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Lord Zedd-Repulsa
Jul 21, 2007

Devour a good book.


They've got the best names this year; I'm partial to Kingpin and Jocasta in terms of both names and cuteness.

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Instant Jellyfish
Jul 3, 2007

Actually not a fish.



I played a lot of Marvel Snap this lambing season and after seeing the S on Super Lamb I knew what the theme had to be.

Arsenic Lupin
Apr 12, 2012

This particularly rapid💨 unintelligible 😖patter💁 isn't generally heard🧏‍♂️, and if it is🤔, it doesn't matter💁.


I love Juggernaut's pattern.

Organza Quiz
Nov 7, 2009


I love Pixie's many-eyed smileyface.

I love all of them.

my cat is norris
Mar 11, 2010

#onecallcat

I, too, love all of them.

Instant Jellyfish
Jul 3, 2007

Actually not a fish.



Lambies are getting giant. These aren't all the lambs but are all the pictures I got today.

Pixie *keeping


With mom Pansy for scale


Phaedra


Wildside


Kingpin


Rocket


Ricochet *keeping


Daredevil


Jocasta *keeping


Juggernaut


Justice


StarLord


The 4 horns are all looking super nice this year, the 2 horns less so but that's how it goes sometimes.

Kwyndig
Sep 23, 2006

Heeeeeey


They're so fuzzy!

ChubbyChecker
Mar 25, 2018

such cute animals

ILL Machina
Mar 25, 2004

:italy: Glory to Italia! :italy:

Ayy!! This text is-a the color of marinara! Ohhhh!! Dat's amore!!
Gotta say, I don't know much about these things, but Ricochet is gorgeous.

Arsenic Lupin
Apr 12, 2012

This particularly rapid💨 unintelligible 😖patter💁 isn't generally heard🧏‍♂️, and if it is🤔, it doesn't matter💁.


Phaedra has a paw print!

Do you feel like telling us why each of them is keep or sell? IIRC you did that last year and it was great fun seeing the lambs through your eyes.

Instant Jellyfish
Jul 3, 2007

Actually not a fish.



Arsenic Lupin posted:

Phaedra has a paw print!

Do you feel like telling us why each of them is keep or sell? IIRC you did that last year and it was great fun seeing the lambs through your eyes.

Ok! This is just the ones from that post.

It's mostly what genetics I want to keep in my flock. I lost Isadore over the winter so I want to keep back some of his last lambs. Ricochet is the nicest of the Iz ram lambs and out of one of my best ewes so he was the easy choice. Rocket was under consideration but I don't think his horns are going to be wide enough to want to keep as a breeding ram. I'm pretty picky about 2 horn spacing.

Jocasta is also an Iz lamb and her dam is for sale because I just have too many ewe of that line so she gets to stick around to be grown out for at least one lambing season. It's still downsizing if the sheep you're keeping is smaller than the sheep you're selling! I really love that ewe line but it's getting ridiculous how many of them I have.

Pixie is staying because she's replacing her mom Pansy who is retiring due to being old as hell. This is the only ewe she's had for me so she's the keeper! Pansy is from WV and I don't want to lose her lines from my flock since her breeder as since retired as well.

I really like Phaedra, she's nicely built and her horns are coming in nicely and her dam is probably my best ewe. I am absolutely tempted to keep her but I kept her half sister, Phoebe, last year. Phoebe is the only lamb I have from her sire while I have lots from Phaedra's sire so Phoebe is staying as planned and some lucky person gets Phaedra.

Kingpin is probably the nicest of my sale rams. He's too closely related for me to use on the ewes I need a 4 horned ram for and his lines just aren't my favorite. He goes back to a ewe from NC that just wasn't really what I wanted for my flock. He's also got the little scattered spots instead of the big spots and that's just being picky but you should be picky with rams. His dam is a lovely ewe though so I'll keep her around until she produces a ewe lamb nicer than herself. He's already got a breeding home lined up.

