We had ultrasounds on all the four does done and THEY ARE ALL PREGNANT!!!
We are beyond excited! I’m not sure how Christine was feeling about Bridget, but I was worried she was not pregnant again (her first breeding did not take and the pee test had given us a negative). And we both doubted that the new goat, Honey Bunny, was pregnant, mostly because she is so skinny (which is honestly normal for dairy animals but still throws us…our other goats all have the Nigerian Dwarf in them that fills them out more).
Because it’s been more than a month, it’s not easy to see all the babies, so we don’t have a nice neat count of babies, which was disappointing because that was our goal. But we did find out that each goat is having at *least* two each, and we may have missed a few babies hiding (actually Dollop, who has had triplets her other two times, seems to have at least three). But nothing crazy it seems, which is good since we are first timers.
The vet told us the last time she came out that Kissy appears to have had a urinary infection and because does have one hole instead of two like human females (urethra and vagina) for goats a urinary infection can become a uterine infection, which made her miscarry. She continued to have a UTI for a week or so and then it all went away with some oregano oil, a product called BetterDaze which is an herbal mixture. The vet said she seems good to go, but we could wait a cycle before breeding her. The problem is that we’re going to end up with June babies, which can be problematic parasite-wise for the babies. But not breeding her? She was our best milker and such amazing milk, too. I’m not sure what the best thing to do is. We could wait to breed her until June and then we would have four to breed at that time; maybe that makes the most sense. But still sad to think of not having milk for so long from her.
On another subject…
An update on our goats that had parasites: We exhausted ourselves doing the worming every 4 hours. They got better and then they got diarrhea and we had that tested for parasites and they didn’t have a high count any longer. But the week after that was the full moon and we worm everyone on the full moon b/c that is when worms come out (this isn’t some weird woo-woo thing but is actually common knowledge to most everyone in the animal world). We considered not worming those two (by now it was just Peaches and Mustachia) but they had been diarrhea free for a week and we didn’t want to miss an important dosage for them. Big mistake…
They ended up having super severe diarrhea. And it has not stopped. We’ve been giving them probiotics, slippery elm, and molasses on a regular basis. They are just starting to perk up but they have lost weight and their tails are unsightly. It’s been sad to watch and yet another lesson to learn. I feel so badly for them.
We moved the new goat, Honey, in with the other girls permanently and we just take out the two young Nigies at night to sleep by themselves somewhere safer since the big girls could pick on them in a small enclosed space. Mooey is our loudest goat on good days and so the neighbors are currently not loving this temporary set-up (goats hate change).