ACF Maddie - Miniature Toggenburg Doe

Weighing less than two pounds at birth, ACF Blue Mocha Madison's life is one of those you can call a miracle. She was born in March of 2007 along with two bucklings as the first freshening of our original miniature Toggenburg doe, HM Kari. She was the runt to her two five pounds brothers and needed extra care to get started. Too weak to stand to nurse, we resorted to tube feeding the first two days. Her mother was content as we were to keep her with the bucklings and was devoted to her, but she just seemed to have a hard time pulling together the strength she needed to nurse on her own. By the end of the second day, however, she was doing just fine. As this was a case of triplets with a first time doe, we almost hesitated keeping her on mom, but she was a determined little kid and got her fill at the udder.

Maddie never gained the stature of her brothers, but favors the Nigerian in her. At the county fair, she was shown in the 4H miniature dairy goat class and took first place. She repeated this the following year and moved up into two different championship classes.

During the fall of 2008, she was bred to the Nigerian buck we favored for this year, Ben. She surprised us with twins a few days sooner than expected. You can read our post about that experience here as well. We joke that she's a young mom and turns her kids over to her mother, Kari, to tend during the day. But in all actuality, she's doing a great job as a first time mom.

Mini Nubians have arrived!

Yes, our newest Doe, Wroxy, a mini Nubian finally got down to business after 11:30 p.m last night and delivered triplets ... one buck before midnight, a doe right after midnight, and a stillborn buck a while later. I would have guessed two kids or the possibility of one larger one but never three! She carried them down low and not too wide apparently so it was harder to tell.

She seemed a little distracted Sunday a.m. but we left her out anyway while we were gone in the morning. Early afternoon, however, we decided it was time to convert one of the horse stalls into a kidding stall. She roomed there all evening with a dry yearling to keep her company, but we could tell she would kid that night ... arching her back and stretching ... milk bag filling very full ... calling more than normal.

Just after getting a heat light set up along with a cot for Megan to spend the night and the rest of us getting ready for bed, Wroxy decided she would have her kids that night. After several serious pushes, it became evident that there was a lot of pressure going on. While inspecting her, the bag broke and relieved that pressure. It was then apparent that the kid wasn’t lined up right. But before we could think about it, she pushed out that kid butt first! A little buck, probably no bigger than three pounds. She didn’t take to licking him right away … a new mom thing … but finally got the hang of it. Pretty soon another round of pushes brought a little larger doe presented the correct way, thankfully. While concentrating on getting these two dry in the freezing temperatures, we realized that she wasn’t getting up to let them nurse. I began to think that there just might be a third. She did finally begin another series of pushes and delivered a stillborn buckling even larger than the doeling. Looking back, we probably should have gotten her up and “bounced” her to see if there was another kid and assisted in getting it out sooner as she didn’t deliver it right away. But, as with everything, you are always learning.

Round Two Coming

Our mini Nubian, Wroxy, is due on April 1 so ... the next post from here may be one of her kids. Hoping for an uneventful event!

OHSET Photos Are Finally Here!

Well, it took about three weeks, but the DVD just came in last night with the long-awaited photos from the Equestrian Team meet in February. It's amazing to see the stride-by-stride shots and the expressions. We're fortunate to have a professional photographer come and capture their rides. He ran a special last month whereby we could purchase in advance DVD's containing all of the pictures from all three meets. We didn't take him up on the offer last year, but this being Nicole's last year, it seemed to make sense.

Here's the link to shutterfly.com where they are at:

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0BZtG7lw0bMWFN&notag=1

Time Flies

Well time flies, and the kids are already a week old. Just about time to start thinking about disbudding. I'm thinking it would be a good idea to get them advertised on Craig's List so that if anyone would like to keep the one little frosted guy as a buck, we could make those arrangements before banding them. The club 4H meeting is tomorrow night, and we'll bring photos to show just in case someone is looking for more goats to add to their herd.

We have another doe ready to kid in 2-3 weeks, so we'll be starting the cycle all over again real soon!