Daredevil is also a very nice ram lamb but again his lines aren't my favorite and not what I want to be a ram for my flock. He goes back to one of my first ewes but her line tends to be small and primitive and I prefer the bigger, sturdier ewes. He's got very nice markings and horns though so he should find a breeding home no problem.

Juggernaut has probably the best body, nice and long and sturdy while still keeping that deer-like structure. His bottom right horn might swoop back behind his head though, which can be a problem if it grows into the neck or head, so I'll have to keep an eye on him.

Wildside is fine but again is too closely related to want to keep around. I used his uncle as a breeding ram for several years and while I like the lines well enough I don't want to add a ram from it back in at this point. He'll probably find a breeding home

The two horns are all looking a little narrow to sell as breeding prospects at this point. I really want to see those horns going straight out over the ears. This is from last year but you can see the difference in what I'm looking for in young rams. I'll give them another few months but right now none of the 2 horn rams are looking great.

Bonster
Mar 3, 2007

Keep rolling, rolling
Juggernaut looks like he has writing on his sides that is almost, but not quite, decipherable. Like some kind of forgotten language.

kafkasgoldfish
Jan 26, 2006

God is the sweat running down his back...

an expert posted:

Post of awesome goats

::Tina Belcher voice:: My hearrrrrt...

Celestriad
Dec 2, 2013

The lovely smell of bucks in rut is starting to waft across the summer breeze, and I realized that I have not yet introduced the thread to my new junior herdsire! Shame on me...

Meet Blissberry Bring MeThe Horizon! He's 4 months old, brought all the way from Minnesota. His genetics are amazing - both of his grandmothers scored a 93 on their judge appraisals--a 100 is a theoretically perfect goat, and in the Nubian breed a 93 is the closest anyone has ever gotten to reaching that score and both of them did. Both of them also achieved the National Overall Best Performer (in both shows and milk) twice, and both of them milked over 3000lbs (one of them milked 4000lbs) in a single year multiple times. One of his grandfathers was named Best Nubian Sire twice and the other is the son of another Best Nubian Sire. So, uh, wow he's bringing a lot to my herd.

Horizon is also the sweetest baby ever and incapable of walking - he prances everywhere. He's constantly posing and he realizes he is some Hot poo poo. I love his color. I've never seen a 2-tone goat before (it's because he has a ton of roaning and from a distance the roan makes him different colors and shows up as white spots).

We had an adult doe go into heat over the weekend and the big does usually have zero interest in immature pipsqueaks, so we introduced them out of curiosity to see what would happen. Horizon charmed her completely. He did a great job flirting and blubbering and foreleg kicking, but he's still a bit young to figure out what comes *after* the flirting. Poor doe was so unhappy about being cockblocked when he wouldn't lay her, even though she was definitely giving the "hey sailor" and "happy birthday Mr. President" vibes.

He has the best face <3
Also long goat is long





That Old Ganon
Jan 2, 2012

THUNDERDOME LOSER
Ooh, I'm so excited for you and your herd! Hello, Horizon!

my cat is norris
Mar 11, 2010

#onecallcat

That's probably the best-looking buck I've ever seen, dang. Congrats on the acquisition! May you have many beautiful goat-babies in your future!

Celestriad
Dec 2, 2013

I realized I really need to update this thread--a lot has happened. We sold Erin to a great new veterinarian goat mom who we're actually going to partner with on some artificial insemination, so I'm super excited. I spent all day looking at goat semen. (Sentences I Never Thought I'd Say for $1000, Alex.)

Flag was being a colossal dick, both to Horizon and to us, so he got his rear end sold. He actually attacked my mom and my wife. We were going to put him down, but we sold him to a huge Jamaican dude who will breed him to his does and then probably eat him. Good riddance. Once any animal attacks, it has crossed the line and there's no going back.

Beautiful Miss Queen Maeve is infertile. She doesn't have heat cycles, even though anatomically everything is correct. I thought she was intersex so I checked her with a finger and she has all the right anatomy, she just doesn't cycle. We even tried to induce a heat with hormonal control (now that's a fun totally different post - get me on that topic for a good time), and absolutely nothing happened. So she will go live with Horizon, who will love having a doe companion. She might even enjoy it too.

