saying something since they live an hour and a half away!).  They arrived about 20 minutes after the second kid was born.  About this time, Isaac milked Betty out and then we bottle-fed the babies. 

 

 

    

After at least an hour of being out there with the kids and Betty, we decided to head inside to get some food.  Before the food was ready to eat, Isaac and Rylee and Trent (our friends) went out to check on the kids.  When they got to the goat pen they received a surprise!  There was a little hoof sticking out of Betty!  Isaac realized that it was a back hoof and there was only one.  This means that the baby was coming out backwards and had one leg bent back.  He thought that he was going to have to reach inside Betty to help her, and he was concerned that the baby might be dead, because the hoof was cold and he didn't know how long it had been there.  It only took a few pulls on that little hoof, however, and Betty's third kid came into this world, alive and well!  This was at 1:35, about 2 hours after the second kid was born.  I'm sure you can imagine how shocked and delighted we all were at the arrival of this third little kid!  I still can't believe it.

When we began thinking of names several days ago, we had found several names that we liked.  One of these, Tertius, meant "third" and so we decided that if we had a buck that was the third kid, we would name him that.  Agrippa means "feet first" so we determined to name a buck that came out with his back feet first Agrippa.  Betty's third kid qualified for both!  Therefore, his name is Tertius Agrippa.  :)

 Adah

Apollos

 

 Tertius Agrippa

Yes, our days of waiting are over (at least until Bess is due!), but our days of waking up in the middle of the night to bottle feed kids have just begun!  Fun, fun... :)

~Kiah