Spring Arrivals

At the time of the last post on this blog, we were waiting for goat kids.  Knowing that Vinca was not due until the 29th or 30th of March made no difference - she just looked ready - more than ready - to deliver those kids.  This meant I felt compelled to pull on some pants, boots, coat and hat in the middle of the night, put on my handy headlight, and stumble out to the barn to check on her.  Night after night I would get the same puzzled looks from the does and no sign of kids.  Some nights the stars were worth the trip anyway!

Thursday was the 30th.  After a last barn check at dawn, I headed off to work.  Kevin, suffering from some of those dreaded "flu like symptoms", went back to bed.   Later, he texted me a couple of time during the day - the last being "Echo outside, Vinca inside, just laying around."  I arrived home shortly after 4:30 - changed clothes and went to the barn and... there they were, fluffy and almost dry.

One buckling 11 lbs, one doeling 9 lbs.  We are calling her Violet - officially she will be Flowers Ole Lake Violet, and he is Garrus (Kurt named him - something video game related). 

 It hasn't been entirely smooth sailing.  Little Garrus is weak in the ankles.  While not desirable certainly, it's not super uncommon.  There are a few possible causes but the good news is that kids usually get through it and have normal legs in pretty short order.  We did splint his legs for a couple of days and we do see improvement already.  Vinca is a great mom and has a LOT of milk.  So much so that I have been milking a little out already to give her some relief.  The kids will soon catch up with the volume.  This evening though, she seemed to have some sort of obstruction and the one teat was not allowing any milk flow  Poor gal was really full on that side too.  We massaged with a warm washcloth and worked it and that did get things moving again.  I milked out over a quart from that side, and it was rather difficult for quite a while.  We got little Violet up on the stand too and she helped us out by taking a turn.  After a while it seemed like things just let go and then the milk really came easily.  Some sort of obstruction - I have been researching milk stones this evening.

Little Garrus with his splints

While I was milking this evening, the kids explored the general area of the barn - This is Violet checking out Roye

And Garrus, splints off now

This is Vinca's "I've had about enough of this" look...

In other news, we have candled the turkey eggs in the incubator and only a few of them are developing.  Guess they just weren't fertile.  That's fine I guess, I don't need all that many of them.

Spring is such a great time of year!  Welcome back birds!  The little plants in greenhouse are coming along and I'll be transplanting the little lettuces in the bed in there - probably next weekend.  There is a lot to do out in the garden - things that should have been done last fall, but I am happy to see that the rhubarb did survive the excavation efforts of my hens.

So with that I will close.  I hope to have more and better pictures of Vinca's kids next post, and maybe Echo's' too... but I have to confess I have no clue when she is due.  Until next time (next week?  in two weeks?) be well friends.