Wow. Willow is a rockstar! I have been watching her closely because we thought she was a few weeks further along then Ariel, who kidded 15 days ago (here is her birth story). Both Willow and Ariel had an ultrasounds about 2.5 months ago and the vet said that she saw two babies in each of them but that there was always a chance that more could be hiding (field ultrasounds aren't nearly as accurate. She explained that the ultrasound was really just to confirm pregnancy). You can see the ultrasound photos
Once Willow's udder started changing, I shaved the fur near her tail to try to see when she lost her ligaments. She doesn't like me checking her ligaments so I was hoping to be able to see them disappear. This process will often times create two dips on either side of the tail. This was a great idea given to me by a friend and I highly recommend doing this! You can see the area that I shaved on Willow if you look at the photo below. You will not, however, see the dips that I am talking about.
Two days ago, I noticed that her belly had dropped a little (my mom was visiting and even asked me why she looked thinner) which is a great sign that babies are moving into the birth canal. She had some dips near her hips but still didn't have any prominent dips near her tail. But when her udder started filling, I knew that the time was coming.
I set up the baby monitor last night (and listened to the runaway duck quacking in the goat barn all.night.long). This morning her udder was very full but I didn't see any "goo" and her ligaments still didn't have the dips. So I went to pick up my grocery order and was unloading groceries when I heard "the scream". I knew what was happening before I even made it out the door. I was yelling to my mom to grab the baby-booger-sucker and the stack of towels. I knew it was baby time!
As soon as I came up to her, I saw that she was very close to delivery! The birth sac was close enough to coming out that her rear end was bulging. There was enough time to holler to my two daughters to come out (its worth mentioning that my 7 year old came running out in bare feet and I thought it was totally awesome). She was on a video chat with her friend from school, so we got to share it with her and her mom which was fun!
She pushed the 1st baby out, which came out in a perfect "diving" position. As I was bringing this baby to mama to be cleaned, she pushed out another who was also in the perfect diving position! I couldn't believe how fast it went! We helped her clean the babies off and let her lick them clean as a whistle. I was so happy with twins but I had been wondering if she had more in there. She was fairly large and she had triplets last year. Then about 10 minutes later, she gave another push and out came baby number three (who was ALSO in a perfect diving position! This one needed some help getting gunk out of the its lungs and we helped get it dry and clean since mama was so busy with her other two.
After a 7 year curse of 99.9% bucklings, I am SO happy to announce that Willow had 2 doelings and 1 buckling! That means we finish this year with a 4:1 ratio with doelings in the lead! Phantom helped us break the buckling curse!
I *think* we will be retaining one doeling but I will know more as they grow.
Comments