Due Dates and Baby Bumps

It is almost time! Ever since we bred the goats this past October, I've been counting down to their due dates. The anticipation has increased many fold since drying them off early in January. For the past few months our schedule has been wildly different than our previous days on the farm. My twice a day treks out into the pasture to collect the herd and intimate one-on-one milking time with each goat has been reduced to our once daily visit when we check on the herd, give fresh water, and feed hay, sprouted grains and minerals. The luxury of drinking the milk from our own herd and eating the cheese we make from it has been suspended until our goats are back in milk this Spring. The return of these enjoyable pieces of our farm life will be accompanied by something I'm looking forward to just as much as the milk (maybe more) - baby goats!

By mid April we should have anywhere from 5 to 16 kids bounding around the farm. You may be thinking "5 to 16? Huh?". Well... While we bred 8 of our adult does, we're not exactly sure that all of them are pregnant. We waited until they were in standing heat and then sent them on a little "date" with one of our two bucks. We even stayed and watched to make sure the deed was done. We have our fingers crossed that nature took it's course, but, well, you never know!  There's no easy at-home pregnancy test for goats (and the human ones don't work because goat growth hormones are not human growth hormones) and they won't start to get their "baby bump(s)" until very close to the end of their pregnancy. Some goats will barely show at all! You can confirm pregnancy with a blood test or an ultrasound, but we decided to forgo the extra fees and wait it out. Back to the seemingly random numbers - goats most commonly have twins, but triplets and even quads aren't uncommon. A singleton is also a possibility, especially for first fresheners (dairy speak for first time mammas). So, considering the unknowns of how many goats are pregnant and how many kids each goat will have, we have guesstimated 5 to 16. 

At the end of this week, we observed some exciting developments. A few of our goats have finally started to fill out (like Tenjune in the first photo of the post) and the udders of our first timers have started to puff up a bit, beginning to ready themselves for lactation. Today I actually felt a few of the kids kick! If you put your hand on the right side of a pregnant goat's belly, just above her udder, you can feel her kids kick. That is, if you can get her to stand still for long enough. Our kidding season is officially slated to begin in less than 3 weeks with Tijeras and Bridget due on the 22nd. Preparations have officially begun - we'll keep you posted! 

Comments

[Rachel~At the Butterfly Ball]

Oh how exciting! We are in the same boat over here. I borrowed a buck for 7 weeks (I didn't want to miss anyone's heat) and since we have much smaller digs around here than you at only 3 acres, we just let him run with our two mamas for the entire seven weeks. So from daily observation I am *pretty sure* of when they came into heat, but I never actually saw them breeding...so our due dates are going to be a possible surprise! But I am seeing signs of pregnancy now, with fat bellies and slightly filling udders. I can't wait! This will be our first time with kidding since we got our goats already in milk last spring. We are a couple weeks behind you in breeding them, so I'll be reading all about your experiences first! Keep us posted!

[Leah]

How exciting!! Do you know about biotracking? They do lots of testing, including a preg blood test that is really cheap, around $2. You mail it in. Drawing blood/hitting a vein is a good skill to have anyway. Also, you should be able to feel the ligaments loosening up well before they are due, to get an idea if they are pregnant. I know that can be *really* hard to discern.
Can't wait for baby pictures!

[Sweetbreads]

@Rachel - Congrats! Isn't it exciting? Feeling the babies kick has been just amazing - have you felt yours yet? We will keep you posted as we get closer - we're just finishing up assembling our kidding kit so we'll post about that soon too.

@Leah - I didn't realize that biotracking was so inexpensive for pregnancy tests! I do need to learn how to draw blood. I can give injections but am still a little needle shy about reversing the operation. Especially after my vet missed a vein on one of our does about 4 times before finally getting it... But you're right, it's a valuable skill and one I should get on soon! Their ligaments are still pretty hard, but I've heard that in the week before they should start to soften and I'll keep checking. Thanks so much for your suggestions!

[Leah]

That sounds like an incompetent vet! Where were they drawing from? My friend and I did it in the neck (where our vet does it) kind of low down, almost on their chest. Neither of us had ever done it before (we were CAE testing) and it took us one goat to figure it out (the goat was fine, we just had to poke her several times) and then it was easy. You should be able to see the artery (I think it's an artery) easily with on person holding their head back (lips pointing to the sky) then you press on the artery and build up a little bulge and then stab. Bigger goats are easier than littler ones. You can tear the artery and cause fatal bleeding, which is scary to think about, but just be aware. If they start to struggle, drop the syringe and let it hang, to help prevent doing damage, it should stay in the artery and then when they are calm you can pick it back up and finish the draw. When you pull out the needle, be sure to put some pressure on the site for a minute or two, to stop any bleeding. I'm sure there are some videos that can explain this much better than I did!
As far as ligaments go, once you are familiar, you can tell long before the last couple of weeks. Their ligaments soften early in pregnancy, but it does get much more dramatic closer to kidding. And they "disappear" just before.