Breaking News

Well, there’s been a lot going on, so I decided to postpone the post I had scheduled for today (it was boring anyhow–you’ll see it later) to give you all the breaking news!  Sadly, all I have are crappy cell phone pictures.  First. Chiffon’s kids have names–Ty and Thalia (pronounced Till-i-uh).

Ty, Chiffon, and Thalia

Poor Thalia ended up with a horrible respiratory infection, but after treatment, she’s doing much better.  I am optimistic that she’ll make a full recovery.

Thalia

When I went out for a quick check of the goats on Tuesday night before bed, I found LilyAnn with her twins.

LilyAnn with her twins

So I was right–she’d have them when she was good and ready and not a moment before.  I didn’t really expect them quite that soon, but I had already shut her up north with her maa, Dolly, and the rest of my misfits.  She had them outside, so I picked the twins up and LilyAnn followed me into the lean-to.

Frodo babies:  Boy in front and Girl to the right

It wasn’t bad outside, but the temperatures were going to drop a bit more.  As soon as I got in the lean-to, I said something and that, of course, woke Bee and Floyd up.  Being typical bottle kids they came running to me with mouths going–screaming and sucking.  They trampled the new babies, and I finally just left.

Bee and Floyd are monsters!

When I peeked through the window (so I didn’t disturb anyone) at 2:00 am, everyone was settled in nicely.

Talk about milk–LilyAnn’s udder was huge, and by the time I got home from work on Wednesday, her twins had completely exploded in bright yellow colostrum poo.  It seems that Bee and Floyd got too close to them.  Oh well.

This is Floyd; Bee is covered too.

As I was headed back to the soap room to put the bottles back, I realized I hadn’t seen Antigone in the Love Shack pen.  Then I heard her talking.  I rushed in and found her with her baby.

Antigone and her Gabe baby

I am absolutely in love–she and Gabe gave me exactly what I wanted–a beautiful little doe.  If all goes well, she will be kept to be my next generation milking doe.

What a beautiful girl!

In the middle of all this stuff, I’m still trying to figure out how to get Skittles to accept the goats.  I try holding up a goat kid for her to sniff, and she just puts her ears back, clucks, and walks away.

Skittles

Then, I don’t know if she was jealous or what, but she kind of half-heartedly acted like she was going to try to jump the fence.  That really concerned me.  She could get hurt doing that, and if she made it over, I’m not sure what she would do to the goats.  After a sleepless night, a stressful day and work, then bottle kids and Antigone’s baby, I got the Ranger and went up to the north building and loaded up the last of my spare cattle panels and brought them back down to my place.

I put a pen from the Morton building north to the north paddock.  It gives her a bigger space, and it gives her green stuff.  That is really what she wants.

She did one lap and then settled into eating

Happy, happy munching

Sky wasn’t even too concerned about losing that much of his yard.

I hope this will keep her happy until I can get the ISU vets here to do her toes and stuff and then I’ll be done kidding and get her onto a bigger pasture.  And hopefully, by that time, I’ll have figured out how to get her to accept the goats.

Then, as I was uploading my pictures for this post, I thought it would be a good time to make a quick walk through the barnyard before it was totally dark.  I found Rosie with her twins at the end of the lane going into pasture.

Rosie has the last of the Xerxes babies that I planned.

I brought them up.  She was not the best at following me, so it was quite the production.  By the time we got to the garage, I thought I might die.  But I got them in there so they could dry off and not be chilled.

a buck

a doe

And I only have eight more girls to go in this round!