Well, they are 2 weeks old today, so I’m late in announcing it, but we have baby goats! My beautiful Magerdoodles(Maggie) gave birth to not one, but TWO beautiful, healthy kids the Tuesday before last. We’d been taking guesses as to what day she would kid. She was due the 8th, but we were going away for the day on the 6th so my bets were for that day. My husband however, had guessed correctly. He said “Tuesday the 9th, because you have an appointement thag morning”. Of course he was right! I scooted out there bright and early to do the chores and noticed small signs of labour starting, but nothing that indicated it would happen anytime soon. A quick shower and some breakfast later, I asked hubs to go check on her while I finished getting ready to leave. Next thing I know, he’s at the door, face flushed “You need to come now!”. While there had been no visible sign changes, he found her to be standing awfully quietly (unlike her!) In a corner, so he put Gracie away and by the time he’d come back to get Maggie, intending to put her in her stall, she had started kidding. In the 2 minutes it took to come get me, legs were already visible and maybe 2 pushes later, a beautiful little replica of her was born!
Baby was up and drinking and I sat thinking “phew! And all that before I even need to leave!” And out popped a second!!! Twins!!! Rule of thumb has always been, to the beat of my knowledge, that first time mamas typically have 1 kid, so it was quite the surprise when what we thought was going to be the placenta ended up being a beautiful little buckling! And then I had to run to my appointement and ended up being a few minutes late and weating barn jeans and smelling like a goat haha but who cares! We got 2 babies born strong and healthy and we got to witness the whole thing!
I wasn’t sure originally if I wanted our kiddo to be there when Maggie went in labour. Mainly because I was afraid she wouldn’t understand and would play around and stress the goat, but everything happened so quickly that I didn’t really get a chance to think about it again. She stood there and watched the whole thing, with a few questions here and there. Innocent and honest questions, like ” what’s that sticking out?”(hooves) and then again a “what’s that?” When the first kid landed and still had a lot of birth in her, and finally the excited delight in her voice when the little one moved and she realized it was a baby! Her excitement grew as the babies started looking more like babies and making noise and shaking their heads and such. Oddly enough, there were no questions afterwards. Not even any mention of what we had seen. She did need a nap that day however and I’m pretty sure it was from all the excitement and adrenaline of our morning. She talked about the babies a lot, but it wasn’t until a few days ago thag she ever referenced to the birthing, and when she did, it was to tell me that “mommy, when I’m big, I’m going to have 2 babies pop out of my bum”. I nearly snorted coffee out my nose.
We have lots of time to clear those details up.