It has been an exhausting few days. Last Saturday, Anna, our goat, gave birth to three kids.
This evening, Bella gave birth to two! So far it looks like she will be an excellent mother! Anna, not so much...
The first three were born to Anna. This was her first freshening and it doesn't seem that she really understood what just happened to her. She left the new kids to fend for themselves, which has left us with the task of milking her and bottle feeding the babies. The night of her birthing, we scrambled to get everything prepared in the barn and in the house. Of course it was below zero (deg F) outside. With Anna refusing to have anything to do with her three adorable kids, we brought them inside the house. After everything was in place, we finally made it back out to the barn at around 11PM to attempt milking Anna for the first time; first time for all three of us (Anna, Shelly, and myself). After successfully extracting milk from Anna, we allowed the kids to stay up late so they could get in on bottle feeding the goaty kids. Of coarse, they loved it.
We cleaned them up and set them up with a cozy tote to sleep in, but not before letting them play around on the kitchen floor for a bit. If it was warmer outside, they would have remained in the barn, but we didn't want to chance it.
It is pretty amazing how they are able to walk on day one! Not only is it amazing, but it is also pretty cute!
Enel: He looks just like his mother Anna.
Tata: We are told he looks just like Bilbo's sire.
Imin: He looks just like his father Bilbo. He also looks like he is ready for bed!
After plenty of play time, we found a cozy tote for them to sleep in, in the basement for the night. I think Shelly and I finally made it to bed around 1AM.
Today we had to dig out some diapers and let these kids run and play in between their sleeps. Nothing more hilarious than watching a diaper wearing goat running around and playing with children, all while trying their best to stay upright!
I think next year will will do a better job at timing when we allow our buck to hang out with the ladies. Right now, March/April goat babies sound really nice!
-Jeremy
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Geez I thought having just one baby goat in my house was challenging, you sure got your hands full! Good thing you have some help, so cute seeing kids feeding the babies! These photos are adorable!!! Did you just use human kid diapers or make them? It's cool how they tend to resemble their parents so much
The boy kid on the bottom right looks exactly like his dad on the left's brother :P
Cute little guy! Yeah, it has been challenging! We has some human diapers but being they are males, we had to use a second to capture any, ah, leaks... We have one warming barrel setup in the barn for the two new ones. I have a brooder box we raise chickens in that we will probably try to transfer the ones in the house to in a few days. They learned how to hop out of the tote today.....
Funny I posted today about how barrels can be used for soo many things including a kid or chick warmer hehe
oh my goodness. This gave me a touch of goat fever. I've been debating if we should get some for ages now. Pre-spring is such a dangerous time to be looking at cute pictures like this.
You can borrow one of ours :D Yeah, goat fever is definitely better in the Spring :) Thankfully, baby goats are so cute!
Great photos. Really cute kids and children! (thought I'd better clarify that)
Yeah, we have been having fun with that one with our friends. You tend to get strange looks when you tell someone you are making the kids sleep in the barn tonight.
Oh my goodness, they are so small and cute! I have two (human) kids in diapers; I can’t imagine having 3 goat kids in diapers running around.
They are alot of fun. Three little goats and four children running around the house was a touch crazy, but oh the memories we will have :) - Shelly
How long will you need to bottle feed them?
They will be on a bottle the next 9-10 weeks. On the positive side, bottle babies make for super friendly goats. We bottle fed our breeder buck and he is extremely friendly and good with children.
Very cool! Tell the kids hi for us!
Will do!
Baaa.. <3
More like maaa! X3
Awhh they are so precious!! :D New life is so beauitful
We just had our first goat ever born on the homestead today! Congrats on all of yours!
Congratulations to you! Just 1?