Meanwhile, 4 of the does are pregnant. We're planning on moving next year, 1000 miles from here, and the timing is all gonna depend on when my wife gets a job. So this might be a very very interesting kidding season/milking year. Everyone is bred for mid Feb through March 3, so hopefully we can get kids rehomed before we have to rehome. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Does carry their kids on the right side, and if you look almost every one of these pictures has a huge lump on the right side - dat's babies. But we still have a long way to go, so let's ponder how many goddamn kids we're going to have if we can already see baby lumps....

First is Andromeda, who will be having her 3rd set of kids and I would not be surprised if she has triplets again. She is in the aggro stage of pregnancy and is beating the poo poo out of the other goats. She's also herd queen now that Erin is gone, which really doesn't help with the aggro.



Next is her daughter, Nebula. Nebula will be a first timer, so she's a lot harder to guess on how many she will have, but that's a nice twin-sized baby bump I would guess. She is starting to moan and groan and she puddles when she lays down.



Next is Amber, with her back to the camera being dramatic (Kachina is being dramatic in the background too). She is so hard to tell--last year I was sure she had triplets and she only had twins. But she has grown into a huge doe so she hides them well. She's also... not graceful.... nothing like a huge pregnant doe standing patiently on your toe or trying to crowd behind you and instead shoving you off balance. I'm super impressed with her milk and udder--beautiful udder, and on her October milk test she had 7.5% fat content and 5% protein content--and I should be getting November results any day with likely higher levels still! And she's keeping in good condition even despite dropping all that fat and protein in the bucket!



Finally is Kachina. She is a first timer and so so miserable. It doesn't help she always was the fat one (we say "she has a healthy rumen") which I am really totally fine with because she comes from really heavy milking lines and she's gonna need that fat to support her milk production. But she was a triplet and her dam likes to throw herds so she will likely overachieve and throw triplets as a first-timer. She groans and moans constantly. Poor baby - I can't explain it to her and the first-timers always seem like "wtf is happening." Her excellent crazy/angry eyes really help with the wtf stage. Here she is smuggling a beer keg or possibly a small porpoise.



Finally, a group picture of the entire herd, with Queen Maeve and this year's kid, Mona, all grown up. (Conveniently standing next to each other for the photo.)

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"
I gotta know; How is Roadblock doing?

Celestriad
Dec 2, 2013

Roadblock (whose registered name is now Finbarr) went to the same veterinarian goat buddy who bought Erin. She loved him so much that she jumped on the chance to buy his mom. I saw updated pictures of him, and he's turned into a really solid boy, but he's a bit skinny because he's been playing with the other boy kids and a bunch of teenage boys are pretty rambunctious. You would never know that he was born unable to stand properly!

kafkasgoldfish
Jan 26, 2006

God is the sweat running down his back...
They are all so r-o-t-u-n-d.



Celestriad posted:

I spent all day looking at goat semen.

:blessed:

Uncle Lloyd
Sep 2, 2019

Celestriad posted:

Finally is Kachina. She is a first timer and so so miserable. It doesn't help she always was the fat one (we say "she has a healthy rumen") which I am really totally fine with because she comes from really heavy milking lines and she's gonna need that fat to support her milk production.

I am always scared of fat dry cows/bred heifers because they usually end up with milk fever and pretty much inevitably with spectacular ketosis. Are goats not too susceptible to metabolic transition problems?

Uncle Lloyd fucked around with this message at 17:35 on Dec 4, 2023

Celestriad
Dec 2, 2013

Well, I'm not so much scared of milk fever because of the diet I feed them. They get only alfalfa hay, which is really high in calcium. Milk fever comes when calcium drops as they go into milk and they start to pull it from their bodies/bones, but the alfalfa hay has enough supplemental calcium that it makes up the difference. If I was feeding a hay that didn't provide so much calcium, I would definitely be concerned.

