Clumsy Pregnant Me

I am always such a klutz as I grow bigger with baby. I trip, stumble or, worse yet, fall.

Which leads me to my post. With Junie, I’m milking her around the clock every four hours for the first two days to feed the babies their colostrum and get her milk in well. I LOVE, love, love this, btw. Last night I milked at 10:30pm, then 2:30am when it was dead calm, dark and snowing heavily. It was just breathtaking. Again at 6:30am.

At 6:30, I was tired, tended the goats, and let Junie out of her stall to jump on the milking stand. A physical battle ensued getting this stubborn 200lb beast on the stand, she refuses to go, but I won. I sat on my 1 legged milked stool and milked her out. As Murphy’s Law would have it, after aaaaall the milk was out, the milking stool snapped. Instead of catching myself, like I am convince I should have, I fell backward to the ground rather hard on my back, aaaaall 12 precious ounces of colostrum poured down my sleeve, on my face and chest. I was in coveralls, but still, it was icky sticky colostrum. Ewe. My arm hurt and my head hurt. As I fumbled to my feet(stiff Carhartt coveralls + baby belly = fumbling) I looked at my spilled milk and sighed. Then came the warm blood running down my scalp and face. My head really hurt. I threw the bucket down and stomped up to the house, defeated. Paul happened to get out of bed and dress to come sit with me in the barn, even though I told him to stay in bed and sleep in. He met me on the way into the house covered with milk and blood running down my neck and face, LOL!! What a sight.

I finally got to feel what the kids feel when Daddy doctors them so tenderly in the bathroom(I do throw-up, he does blood, it’s an agreement we had since our first child). Doctor Daddy washed me up and found, as expected, a rather small cut on the side of my head that bled like a stuck pig. I little tylenol, coffee, shower and a good breakfast fixed me up great.

Stayed tuned for itty bitty baby bunny pictures!

Kids on the ground! Part III

This is to answer the questions why we take the babies away from mamma at birth. Well…it isn’t nice and I DON’T like doing it. However, we learned the hard way that if the babies nurse on Mamma for even two days and then we take them away they are;

1. VERY hard to train onto the bottle, kinda like breastfeeding a child then switching them to the bottle…it is a time consuming fight. 

2. They will do everything in their power to get back to her, this means nursing through the fencing as Mamma positions herself so they can steal, and getting over the fence even at a young age. 

3. They will suck all *our* milk from Mamma dry in seconds, appallingly efficient little stinkers.

We will not remove the kids from Jackie and Chloe because they are not kept as our primary milkers. Junie is our family’s source of diary products and IF we want every bit of our 1.5-2 gallons of milk a day from her, kids can not be in the picture. We work very hard to get her production up that high by handmilking.

I’m not sure, but I think we can put her kids back in with her in a couple weeks as she will not nurse them and they will never associate her with milk, only the bottles we bring to them. She will get her babies back in the pen then. Until then she can smell them, see them and talk to them all the time as they are in a still right next to her.

So that is why we must be meanies and take them away. She is a diary goat and this is her life, and really, she gets over as quickly as you put alfalfa in front on her face.

Kids on the ground!- Part II

 

Oh happy day!

Two kids down and I am still holding Junie in suspicion. She, again, looks awful big to be done kidding. 

 

The first information that arrived at the house, via children, was incorrect. It appears the kids had JUST dropped. Still wet, cold and hungry. Thank you Lord(reverently said) for sending Paul out there first thing this morning!! They were chilled. I got Junie on the milking stand(so good to be home) and milked her out of the thick yellow colostrum.

 

This time we took the kids away immediately. And guess what? Not a single problem getting them on the bottle, they each sucked down everything Junie gave them like pros!

 

Two bucklings! See Mindy, I have learned to tell the difference! Last time I was so confused.

 

Awwwweee…..

 

Airplane ears. ;)

 

Mamma a little anxious about her babies, but a little hay solved that one.

