Sunday AM and PM

The last of the expected babies took their own sweet time in arriving. Marigold is their momma and we believe the first one was born before 7am and the second one was born just after 1pm. I put a question about naming them out on FB and decided that the first answer, with a mod, was what we would go with. So here I introduce two little boys named AM and PM. Isn't that creative? HA I thought so. My former classmate Terry suggested Aim and Pim, sort of sounds like am and pm right? But after rolling it around for a while just sticking with the regular AM and PM worked better.

I went to Tractor Supply this weekend and finally bought a scale so I can figure out how much they weigh and are gaining as they grow. Forgot to use it on Scarlett's babies, but remembered yesterday. Of course they had both eaten quite a bit by the time I remembered, but we now know that AM weighed 5 pounds and PM weighed 6 pounds. I meant to chase some of the others down to check them out, like Ace (the brown one) since he is easy to pick up, but things got crazy. 

14 big goats and 20 little ones take a bit of time to wrangle in the evenings. We are working on a new feed trough plan to help with that. Then after we got them all together, Daffodil showed me how she could slip under the goat yard gate. So I got a shovel and started moving some dirt to fill the gap. Then we had to tag all four babies. 

So that was the weekend and as I said in the last post, probably the last of the babies this year. We learned a lot about goats in the last year and now that we have all these little ones, I figure there is plenty more to learn. I don't want to sell any of them, but we cannot keep them all. That will be an entirely different adventure I am sure.

In the meantime. This is PM, he looks ready to head out for the evening while AM in the background seems to need a nap. It was a long day for AM. First we were afraid his momma didn't want him. We don't really know what was happening. She spent the time after birthing him up on top of the ridge with the other goats grazing and when I called them all down she ignored him. We got involved and forced her to feed him so he could get the colostrum, but afterwards she took off. Then later on we just happened to be watching her when she had PM so we grabbed AM and put him next to the new baby and she accepted him right away. Then a little later we found out they had actually been triplets, but the third, born with no hair though mostly developed from what we could see, didn't live. So we don't know if that is what helped her accept AM or not, but she is feeding them both so all is good at the moment.

And from what I have learned about goats -- that is all a person can say. All is good at the moment. Very cute and full of crazy energy.

New May Babies

We found some new babies yesterday.

Scarlett had twin girls born on Cinco de Mayo so I found Mexican flower names for them.

Dahlia and Salvia.

That makes 18 so far.

We are still waiting for Marigold to have her babies. Definitely twins in there too. As for the last two of the 14 girls, if Daisy and Honeysuckle are pregnant, they are way behind the rest of them, but we have been surprised before so we will keep an eye on them too. Daisy may have been younger than the man we bought her from told us and Honeysuckle came with the big group we bought in February so we don't know her history. We will just see what happens. 

Evenings when everybody gets brought back to the goat yard are getting a little crazy.

And that isn't even everybody yet.

But they get to live in this neighborhood so I don't hear too much complaining.

And with the electric fence keeping the dogs out, the rabbits are pretty happy too. 

This little guy didn't even consider moving.

Milking a Goat

Dandelion had her babies today.

Daffodil and Danny

They were having trouble figuring out how to get their dinner so we gave them some help. This is Dandelion in the hoof trimming/milking stand that we never intended to use for milking and yes, it was dark by the time we got started. She never did complain too much. It seemed like the teats were so full of milk they couldn't get their little mouths to work them right. So FabHub milked some out, we put it in a water bottle with a goat nipple cap, and got them to start eating while standing right next to Momma. Then we got them to work on the real thing and everything went fine. When their little bellies seemed full we let her down and sent them on their way. This was different from what the other girls have had for the babies, so hopefully they now know what to look for next time. If not, we can do it again. In a few days they will be bigger and able to do it themselves.