Yes, I am concerned about ketosis and pregnancy toxemia. It happens in goats who are carrying a herd (Kachina) and have huge rumens taking up a lot of abdominal space (...Kachina....) and are on the chunky side because goats store fat internally and it presses on the stomachs too (KACHINA). We have already taken steps to cut back her excess calories. We used to just dump extra grain in the hoppers and let the goats clean it up because milkers need the calories, but Kachina was big enough to muscle in and get more than her share. We stopped doing that about 5 weeks ago and all grain is only fed on the milking stand. She only gets a handful of grain a week to keep her habituated to the milking stand and so I can check her more thoroughly, and she also gets 3 animal crackers a day. As she gets close to kidding, she will get grain again for two reasons - first, the herd is pressing on her stomach and she'll need the extra calories from nutrient-dense food, and secondly to get her rumen accustomed to grain again in the quantities she'll need. Ruminants are one hell of a learning curve to feed - you're feeding the bacteria in the rumen, not the animal, and gut flora seems to be exclusively made up of sensitive motherfuckers.

So I never understood why humans deliberately want to put themselves into ketosis for diets - it is really bad metabolically speaking, especially when we have huge brains run on carbs only. Goats are the same. I am gonna buy ketone test strips and watch her like a hawk for the last month of her pregnancy, and if she starts to throw ketones I am gonna throw every food I can at her to keep her calories up. Once she kids, the biggest danger will be over because then her body will be switched to turning fat into milk, but those last few weeks will be nerve-wracking. Granted, she is the most food-motivated goat I have owned (and that says something given she is a goat) so if I see her interest in food decline I will get a heads up.

Her fat will actually work in her favor once she's in milk. Goat milk is 168kcal/cup, and she will probably -start- at a gallon a day and go up from there, so she will be outputting at least 2500kcal/day. Goats use their fat reserves for the first few weeks of milking, and then all calories have to come from excess calories in grain. If she's as heavy a milker as I suspect she will be, then I will be very grateful for her ability to get fat.

I brought my Drake
Jul 10, 2014

These high-G injections have some serious side effects after pulling so many jumps.

All the ships, boats, and doggos doing okay? Everything go okay during the big move?

Instant Jellyfish
Jul 3, 2007

Actually not a fish.



My sheep are all trucking through the winter. I’ve got a new job and a new puppy so I didn’t breed any ewes this year and frankly I think everyone is enjoying the year off. It’s been a rough winter for the oldies so it would be nice to be looking forward to some babies but I’m not sure where I’d be fitting a week of lambing in March.

The goats were sold to a fabulous obsessive goat lady in the fall and hopefully she’ll send me pics when they have babies! She was so excited about them and I’m glad they could go be productive members of goat society.

Since I don’t have any lamb pictures to share here’s a picture of puppy Gamble, who flew in from Slovakia on the 29th.

eating only apples
Dec 12, 2009

Shall we dance?

Instant Jellyfish posted:

Since I don’t have any lamb pictures to share here’s a picture of puppy Gamble, who flew in from Slovakia on the 29th.


:3:

How are the other dogs? Maj and Mina?

Instant Jellyfish
Jul 3, 2007

Actually not a fish.



eating only apples posted:

:3:

How are the other dogs? Maj and Mina?

I said goodbye to Major a year ago November. His GOLPP was getting worse and I didn’t want to wait until it was an emergency. He went out happily eating an entire pint of moose tracks ice cream after a month of getting spoiled. I still miss him a lot but it was the right choice.

Mina is doing well taking up the role of put upon older sister. She turned 6 in November!

ChickenOfTomorrow
Nov 11, 2012

god damn it, you've got to be kind

miiiiiiiiina

Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

Instant Jellyfish posted:

I said goodbye to Major a year ago November. His GOLPP was getting worse and I didn’t want to wait until it was an emergency. He went out happily eating an entire pint of moose tracks ice cream after a month of getting spoiled. I still miss him a lot but it was the right choice.

Mina is doing well taking up the role of put upon older sister. She turned 6 in November!


She's already six?!

What happened to the sweet little floofy puppy riding in your car? :corsair:

Arsenic Lupin
Apr 12, 2012

This particularly rapid💨 unintelligible 😖patter💁 isn't generally heard🧏‍♂️, and if it is🤔, it doesn't matter💁.


