With the end of soap sales for the year, my focus has shifted to kidding season. In year’s past, kidding usually kicks off in January or February. But, lucky for us we got some much needed sweet babies in December this year!
Miss Windy has always been one of my favorite foundation herd does. I have retained 2 of her daughters by Einstein and this year planned to retain one daughter by Houdini. I could not wait! The anticipation of new kids is always so exciting…and nerve wracking. Her due date: December 18th.
This year, I felt a little relief as I wasn’t waiting until the last minute to get everything ready for her. All of the kidding stalls were clean. The kidding cameras were getting charged. And the kidding bucket (that contains first aid items, etc.) was hanging on the stall. All I needed to do was add Windy.
It was Monday morning, 12/14/20, when I was brining in the shavings and final supplies in to the kidding stalls. I had just finished up when I heard miss Ruth talk to me. As some of you may know, Ruth is a talkative creature in her natural state. But this time, she was saying something different to me. I headed back into the barn to take a look at her and realized that miss Ruth just might be going into labor!
Ruth is young. Her pregnancy was unplanned but by the time I realized she was pregnant, I felt that it was best to see her through this rather than terminate anything. I had just taken the goats on a walk the day prior and Ruth was bouncing and acting her normal self. I thought for sure there was no way she was going to kid soon. Wrong – let’s try the very next day! Within 10 minutes of moving miss Ruth into the kidding stall I had prepared for Windy, she had a single doeling, very clearly belonging to Mr. Houdini. Wow – I was on top of the world. My first Mini Mancha (Nigerian DwarfxLamancha). And a doeling. With Moonspots! I was in love.
Ruth’s surprise baby was a good distraction from miss Windy who was due 4 days later on Friday.
Wednesday night, miss Windy was moved into her kidding stall. Cameras were added to her stall and the wait began. Last year, she went a couple days past her due date so I wasn’t anticipating her to go on Friday (but was hopeful she would).
Windy wanted to prove me wrong. I watched her closely on Friday and noticed she was doing a lot of talking, which isn’t normal for her. As the day progressed, she did a lot of pawing and was up and down frequently. By that afternoon, Windy had 3 beautiful babies. 2 doelings and 1 buckling. We will be retaining our Mini Mancha and one of the doelings from Windy.
This past weekend, our wonderful neighbors came out and did a photo shoot of our sweet Christmas babies. Check out the pictures below!
