…had a young kid today! Frostie is the larger of our female pygmy goats, and the way she was waddling around the last day or so we were convinced that she was going to have triplets.
Our holiday guests have been coming out at feeding times most mornings – we have a holiday cottage and one of the attractions is to join us at feeding times morning and afternoon, and families especially enjoy coming out and getting up close and personal with all of the animals, but the pygmy goats are a real attraction in the way they want to be fussed & fed.
Frostie was put into her maternity enclosure at the weekend as she was starting to “bag up” which is a sign that the birthing is due very soon, and the guests noticed strange noises and low & behold this morning at around 8.30am the birthing had started.
I won’t go into the gory details, but by 8.45am we sent the guests off to the house, something wasn’t quite right and we decided to call the vet, and by 9am the head of a young pygmy goat was sticking out, the youngster was breathing but poor thing it couldn’t get out, she was well and truly stuck. Most goats, and our llamas too, normally come out with feet first with the head in between, like a diver, but this one had left her front feet behind.
The vet was soon there but it took nearly 30 minutes of pushing, pulling, twisting etc… to finally get the little one out, and I am glad to say that everything appears to be fine. She has been given a good clean, belly button sprayed with iodine, and has had some nosh!
Amazingly though, Frostie just had the one!
It must be a rewarding experience to breed animals and witness the miracle of birth. I miss that. We decided early on, that since we were going to have llamas for hiking only, to get all males and then had them gelded. I’m glad that, even though there were complications with this birth, the little baby goat is doing fine.
The llama birthing is, in general, so much more straight forward than the goats!