Instant Jellyfish posted:

I said goodbye to Major a year ago November. His GOLPP was getting worse and I didn’t want to wait until it was an emergency. He went out happily eating an entire pint of moose tracks ice cream after a month of getting spoiled. I still miss him a lot but it was the right choice.

I'm so sorry for your loss.

eating only apples
Dec 12, 2009

Shall we dance?
Sorry about Major, he was an excellent dog. Mina is lovely!

dismas
Jul 31, 2008


sorry about major, mina is still gorgeous, gamble is a CUTIE

Celestriad
Dec 2, 2013

B A B Y G O A T

Nothing yet on a big move - my wife has a final round interview for a Director-level position in Vermont next week so keep your fingers crossed because VT has some awesome small dairy laws and we could actually make this A Thing if we move there.

We induced Kachina to kid on Sunday because she's a chonk and because we knew she would need help with how many she was carrying. Usually, they kid 30-36 hours after induction shots, but at 32 hours she wasn't dilated at all. We added another shot because Kachina be stubborn, and 3 hours later she was in labor. Sure enough, 2 of the kids were tangled up together.

I had to reach in and I found a butt. So I had to straighten a back leg and pull it into the birth canal, go back in and find the corresponding back leg (and I could feel another kid in there tangled up so I had to work around that one), straighten it and pull it into the birth canal as well. The first kid was born backward, a pretty little girl.

After a few minutes, Kachina told me she wanted the next one out so I reached back in again and found a kid sitting with elbows bent out and head on hooves. Easy enough, just grab hooves and pull them forward. Except the kid yanked his legs back. So I grabbed again. Yank again. The inside of a womb is a slippery and messy place and this little poo poo was actively resisting me. Finally, I get a firm grip on those legs and pull. Little roan buck kid was born without issue, but some of the placenta came with him.

Now this is bad. If the placenta detaches early, any kids still in mama can drown because they're no longer getting fed from placenta. Or the placenta could have torn off of mama's insides before it was ready and made her hemorrhage. Just as I started to be like "oh crap what now," and no more than 90 seconds from bringing out the buck kid, Kachina spat out a kid fully encased in a birthing sac. The kid was so little she just came out as is, past the placenta bit. I had to break the sac and rescue the hostage, a 4.5lb fireball of a doeling.

Kachina took one look at these wet screaming things and decided, "Absolutely the gently caress not." She refused to even lick them, which I really haven't had a doe do. Instead, since my hand was up her vagina a few times and I milked her to give colostrum to babies, she has decided that I Am Baby and she baby-talks and licks my wife and I. And screams bloody murder when we're out of her sight because We Are Baby.

So we have kids in the house. Newborns. Who require round-the-clock care. Sigh. I really wanted her to take over this bit especially since the weather was nice but Kachina had other plans. She has recovered really nicely and is already milking over half a gallon a day at only 2 days fresh, and increasing rapidly.

So here's the cast of characters as a whole. They're a few days early so they're small, but very healthy and feisty.


Here's the firstborn doeling. Her name is Maya, and she's a proper lady who is already learning to bounce and run.


Here's the buckling who did not want to be removed from his nice warm womb. He already went to his forever home, because they wanted to raise up a newborn from scratch so they could bond with him (don't worry, he had a day of colostrum before he left).


And here's 4.5lbs of pure attitude, in one of her extremely rare moments when she isn't screaming at us or jumping on her sibling. Her name is Matryoshka (Mattie for short) because her mom is Kachina Doll and she was a tiny tiny doll inside of her.

Kwyndig
Sep 23, 2006

Heeeeeey


Baby goats! :neckbeard: kinda sad you had to let the buck go so early, but it means less work for you so in the end it's fine. Weird that she wouldn't bond with the kids, that happen often in your experience?

