We have had more babies! The one in this picture was a wk old yesterday, he is one of Lila's boys. He has been sold to a fellow goat herder, and so he wasnt disbudded. She wants him to have horns.
My Nona girl/herd matriarch kidded yesterday. She gave us one enormous buckling, and 1 large doeling. The doeling, pictured here, has a black eel-hair down her back- and is otherwise white. You must look closely to see the eel, she is larger though not heavier than the 1 wk old babies of Lila's.
We havent named ANY of them yet! I know thats terrible, we just cant come up with any names. This is Nona's doeling again, she has a thicker face and body than Lilas, this is the alpine in her. The saanens are a bit daintier looking.
This is Lila's, not sure if buckling or doeling but this one has been disbudded. This leaves a round burn mark on the horn area, I know it sounds awful! My friend Amanda helped us disbud them this weekend. Nona's buck was born with horn buds and they have to be burned tonight or tomorrow. No options for horns here, we sold a horned buck yesterday and have the other horned one for sale. They are not safe, in our opinion.
All five babies! I am amazed that the 1 day old babies are large/larger than the week old babies! Lila did have triplets, but they were huge anyways! Larger than expected even for twins I would have thought. Nona's were enormous though, especially the buck. She had a hard time birthing him pain wise, though she was capable of doing the job alone. We stayed with her in the stall just in case she needed us.
Lila's babies, her one buck will be named by his new owner and we are working on the other two. These babies LOVE the pallets that are about, and the stumps, and whatever else they can climb on.
Nona's kids again, they are so cute! I want to just squish them, they are so very soft and fuzzy. They dont mind being carried about and loved, and they have huge appetites.
And again, Nona's kids. We put them out as soon as it was warm this morning, the other babies were very interested in the like sized creatures. They have been following the chickens around, head butting them, and now they have these guys!
Awww Nona being sweet... She does love these babies, I see her and Lila with their babies and it feels cruel the idea of bottle feeding. I couldnt have taken them away, I know that for some people bottle feeding works best. It didnt bother me to own bottle babies, but it would hurt my heart to take them from their mamas unless it was needed. They do such a good job, these two mamas. They look for their babies if they are off playing too long, they clean them and love them and snuggle with them. I think it is creating larger, healthier babies not to mention happier. Its just a natural way for all involved.
Excuse Lila's hindquarters here, she will be a little yuck back there for a few days. She has all of her littles here, they are very curious. I love how their ears move with their moods.
Even with three, Lila produces enough milk. Sometimes the three are fighting over teats and they dont know yet that two are all there are. They look for another, whichever baby didnt get a teat in time!
Nathalie with Nona's huge baby girl.
Tad with Nona's huge baby boy! This guy is enormous! I cant believe he is barely a day old, they were actually born yesterday at 3:30 and 4:10 aprox so they are not yet a whole day old.
We have more goats due in a few wks, thankfully we have a short break here to finish the fencing around the new little barn so we can lock away babies in there at night when they are a bit older. Right now they go into kid stalls with their mamas, but I have only 2 kidding stalls so they will need to move out for the next set of does to kid.
No comments:
Post a Comment