Indy Kidded!

All I can say is WOW!  It's been a very exciting, yet stressful week here on the ranch.  Emotions have gone from high to low...to high again.

After a week of waking up every hour, round the clock to check on Indy (the pregnant doe), that grueling schedule finally ended on February 16th, 2011!  I was out milking, then noticed her acting a little stranger than usual.  It was at 11:30 a.m. that she went into full blown labor (my guess was that she was going to throw triplets).  At about 12:15 p.m., she started to push.  Then, the bubble was out and I was on high alert, checking to see what we were dealing with, ie.  breach, normal presentation, one leg, etc.  I saw a little nose and one foot, but not the other.  A healthy little buckling landed in my arms (the other leg was just folded back) and the barn erupted into screaming, yelling, laughing and...sighs of relief from me!  But it wasn't over yet...

Less than 5 minutes later, a second bubble came out, this time it was back feet first (we've never dealt with that before).  After me giving it a little tug, a beautiful and colorful doeling saw outside of the womb for the first time!  It took about 15 minutes after that for the third bubble to come, and that kid came out fast!  Another little doeling, brown just like her brother.

There's a trick called "bouncing", and this is where you wrap your arms around the doe's belly, latch your hands together and pull the doe's stomach up towards your face.  This is used to see if another kid is still up inside the doe.

So I did this on her a couple of minutes after the 3rd kid was born, and felt another kid.  I was so excited and happy that she could produce that many kids!  Anyway, my excitement started to "flush down the drain" after about an hour and a half of waiting.  Indy didn't have much strength left to push the fourth kid out.  A doe can wait a couple of hours in between kids, so I had that in the back of my mind.  Now 2 hours had passed and I decided to stick my hand up there and see what's wrong.  All lubed up, I was in, up to my wrist in her and felt bones, a head and...I don't really know, but it felt like a jumbled mess in there.  I had to pull it out, no matter if it was alive or dead.  I pulled and pulled, and then saw a leg hanging out, lifelessly...then I knew that it didn't make it :(  My hopefulness was at 0% when I saw that.  It came out wrapped in a membrane attached to the placenta.  The kid wasn't fully developed...It kinda looked like a dinosaur/bird...weirdest thing I've seen in a while!

I bounced her again and there were no more kids, thankfully.  I was more than thankful with the 3 that survived!  This was a huge learning experience and I hope other people will learn from this as well.

Here are some pics of the new arrivals!  (LaMancha goats naturally do not have ears, so don't worry, nothing's wrong ;)

Roxy (foreground)

Snickers (2nd kid)

Buckling (far right)

Snickers

She just looks like a little brat, doesn't she?

The second part of the story will continue in another post.

Thanks for reading!  Hope you all enjoyed :)

To be continued...