Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Triplets!


At 8:00 am, all was normal. Cassie ate breakfast and finished the remainder of Feline's.
I went back at 9:20 to check on them, and Cassie was plowing up all the bedding and had half of it completely dug up, down to the dirt. I fenced her in the back half of the goat shed.
Nothing much going on at 10:00, except some humming and a bit of digging.
At 11:00 she had Abby almost clean and dry. I called Lonnie.
At 11:10 she had Gibbs, but was busy with Abby, so I removed the amnionic sack from his face and started to rub him. When the cord separated, I put him in front of Cassie to clean. Lonnie got to the barn and settled in the sun with Abbie and a towel, and said, "There comes another one."
At about 11:20 she had Ducky. I scrubbed him with a towel, and turned him over to Cassie.

She had a few more contractions, and we thought there might be more kids, but she just passed afterbirth, etc. We've been out several times to take more pics and to cuddle them

They were up and on their feet and sucking faster than the full size goats. Still, Abby is the only vocal one, except Gibbs squeaked once when stepped on. Lonnie has been sitting in the sun and holding them one at a time, and Ducky just curls up and goes to sleep.

Abby and Gibbs are very hard to tell apart. All three kids are tri-color, brown/white/black. Abby and Gibbs have a balance of the three colors, but Abby has just a bit more brown, mostly on the back of her neck. Gibbs is more silver/grey where his black and white mix over his hips. Ducky is much darker. He's dark chocolate brown on the front end, black on the back end. His white is limited to a white sunburst on his forehead, white on his tiny ears, a spot on white under his chin, and about ten white hairs on his left side over his ribs.

Each of them weighs about 3 1/2 pounds. Each is 8 inches from the base of the back of the neck to the base of the tail, and they are about 10 1/2 inches tall at the shoulder. Just about the size of a half grown cat, I guess. Abby and Gibbs have soft hair, but Ducky's is more coarse.

After they were up and about, we moved them to a clean area, with a little goat hut and a small fenced paddock. They spent the afternoon sleeping in the sun, getting up and nursing, and generally getting licked over and over by Cassie. The licking instinct is very strong in new goat mothers.

We wondered if Cassie would be able to get them up in the goat hut for the night, as it's built with a wooden pallet for the foundation, and the step up is about four inches, but apparently they go where the milk is. When we went out to milk, Cassie and all three of the kids were in the hut. No problem!

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