Okay, it wasn’t really a surprise because Dollop got huge fast and I guessed four the whole time. But she did surprise us anyway. First of all, the sweet doe we lost on New Year’s and her brother Burrito (the sire to the four babies that were born a few weeks ago) were born on April 1st. We actually sold Burrito last weekend, the day before his birthday.
Around 2pm I saw Dollop standing by the fence staring out and bleeting. She is a very quiet goat so right away I wondered if she was in early labor. At 3pm I went to check on her and saw clear goop hanging out of her back end. I ran back to Christine to tell her and she immediately jumped up, leaving her microscope and fecal samples behind (seriously, goat life is something else!) and ran to get the birthing kit. She didn’t know if the something that was coming out might be a baby, whoops!
We led Dollop out of the pen along with her sister, Bridget, thinking that would keep Dollop calm, but Bridget just wanted to go eat grass. So we stuck her back in and Dollop refused to go into the milk room we had turned into a perfect little birthing area. There’s a step up and for whatever reason she decided she could not do that step. She begged to go into their normal night enclosure so we had to quickly clean it up and put straw (really hay that was poor quality) down. We learned after the last two births that wood chips are a terrible idea as all the birth stuff sticks to them and the goat ends up eating a bunch when they’re eating all the stuff that comes out.
As soon as that room was ready she ran in. Around 4:40pm the first baby was born, a white doeling with tons of brown speckles on her face and black spots down her spine. Right away we knew which breeding had taken…this baby had tiny little La Mancha ears, which meant Trinket was the dad! (If you remember, we had to help with the breedings b/c the bucks are so much shorter and with Dollop we didn’t think Trinket worked out and so we also tried with Chaplin the same day.)
I realized we did not have the lube (coconut oil) with us at the barn and sent Christine up to get some from the house. While she was gone the second baby came, a breech, and he came out and was very still. I was concerned since you hear that breech babies often don’t survive. I was yelling for Christine while I gave him a vigorous rubbing. This one had long ears! And then he started moving and I knew he would be okay. This one looks JUST like our other buck, Chaplin. So what do you know, two dads happened in one pregnancy, which is common for cats but not so common with goats it seems! Some people don’t seem to believe me, but the pictures say it all.
And again, it wasn’t much time until a third baby was born, a little brown doeling with long ears. She took her time being born; Dollop stood up for all the babies being born and this one came out head first and then hung out for a while she was only half out. It was actually great because it got her breathing quite well without a need for so much suctioning. Her coloring is like none of our other goats, we had a “where did you come from?” moment. She has a white band around her waist, not quite going all the way around, but we call her Hula for it. She’s the most striking of the babies.
And there we were, basking in the perfection of this birth and this amazing mama who loved all three babies equally. I stepped out of the room to do something and I heard Christine yell out “There’s another one coming!!!” I ran back in and because I didn’t have gloves I instructed her; this was Christine’s first time to assist a mama. This baby was born with Mancha style elf ears, only they were even cuter ears. It reminds me of when I first started chatting with Dollop’s old owner and asked her if she had any with pigtail ears. She did not because they don’t come from Mini Nubians…they come from Mini NuMANCHAs. So there we go, this buckling had the perfect pigtail ears! My dream goat, though of course a doeling would have been preferable.
Four goats, ya’ll. Quads. And they are all pretty darn amazing, though all so different from each other.
The boys both have blue eyes; the girls brown. It seems that only the white buckling Pongo has horns. The others appear to be polled like their mama, which is what I was hoping for. They all came out healthy and strong, no runts, and the first born is especially energetic.
