Goat kidding season is due to start any time now! With a mix of excitement and worry, Sassy is the one to watch since she should kid first. This picture (sorry it’s not the greatest but she didn’t feel much like posing!) was taken Sunday night. It really doesn’t do justice to how miserably huge she has become.
I thought she would surely kid on Monday night or Tuesday morning, since she had already had a drop of milky discharge on Sunday, and once before, then on Monday night she streamed for just a short time. Not long enough to dirty her tail, and not long enough for me to get a camera out there. Since Saturday I’ve been checking her at least every 2-1/2 hours, and usually much more often. Goat kidding season is a time of very little sleep (for the humans!).
Her ligaments are loose, but not quite “gone”, her udder is filled out well (and she’s a first freshener), but the skin is not yet stretched. So I don’t have any signs that tell me for SURE that her labor is imminent, but it’s about that time, and she looks so ready to me.
She’s very young, and normally I would not have allowed a pregnancy so soon. It was one of those “accidental” breedings, but after some consideration I decided that because she was an exceptionally large and healthy kid, if she did turn out to be pregnant, I thought she’d be fine. She’s almost as large as her mother (who also kidded very easily as a yearling) and much larger than Melody (who is an undersized 2-year-old).
As far as behavior, she has shown no signs of going off on her own. In fact, she follows her mother (Amelia) quite a bit, I see her and Melody eating the same patch of clover throughout the day, and anytime I go in the pasture she sticks to me like glue. Maybe she actually wants the reassurance. She’s feeling itchy, so she loves scratches right now, until I try to look under her tail (which she started letting me do a couple of days ago finally), but if I touch her udder she kicks and jumps and bounces away. She’ll have to get over that before we get on the milking stand! And I saw her lay on the ground and enjoy a good roll each of the past two days (the weather is beautiful and the grass is coming in nicely), but the rest of the time she just eats.
At least her appetite is good, and no fever. So far nothing to worry about. I saw the kid moving around inside her a couple of days ago. So while I am losing sleep, worrying that she will kid when I am not there and have a problem, she just keeps getting bigger. It’s a waiting game, and that’s all there is to be said about it right now.
Goat kidding season — fraught with excitement, and worry. Not for the faint of heart!
Poor girl. Hope she has the baby soon. Is that something tied on her horns?
Oh, LOL, I should have explained!
It’s just a small stick, and it’s attached across the tip of her horns with duct tape. Sometimes they call this a “dummy bar”. The reason she is wearing it is that she likes to stick her head through the fence to reach whatever is growing on the other side, and sometimes the horns get stuck and prevent her pulling her head back in. If a dog were to come up and attack her while she was stuck like that, it could be tragic. So … I put the bars on the horns of goats who do this, and they usually learn that their head no longer fits through the fence and stop trying.
Thanks for visiting, and I hope she kids VERY soon!
I’m creating a collaborative blog and I need to know if I can transform a blogspot blog into one where anyone can add content and edit or change the text. Maybe there is another type of blog whee you can do this.. Thanks everyone..
I’m not sure … this blog is on wordpress. There is a blogspot community you can access from your blogger dashboard. I would go there and ask them, as they are most likely to be able to help you. Good luck!
i’m an amateur blogger, and i appreciate your work a lot, any good tips for me?
Tips? Well … I run a number of blogs, most of them are commercial. This one I do because it’s what is in my heart. My best advice is to blog about what you love, do it regularly, and respond to your readers.
I started this one because I see so many people asking questions, and they are often the same questions I asked myself at one time, so I’m doing my best to provide good solid information. Other people love to see my animals and hear about them too, so I try to keep those folks happy. I wouldn’t recommend moving … I lost readers when I moved from a free blog to this one. And if it’s a commercial blog … well that’s another matter. Provide good information, and make sure it’s something they won’t find on every other website out there. Be unique, but be useful. You have to promote a commercial blog too, and that’s WAY more than I can address here. Look up SEO, if you don’t already do that. Good luck!
Hello http://www.organic-homestead-heart.com/goat-kidding-due-sassy-2012/ webmaster. I discovered your “Goat kidding season – watching for signs of labor and imminent kiddingA Homestead Heart” page via Google but it was hard to find as you were not on the first page of search results. I see you could have more traffic because there are not many comments on your website yet. I have found a website which offers to dramatically increase your rankings and traffic to your site: (link removed) They managed to get close to 1000 visitors/day using their services, you could also get lot more targeted traffic from search engines than you have now. I used their services and got significantly more visitors to my site. Hope this helps
Take care. Mandi
Thanks very much, but I only started regular posting 3 weeks ago, and I’ve gotten decent number of visitors for a brand-new blog. I’m not really promoting this site, just working to develop good content, but it takes time of course. I appreciate your concern.
Some really superb blog posts on this website , regards for contribution.
this is very nice.
I simply want to tell you that I am just new to weblog and absolutely enjoyed you’re web-site. Almost certainly I’m likely to bookmark your blog post . You really come with exceptional writings. Thanks for your web-site.
testing lolo
Approved, but no need to test. Just letting you know I get through them.
- I randomly brwose blogs on the internet, and I discover your article to be very informational. I’ ve already bookmark it on my brwoser, so that I can view your blog post once more later. Also, I’ m wondering whether or not your weblog is open for link trade, as I really need to trade hyperlinks with you. I don’ t usually do that, however I hope that we will have a mutual hyperlink exchange. Let me know and have an amazing day!
Hi Kev,
Thanks for your kind words.
As far as link exchange … I haven’t thought about it for this blog. Tell you what … let me know what kind of site you have. If it’s related in any way, maybe I can work it into a post or we can do some kind of mutual guest blogging? I don’t plan to have a separate links page for exchanges on this blog the way we used to do on some of them. We’ll see what we can work out.
Thanks again!
Spot on for this write-up, I seriously think this website really needs much more attention. I hope to be back again to read much more, thanks for this information.
i would like to stay informed of your new posts. thanks a lot.
Thanks, I was away from posting for a while, but back at it again.
Great site. A lot of useful information here. I’m sending it to a few buddies and additionally sharing in delicious. And naturally, thanks for your hard work!
your content made me want to read more and more. i wanted to find out what happened with the babies!
Loved your post, will keep watching for updates. I love reading about goats and how kidding is going for everyone else. We’re anxiously awaiting our first kids too, so thanks for any info you share!!!