Celestriad
Dec 2, 2013

It's more common in first time mamas, and in mamas who I had to assist. She was both. I mean, it is definitely not fun for the goat to have me stick my whole drat hand up her vagina and fish around inside her. She was very sore afterward, and I had to give her pain killers and Preparation H on her poor swollen vulva. So she went through this traumatic thing without knowing wtf is going on, and then these things start screaming at her and sucking on her tits? I would be offended too. Whereas I have been working with her teats for a long time, in a known way (on the milking stand) and I raised her. So she's waaaaay more comfortable with me than with the new shrieking things.

Also, purebred dairy goats are very far removed from wild scrub goats. A lot of the mothering instinct has kinda been bred out of them because most dairy people (including me) pull the kids so we can get all the milk. So it's kinda a problem of our own creation.

Celestriad
Dec 2, 2013

B A B B I E S 2: T H E B A B B E N I N G

We induced Nebula to kid on Sunday, because we knew she was packing multiples. I was expecting large twins or possibly small triplets. She didn't really want to go, but the induction took and she was NOT thrilled about having her first kid, who was quite small. Boy howdy, did she scream. First timers are always the worst in that regard....

Got the little one all settled in and warm, and Nebula came around once she realized that she wasn't going to die from having a baby and started licking her. Success! A good mama, after Kachina rejected hers. Her udder is huge, way bigger than her mom's udder, so I was hoping the littles would be able to nurse okay. A little while later, she settled in for round two. Another textbook kidding. Then while we were cleaning up kid #2, my wife looked over and goes, "Oh god there are hooves coming out of her!"

Sure enough, two back legs were sticking out of her. She hadn't even pushed. I quickly got over there and helped pull the kid because I was afraid if it took too long, the backward kid would start to breathe while its head was still in the womb and would drown on the uterine fluids. Once again, Nebula was very much not thrilled with this and let me know by screaming like the damned. All those cute goat screaming videos? Yeah, not so cute when you're covered in goo and blood and poo poo and trying very hard not to hurt anyone while also trying very hard to hurry.

Well, all three were doelings! Mama settled down and was taking good care of them, and we got them all to nurse colostrum. We cleaned up the lake of birthing goo, and she made a kinda/sorta push like I would expect when she was getting ready to expel placenta. So we gave her an oxytocin shot (helps them expel placenta, closes up any tears in the uterus/reproductive system, and helps their milk let down), and went inside to eat a well-deserved dinner.

About an hour and a half later, my wife went out to check on them and saw a kid lying in the placenta. Her first thought was, "Poor thing, mama passed the placenta right on top of her!" Then she counted, 1... 2... 3........ 4!!!
Nebula kidded a 4th!
We had no idea how long the kid was there, but its mouth was cold so we rushed it inside and dried it off and warmed it up. We discovered it was a buckling with quite a set of lungs on him. Once he was warm, we rushed him back out and made sure he had colostrum.

I would never have thought she had quads.... 3 does, 1 buck. All are doing well, and the splitting image of Horizon. His first kids are really vigorous - no birth naps for them.

Here's the cast of characters:
Firstborn little girl:


2nd doeling, slightly blurry:


3rd girl posing like a supermodel already:


Surprise buckling:


The whole herd:

Kwyndig
Sep 23, 2006

Heeeeeey


Surprise goats are always stressful but you did a good job since they all made it. Cute babies.

my cat is norris
Mar 11, 2010

#onecallcat

Good job, Nebula!!! And good job, Celestriad. :kimchi:

Celestriad
Dec 2, 2013

B A B Y 3: R E T U R N O F T H E B A B B Y G O A T S

Finally, we had an easy kidding after all the drama and surprises. Last year, Amber had a kid on the ground before we realized she was in labor, and then kidded a second with no issues. Both kids were identical girls.

This year, my wife was doing an interview and I heard the sound of labor over the baby monitor so I grabbed the kidding kit (a bag full of everything we might need for a kidding - gloves both short and shoulder-length, betadine, lube, leg snares if the kid is out of reach, nose bulb to suction mucus out of kids having issues breathing, shears for cutting umbilical cord, etc) and towels and went out to the barn. I found Amber standing over a kid, licking it. Ooookay then. I grabbed the kid and Amber and took them to the kidding stall in the baby barn and held back the horde of babies while she licked on her newborn.

