MIA
WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS GRAPHIC PHOTOS OF A GOAT GIVING BIRTH
Where did the last 3 weeks go?
The last doe kidded on Thursday afternoon, and bang on cue the first lambs were born 2 a.m on Friday morning! So, no rest for us then. Eddie is pretty exhausted, as he’s already had several weeks of not enough sleep, and now he gets no more than 2 or 3 hours at a stretch. Still, at least we only have to go through this for a few weeks. I have nothing but amazed admiration for parents with babies and young children – how do they do it??
Kidding has gone well. Apart from losing one of Holly’s twins, we just had one other stillborn. We have 22 healthy bouncy kids, and Holly’s daughter, Hollyberry successfully gave birth to twins, both of whom are doing fine.
The kidding pens have been taken down, just leaving a pen which only the kids have access to which will be their creep area, where they will be fed food for little people which the mums can’t get to, and there are heat lamps in case they get cold.
There’s still a lot of “eat, sleep, poop” going on, but they’ve now added PLAY!!!! to the mix.
Here are a few photos I’ve taken in the last couple of weeks.
Butting is a favourite game, especially amongst the boys
Where did the last 3 weeks go?
The last doe kidded on Thursday afternoon, and bang on cue the first lambs were born 2 a.m on Friday morning! So, no rest for us then. Eddie is pretty exhausted, as he’s already had several weeks of not enough sleep, and now he gets no more than 2 or 3 hours at a stretch. Still, at least we only have to go through this for a few weeks. I have nothing but amazed admiration for parents with babies and young children – how do they do it??
Kidding has gone well. Apart from losing one of Holly’s twins, we just had one other stillborn. We have 22 healthy bouncy kids, and Holly’s daughter, Hollyberry successfully gave birth to twins, both of whom are doing fine.
The kidding pens have been taken down, just leaving a pen which only the kids have access to which will be their creep area, where they will be fed food for little people which the mums can’t get to, and there are heat lamps in case they get cold.
There’s still a lot of “eat, sleep, poop” going on, but they’ve now added PLAY!!!! to the mix.
Here are a few photos I’ve taken in the last couple of weeks.
Butting is a favourite game, especially amongst the boys
But climbing on Mum is the best game. The poor things, they get no peace during playtime!
Then it's time for a rest
They've made a den behind the feed troughs where groups of them like to curl up together and sleep
I did manage to take some photos of one of the goats giving birth. Not as detailed a step by step as I’d hoped but it all happened quite quickly.
The first stage is the water bag appearing
Then the kid appears in its birth sac. Eddie had to lend a hand here (that's 2 front legs and the nose/mouth you can see)
After clearing the kid's nose and mouth of gunk, and checking it's breathing properly, Eddie gives the kid to Mum and she cleans him up
Eddie helps the kid have its first drink
And last but not least, a couple of photos of the new lambs.
There has been some knitting going on, but that will have to wait until the next post…..
posted by Carolyn at 10:41 am
5 Comments:
22 kids! That's a lot of baby booties ;)
Congratulations! Eddie looks like he's a great baby doctor. The kids are so cute!
22 kids--congratulations :)
I love the picture of them in the den behind the feed trough. So cute :)
It must be spring then - only I'm not so sure with what is outside my window today.
Don't they have lovely dongly ears?
Baby Wammbies !!!
We are getting Jacobs !!! managed to find 2 breeders on mainland shetland and have organised to get a ram lamb & 3 ewe lambs. May even breed the jacob ram to our shetlands since we are cutting the flock down to just 10 sheep.
Congratutlations! When I was at school, we used to take an annual school trip to see the lambing at a local farm, so this post with all it's gory detail has a lovely familiar feeling to me.
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