Muffin the goat is due to have a baby goat on Thanksgiving Day. If she does indeed carry through with this intended plan, it will be our first goat birth experience. Thus, it is causing much excitement here at Whispering Acres. We have been reading all our goat books, along with various internet goat websites, about how we should proceed. Mostly, we should stand back and let her do what nature intended. There is an overwhelming desire in me to hold her hoof and tell her to breathe deeply. I don't think this would have the desired effect.
If she has any trouble, after some time, then I may have to intervene. We have the latex gloves handy. I have studied various drawings of how baby goats may be positioned within the mother goat, and how one should go about correcting any problem. This appears quite sensible and easy on paper. I'm sure it's a different matter when one has one's hand inside a goat and no little drawing to show exactly what is going on in there. And amazingly enough, none of the little drawings show what happens if there is more than one baby goat present. I imagine it is a complete tangle of legs and ears and heads and tails. How can one determine which parts belong to whom without a diagram? It is quite common for goats to have twins or even triplets. So how I shall manage if anything does seem to be wrong is a mystery, but we have managed through pink eye and deer meningeal worm, so we shall manage our way through this also.
On the other hand, I am just deeply worried that she's just chubby and not actually pregnant. I keep looking at her and feeling her sides and trying to figure this out. She was purchased as having been bred, but it is difficult to know for sure. We are watching for the potential signs, and hoping for the best. It would be quite inconvenient if she were to decide that the perfect kidding time was during the Thanksgiving meal that we are preparing for Kelly's family. But it is not for us to decide. Stay tuned for news. Or no news.
4 comments:
Oh dear.... she certainly looks like she could have one on Thursday.. or not- she looks like I feel right now!
(a bit bloated. tee hee)
Good luck either way, Claire!
Does she have any udder? Sometimes they don't have any milk at all and still kid but if she does have milk it is a good indication that she is at least pregnant. I have had does that I would have sworn were about to kid and they ended up just being fat.
I do believe that her teats are a little bit larger than they were, but it has been gradual and hard to tell. Her udder is not really filling out at all. She's such a little goat that it is hard to say how big her teats and udder should be, and we are new to this, so we will just keep an eye on it. I was hoping things would be more obvious, especially the softening of the ligaments. I think I will just have to keep on learning!
I had the same problem with an alpaca. I was convinced that she wasn't pregnant , and even discussed with breeder re-mating her immediately , when lo and behold she produced a beautiful little girl - 10 days late! so hang in there!
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