The other day I was in the soaproom, checking orders. (I do it every day, so it seems like most of these posts open out like that. lol)

My phone rang. “Yeah, Emery? Is someone kidding?”

“Nope, not yet. But we think Payton’s going to go in an hour or so. Ok?”

“Ok, I’m going to finish checking orders and then I’ll be down. Call me if anything happens!”

“Ok. Bye.”

 Emery hung up and I put my phone down and started tying bags quickly. I wanted to have time to grab a banana before I headed down to the barn. I’d eaten breakfast early that morning.

 We had slept in the soaproom that night, since the weather would have made it difficult to get from Charlestown to Scottsburg to check the goats. But apparently I don’t sleep well in the soaproom, so I’d gotten up at about six and eaten.

 I finished checking and headed for the break room. I was going to grab a banana and then get into my goat clothes before heading to the barn. I pulled on my sweater, second sweater, hoodie, and then my fleece before putting my hair into a ponytail and leaving.

 When I got to the barn, Payton let out a long “Maaaaaaaaa!” as I climbed over the stall wall. She stared at me until I sat down, and then she went back to licking Emery.

 While Payton was occupied, Dad came to check her out. Payton laid her head on Emery’s arm and pushed forwards, trying to get away. When Dad was done she sat there with Emery, her eyes slowly closing.

 After a while she sat down, grinding her teeth and yawning. Those are both signs of pain in goats, so we knew something was happening.

 We were worried about Payton. Last year she had a very difficult birth, and we didn’t want the same thing happening this year. Dad said “If she doesn’t have a kid with a half an hour of hard pushing, we’ll give her a shot of Oxytocin. Last year one of the problems was how long it took. Lets avoid that this year.”

 Thankfully, ten minutes later we had a kid on the ground. (If you want to see pictures of the kid being born, there are a couple here.)

 We cleaned out the nose and mouth, checking the butt. “It’s a girl!”

“How about Sandy?”

“I like that. Greyden? Take Sandy into the milk room.”

I went into the milk room with Sandy. A couple of minutes later, the boys brought in another baby. “It’s a boy! His name is Storm Seeker. And we’ve changed Sandy’s name to Sandstorm. We can still call her Sandy, but her full name is Sandstorm.”

 Over fifteen minutes later, we had gotten them almost dry. It had been a really hard birth for them, and they weren’t doing really well. They were going to be fine, but they were both really cold and really floppy. We knew that time and warm colustrom could fix both.

All of a sudden Colter burst into the room. “A third, girl, breech.”

So she had another baby! It was a girl, and had been born breech, which means that it came out with its back legs first. It’s a pain in the butt position, and sometimes the kids get stuck. There’s also a chance the kid will suffocate, if the umbilical cord breaks and their head is still inside the doe. But the baby was fine, and in a few minutes they brought her in.

“Her name is Storm Siren. Here you go!” They set her down and ran back out.

While I got the bottles ready, I thanked God. We had been really worried about Payton, but everything had gone just fine. It was probably a little scary out there when Siren was breech, but she was fine.

They didn’t eat much, so we decided to come back out in an hour or so and feed them again. It had been a rough birth, and once they had taken a little nap they’d feel better.

 

They’re doing just fine now, running around with the other babies. Here they are after they perked up a bit:

 

 

With Payton done, we had 15 does left to kid, with 8 days left in kidding season. Things were going to get busy!

More in this series:

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