This is the first time I’ve ever had baby goats on my birthday! Skeeter was due March 22nd, but she has a history of giving birth bang on her due date, give or take one day, so I expected that Friday could be the day. Like Snowball, Skeeter had made an enormous udder, so once again I expected triplets, and Skeeter did not disappoint.

The day started off difficult though. I had to send Snowball’s firstborn off with my vet friend knowing that she probably wasn’t going to make it through the day. I was right about that. She died Friday afternoon. I named her “Daylily” and Phil and I buried her in our baby goat graveyard on Saturday.

But enough about that! Skeeter has a very consistent history of kidding not only right on time, but also at a very convenient 10:00 in the morning, and it was a beautiful morning! At 9:00 she started pawing and revving up. I had told some friends that she would probably kid that morning and they came over to attend the blessed event. So did my mom, who was planning to take me out for lunch on my birthday. I don’t know if all the excitement threw Skeeter off, but she still hadn’t kidded at noon so we headed indoors to have birthday cake, open presents, and give Skeeter some space. Sure enough, as soon as she was sure we weren’t watching her she got down to business. By around 1:00 we had 3 drop-dead gorgeous kids on the ground. Unlike Snowball’s, these were all big, strong kids that were up and trying to nurse before Skeeter was quite done delivering! The first was a big, handsome black fellow with a stunning pattern of gray-brown moonspots over his entire body. He weighed in at a respectable 7.75 lbs. and we named him Mosaic. The second was a 6.25 lb. doeling who is gray on the front half and black on the hindquarters with a beautiful arrangement of tiny white moonspots on top of the black. It looks like the night sky so I named her Galaxy (Lexi for short). The third was a 6.5 lb. doeling with similar coloring to Lexi except with a white face and no moonspots (or at least, her moonspots are quite different). We named her Constellation (Stella for short) because she has a small pattern of white stars on her left side. Stella looks remarkably like her grandmother, Petunia! She has the same bald face with a dark spot on the nose which runs in the family. Petunia had it, Sputnik had it, Skeeter has it, and now little Stella has it! Stella also has the white strike on the right side that Petunia had. It was a very quick and smooth kidding once Skeeter got going, but it wasn’t so smooth after that. Skeeter had built an enormous udder in anticipation of feeding three kids, but she overdid it and ended up with mastitis. I spent the next week combatting it and supplementing the kids with bottles from Snowball’s surplus. I was very grateful that Snowball had an abundance. Mosaic is one of the prettiest moonspotted goats I’ve ever seen. I’m not usually a big fan of moonspots, but I have to make an exception in this case. The size and distribution of spots is amazing!
Galaxy has a gorgeous pattern as well. The little white moonspots scattered over her black hindquarters look like the night sky. And I love that huge moonspot on her right hind leg! Poor Lexi has been partially rejected. I think Skeeter knew she didn’t have enough milk for three babies, so she made an executive decision and decided to cut this one out. As Skeeter’s milk has come back, she’s started to accept Lexi again, but she feeds her less than the others so I am continuing to supplement with bottles.
Constellation is named for this little pattern of stars on her left side. From the right she looks just like her grandma, Petunia, and her face looks like Petunia’s as well. This little gal is her mama’s favorite child. If Skeeter only has enough milk for one, this is who gets it. 
We kept all five babies in our basement for a while and we fashioned a makeshift “fort” for them to hide in. Babies love places to curl up in!

It’s been a very exciting time here at Goat-O-Rama. My horse, Dusty, had a foal on February 24th. It has been a joy and delight to watch little “Firefly” as she grows and learns to navigate her world.

Snowball was due on March 20th, but since Snowball always kids about 5 days past her due date, I wasn’t really watching her yet on March 19th. But lo and behold, I looked in the camera at around 11:00 p.m. and she was down to business! Wouldn’t you know it was 20 degrees outside and the shed wasn’t cleaned! I’d been planning to clean the sheds on Tuesday, but hurricane winds thwarted my plans. Wednesday was so cold and snowy I decided to put it off until Thursday, thinking I’d get away with it. But nope. Snowball had to go and kid a day EARLY, late at night in freezing weather in a wet, dirty shed! She had uddered up so much I had already predicted triplets and I was right. By the time Phil and I made it out to her she’d already birthed one and was working on the next.

That first little baby was freezing cold and only partly cleaned off. I feared at first she was dead, but as I began to rub her she started to twitch and shake her head. Still, something felt “off” about her. Her belly was distended as though she’d already had a full meal. But there was no time to worry about that. More kids were on the way, and they would have to be dried as quickly as possible. Luckily Snowball had the other two in short order. Phil and I whisked them all into the basement and quickly set up a makeshift pen near the wood stove.

The first little doeling was normal size but was a bit lethargic and took a while to warm up. She wasn’t hungry, but she seemed alert so I didn’t worry too much. The other two babies were teeny-tiny! The second one was only 4.25 lbs. and the third was a teensy 3.5 lbs. We’d never had such itty bitty babies at Goat-O-Rama. The littlest was having trouble holding her head up, but she had a tremendous appetite so we didn’t worry about her too much. The middle child was bright, active, and hungry, and she looked like Cuzco! We’ve never had a baby that looked like Cuzco, and Phil was calling her “Cuzquette”.

The first kid never did get off the ground. She was strong, but she was pot-bellied and lethargic with no appetite. She reminded me worryingly of poor Marmaduke, who we lost two years ago. She made it through Thursday but by Friday morning I knew we were losing her. My vet friend took her to the clinic to see if she could do anything for her, but they lost her in the afternoon. It turns out there was nothing we could have done. My vet friend’s daughter is a veterinary student and took the opportunity to perform her first baby goat necropsy. There was a short section of bowel that narrowed so that nothing could pass, which accounted for the full belly and no poops. An enema had relieved the meconium, but nothing more could come down the pipeline. It was sad to lose her on my birthday, but it was a relief to know that there was nothing I could have done to save her. And the other two were doing just grand! They were a little slow to start, but they had great appetites and looked like they’d catch up in no time! We named them Kodachrome and Prism.

Little Prism had a problem getting her legs under control and spent a lot of time laying like a frog. Sometimes, alarmingly, she would lay on her side because she had trouble holding her head up, but she was always fine once we propped her back up!

It’s a little female Cuzco!

Prism.

Kodachrome.