If you have goats please spend time with them and get to know your goats. This is how I judge most things with our goat herd.
We walked out yesterday evening to get the little mini nubian doelings for the night and bring them in. We had both showered and were clean. Looking back I am sure this was a mistake.
I gazed down to the boer Nanny pasture to look for our red Knoxville girl who is very pregnant and looks like she is about to pop. I took a few steps and I saw her. Something seemed off with her so I just watched her. I told the hubby we needed to go check her. We turned to walk and I saw what I thought was a push. Granted it's hard to tell when you are 300 feet away. We took off running and as we got closer this picture shows what we observed. I knew we were about to have beautiful boer babies. Our baby boer goat kids were on their way to meet us. Of course we are always both excited and scared.
She was pushing and screaming loudly. All of our Knoxville Boer Nanny's are loud when giving birth. I went up and she immediately laid her head on me. I petted her and talked sweet just like you would a human. I was hoping to calm her and I wanted this first time boer Mom to know it was okay. She gave another big push and I saw a hoof in the bubble. She stopped pushing and it went back in. I kept petting her in between contractions and after a few more pushes baby #1 was half way out. One more big push and baby goat 1 was here. We pulled the sack off it's mouth and wiped it's face. She began to talk to it and stopped. I saw another big push and more hoofs. Baby #2 arrived with only 2 pushes. We removed the sack from it's face and cleared this baby boer goats nose. She begins to clean the first beautiful baby and is talking sweetly to them. I run and grab warm molasses water for her and she drank it all. After a few minutes she kind of walks off. I think to myself this is odd. Guess what she did...... She started pushing again!
Will this be our first set of boer triplets born on the farm? At this point we are so excited, we are is disbelief that our first set of triplets are about to be born. We sound like 2 giddy girls talking. With only 2 or 3 more pushes out comes the third boer baby. This awesome boer Nanny delivered 3 beautiful boer babies in less than 10 minutes. We have 2 healthy boys and one fine little girl. As a bonus these are from registered stock which is super exciting for us.
We got them moved to a boer birthing suite which is complete with all the grain and alfalfa she can eat. We need to make sure she has the nutritional support she needs to raise all 3 of the kids. We installed a heat lamp for the night since they were still wet and we had a chance of frost. I got all 3 boer baby's to latch and nurse. We showered again and gave her some space to bond with them. I accidentally fell and landed in the birthing fluid so I was a mess. I typically have it on my hands and arms from helping clean and clear airways but this was extreme even for me. We did another quick check at 10pm and they were all doing well.
We conducted a few checks through the night and we are happy to report they are doing good. They all nursed while I was with them early this morning.
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