Baby Goats!

It’s been a busy few weeks on the Fat Farm. After many false starts and a huge miscalculation on our parts, our two oldest goat mama’s, Emma and Emily finally gave birth. We’ve been lucky with these two mamas before and I had my fingers crossed for smooth sailing from both of them. Sure enough, we caught Emily in the early stages of labor so I was able to monitor her pretty closely. In less than two hours, she had birthed twin boys. I can emphasize enough what a relief it is for a smooth labor. I’ve helped with a goat c-section and I still have nightmares about it. ***the goat was fine, the vet was amazing, it’s just a weird, bloody event, ok?***

The next evening, Emma was apparently feeling left out and wanted our attention focused on her so she gave birth to twin girls. As I was doing the evening check on the mama’s and babies, we realized that she had a secret baby hidden away and the farm’s tiniest member was born. Not twins, but triplets! Triplets sound wonderful: more babies to sell, more money to be made, why not? Because then you get itty bitty little runts and you have to name them Little Bit. Little Bit was far too small to latch on to her mother to nurse so she’s currently, and luckily our only only baby, needing bottle feedings.

Bottle feeding goat babies is pretty much like bottle feeding human babies. Your counters are covered with bottles, nipples, measuring bowls and whisks. There’s formula powder everywhere because you’re not sleeping through the night and forgot to make a bottle earlier when you were more clear headed. Goat babies also cry, like really cry, and it breaks your heart because you weren’t outside sooner to get them a bottle before they started crying. Just like a human baby but luckily there are no diapers to change.

These are just the first two to have kids. We should have the other four mamas giving birth before too much longer but I’m awful about tracking pregnancy so every day is belly watch around here.