We did it!
Diamond's baby arrived early this evening!
While helping unload bales with the brother-in-law into the shed I noticed of my goats sounded off. 3 of the girls were sitting by the fence gate, and Diamond was off somewhere in the small section of the corral sounding kind of funny.
Went to check it out and saw her laying on the ground pushing with all her might.
Baby time!
Had a funny feeling today was gonna be the day by the way she was looking and acting this morning.
Also been keeping a very close eye on her since the loss of emeralds tiny. I really didn't want to lose another goat this year if I could help it.
Anyway, it was a quick and fairly easy birth. 3 pushes and that baby flew out of her. Brother-in-law showed me how to handle a newborn with cleaning off the face, holding the baby properly, etc. (He grew up with cattle so this is just the typical for him.) Got a towel ad everything else went fantastic.
Postpartum unfortunately is proving to be a little bit more difficult than I was hoping however I was aware and ready for this.
Well. As ready as one could possibly be anyway.
Currently I have mama and baby sleeping in my front porch. While the birth went perfectly fine I was nervous she was going to reject the baby being a younger goat & this being her first baby. Thankfully after coaxing her to look after her baby once I had brought her inside and got her dried off, she did take to her little one. Not exactly ideal as I would have preferred she do the job herself however she was nervous and didn't know how to handle what was going on. She did end up licking her baby and stayed with her baby when I put the rest of the girls away.
- A VERY good sign.
However nursing is proving to be difficult. This newborn goat is petite. As in like, she's almost half the size of Sadie's babies. This is proving to be a challenge because not only is baby goatie quite small and wobbly, mom is not sitting still right now either and being patient so baby can nurse.
I fully anticipated this being a possibility so thankfully I had some bottles ready from when I had my own babies. Apparently baby goats need to have colostrum in the first 1 - 2 1/2 hours. It had already been hour 1 1/2 starting to approach number 2 so as much as Diamond didn't like it, had to milk her colostrum and get it into that baby.
Baby goatie was not a fan of the bottle. She much prefers mom and is trying so hard to figure out where the teets are but at least for now she's topped up.
Every 2 hours or so I try to hold Diamond as still as I can to allow baby goatie to explore and attempt to find the nipples to nurse. Ideally it would be nice to get Diamond taught how to sit still for her baby here by the end of the week - end of next week tops since she'll be big enough to bounce around on her own all over the place. It will be much easier by then.
But for now if it's an unsuccessful attempt, I milk Diamond then bottle feed and try again in 2 hours.
I am truly hoping that we can get this dynamic duo going sooner than later because let me tell you...
Having straw in my porch is KILLING my nose right now.
I'm actually a little surprised at how allergic I am with this straw in the house right now. But it is what it is.
I have a happy baby and a happy mama and that's what matters.
Welcome to the world Sunflower!