My wife finished her interview and joined us. The other kids were being really obnoxious, climbing all over us and bothering Amber. She was good about it and just pushed them away with her head, at least, but she made it clear she wanted them to be far away. I asked my wife to go back in and grab a baby gate to contain the monsters, and in the time it took her to go inside, fold up the gate, and bring it out Amber squirted out another kid. She prefers to kid while standing, so I had to catch the poor thing before it hit the ground. I can only imagine the first kid's birth--Welcome to the world! Your first lesson is - gravity! WHUMP

Both kids are identical, but boys this time. Splitting images of Amber and Horizon. Really, really solid little things, up and about really quickly and huge. They were as big as Kachina's two-week-olds. The second born drank like half an udder of milk the first time he encountered a teat (exaggeration but he really went to town). Was really, really hoping for girls from this pairing, though. Sigh.

They were really hard to photograph, so forgive the motion blur. Both Amber and Horizon have amazing heads/ears, so please enjoy Attack of the Blurry Ears.

No star, firstborn:


Star, thirsty boy:

Celestriad fucked around with this message at 07:22 on Feb 28, 2024

ILL Machina
Mar 25, 2004

:italy: Glory to Italia! :italy:

Ayy!! This text is-a the color of marinara! Ohhhh!! Dat's amore!!
Hooorrraaay, Amber! I hope she's a happy and devoted momma. She's got some cute boys to take care of.

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Celestriad
Dec 2, 2013

Andromeda was huge and so uncomfortable, and her ligaments on her back end were so soft for a week that i could wrap my hand fully around her spine at the base of her tail. Then last Thursday night, she couldn't even jump up on the milking stand. So we knew drat well that she was going to kid Friday. I told my work that I would likely have to leave at a moment's notice, and then the hard part, the wait....

My wife was at home because of her schedule, and she was watching the goats like a hawk and listening really closely to the baby monitor. It started to pour. The barn has a metal roof. We discovered a blind spot in our cunning plan to hear Andromeda in labor and take her to the kidding barn--apparently, the sound of rain on metal roof drowns out the sound of labor grunts. The first indication she had that something was up was when she heard a baby cry. She grabbed the kid and Andromeda and raced to the kid barn, and called me on the way. I raced home (35 minutes) so I could help because in her past 2 kiddings, Andromeda has always needed assistance.

I pulled up, flung open the car door, and watched my wife open the door carrying the pot of hot molasses water we always give the does after kidding (they need the sugar boost and the heat boost--birthing is stressful!). Andromeda was done. 3 kids, no assistance needed, all within 35 minutes. Great job mama! Stunning kids, too!

Here's the firstborn, an absolutely stunning buck. Black roan and spotted. He was sold as soon as I hit "send" on a picture, and he will get to be a herdsire with several girlfriends.


Here's the doeling, with awesome dark moonspots. When they're this dark, they probably won't turn all the way white and will end up silver instead. She was reserved, so she was sold before she was born and her future owner is super excited to get a moonspotted doeling to match her moonspotted buck.


And the printer ran out of ink for the last kid, another buckling. Just one spot...


That concludes our kidding for the year, although I am not done with goats for the year!

Kids are made of rubber, which is a drat good thing because they bounce psychotically and fall and roll and get into all kinds of hell. 99.9% of the time, they're fine no matter what they go through. I noticed that Maya, who we have decided we're going to keep, was acting off and didn't finish her bottle (a Big Deal for a kid). So I checked her, and one of her hind knees was swollen. Brought her in the house for a full exam, and it turns out she sprained it really good. We gave her a pain killer shot, and she was deeply upset about us manhandling her leg, the pain, and the shot. So what's a girl to do? Snuggle with mama til she feels better.

If you've ever had a cat fall asleep on your lap and started dozing off yourself, let me assure you--a baby goat sleeping snuggled on you is about 1000x stronger narcotic. We could market that poo poo for insomniacs.
(She's doing better now--not 100% because she still starts limping a little at the end of a long day of being a crazy baby goat.)

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