Goaty Babies

We did it! We had ourselves some goat babies!
Okay, okay.....Emilia the mama goat did the work, but it feels like a huge success!

Our new additions are baby boy Thunder and baby girl Rain (multiple choice quiz: What do you think the weather was on the morning of the birth? a. sunny b. snowy c. thunder and rain)
And here is their introduction to the world outside of the barn....

After days and days of checking on the pregnant mama and wondering if any slight shift in behavior could mean she was going into labor, Saturday morning she refused to come out of the pen. A few hours, a lot of goat goop, and a total of 7 adult goat herders, 5 children, and one goat midwife later, we became proud "parents" of the two miracles.

Emilia was bred to Gryffindor (chosen for his striking good looks and his cool name) 155 days prior to the big event. We assumed she was pregnant, especially when she started getting wide around the middle, but we did not feel too confident after a false pregnancy with another goat, Sparrow, earlier in the year (turns out she was just putting on a little spring fat...really, it happens to the best of us). But a week or so ago, when she started drifting from the herd and spending most of the day laying down along side the barn wall, we figured we had some babies in our future. And we were right! Thank heavens! And thank heavens one of those babies is a girl....the fate of any male farm animal is usually less pleasant than his female counterparts......

The babies are now running around and nursing like crazy. Today was the first day we took them out of the kidding pen to meet the rest of the herd. We will do that for an hour or so each day until they are two weeks old and ready to spend the whole day with the adult goats.

Noah, Nim, and Gita are quite obsessed with these new additions to our family. In fact, we a have hardly seen them since the birth....and when they finally do emerge from the barn, they inform us that while they are playing with the babies, they have also been sweeping the barn, scrubbing the milk stand, and "grooming the goats" (helpful, even if they use the bucket cleaning scrubber as a goat brush). We have put the hammer down on the request for them to sleep in the barn with their new friends.

We are so very happy! Thunder and Rain have brought a sweet new energy to the homestead and remind us why it is so good for the kids to have farm animals....note, it has been exactly 2 days and 3 hours since Noah and Nim last begged me for a hamster and I am hoping the baby goats filled that need.....I'll be keeping my fingers crossed!