 

First steps…

 

Back feet first…

 

Straighten out…

 

Up on the front legs….and….

    

Wallah!!! No help from the human!

 

 

Emma in heaven…

Bailey hasn’t forgotten what that milk bucket means.

 

Oh, and we found Mamma rabbit kindled last night,too, lucky for me she was kind enough to leave 5 of her 7 babies un-eaten for us to enjoy!

Kids on the ground!

The coldest morning of the year, well under 20F, and Paul just came running in the house and said that we have two kids on the ground. Junie was twins, all white with red ears, Junie has them dried and happy, she isn’t supposed to do that withOUT me! I MISSED IT! Pictures to follow, I haven’t even seen them yet. Enjoy your cooooooooold day…

Just kidding…

Man this is frustrating! I wish the goats could talk and we could know if we can leave or stay home. Come to find out Jackie can loose her plug “days/weeks” before kidding, which is what happened last night, leading us to believe she was beginning. Nothing more has happened.

Then Junie wasn’t eating grain this morning, she was doing something that looked just like pushing(stretching?) and I was sure she was going to kid, yet she hasn’t lost her ligaments and now I go out there and she just walks around….no straining, but still disinterested in grain. Hmmmm….animals. Can you tell this consumes our life until the kidding is over? The last thing I want is for my goat to kid by herself and drop a little one the ground and have it freeze, so I get a little uptight.

Email address added…

Other than commenting on my blog, in which I can not email commenters back, I have now placed contact information to the top right of my blog so you can email me if you wish(Hannah!). There have been a few of you who I wish I could have contacted and visa versa.

The lack of posting is due to a puter bug we got over the weekend and an unusually busy week. I’m hoping Jackie may kid tonight…hopefully sooner rather than later. It is supposed to snow tonight, thank you Jackie for picking such a wonderful night, thankful for insulated Carrhart coveralls, this is the only job I don’t do in a skirt! Knowing her, she is just teasing anyhow.

Pictures to come IF anything happens and goes as planned…please no vet, please no vet, please no vet….

Saturday

Not the best weekend. I just spent hours getting “System Tool” off our computer. Luckily, I already knew about this fake program, but to make a long story short, it took a lot of work to get it off.

No goat babies. I go out there and talk to my goaties and they all look at me, chewing their cud, like “Why are you coming out here all the time?” So help me, if I come home from church tomorrow and there are kids on the ground, and I missed it, be assured I am going to throw a fit.

Then, now that hunting season has just ended there are gobs of duck flying into our field out back…gobs. The boys are learning ducks are smarter than we give them credit.

I was awful tired today, but avoided the couch as it makes for an unproductive day and well, it doesn’t change things(for me). If I lie down, I still get up tired. ;)

Paul took me out for lunch at Homestead, it was nice to sit at a quiet table overlooking the golf resort with a handsome man, being served, eating hot food. We were intrigued by the goofy people out there in the freezing temps, blistering wind, playing golf. Really. Crazy people in our world.

On a happy note, when I went to my usual Saturday morning coffee with my sister(minus my mother who abandoned us for the 75 degree weather in Palm Springs for 6 weeks) at The Woods, you know, the best coffee shop in Whatcom County?  my niece Emily handed me a little brown bag. Inside was an aDORable homemade pillowcase this sweet blog reader(I hardly know) made for my little Gracie. If my camera hadn’t been thrown in the garbage can and the garbage taken out, I’d show you a picture<frustrated grin>. Whaddayado. I will have to post soon on the dilemma the pillowcase caused in our home, which she will get a kick out of. Thank you Nancy!! I am going to sit in bed and read through the magazine tonight. Gracie already stuffed her pillow in the case and is making it clear it belongs to HER.  Her NEW pillow case that is HER’S. It’s not from Second Chance or Goodwill, it’s NEW. And it’s HER’S.

Wordless Wednesday