Goatorama kids of 2014

[Nanno]

Haha excellent. Kinda scary though, when you have to manually manage the birth like that. Makes you wonder what would have happened otherwise.

Well, a toast! May their loads be light and may their ears and years be long.

HA! "Kinda scary" is a major understatement! I made it sound so calm and straightforward in my post, but I was absolutely terrified. The bubble came out but there was nothing in it and Petunia was screaming like she was going to die. There are supposed to be two little feet inside that bubble. I ripped it open, thinking the feet must be just behind it still in the birth canal. But the birth canal was completely empty. Meanwhile, Petunia is pushing like crazy, screaming her head off in pain, and nothing is coming out. I had to reach far in before I came across a sharp set of teeth, but I couldn't find any feet to go with it. After fishing around in the depths I recovered one foot and brought it to the outside, but now the head had disappeared! Another foot pushed its way forward, but at this point I couldn't tell if it belonged to the one I already had. So after starting out with a head and no feet, now I had two feet and no head! At this point I'm beginning to panic and I asked Phil to please start praying and to get one of our "goat mentors" on the phone.

Petunia was a wreck. We hoisted her to her feet because it felt to me like both babies were trying to push their way out at once and I couldn't get either of them to go back in. Once Petunia was standing, gravity helped pull the kids back down so I had more room to work. Of course, having had both feet out while Petunia was rolling around in the muck, I'm now worried about all that nasty junk going back inside her. But you can't pull a baby out with its head back, so at least one foot had to go back in (especially since at this point I was afraid I had feet belonging to two different goats).

Phil got the goat mentor on the phone and described to her what was happening. She was very calm and was able to give instructions to Phil who relayed them to me. I eventually found the head turned way back (it was easy to tell what it was because of the long ears), turned it towards me, then felt along down the neck and shoulder to make sure it belonged to the same foot as the one in my hand. Once I was certain, I was able to guide the little fella to the outside world. I didn't try to find the other leg--Petunia, it turns out, is a very roomy goat and I knew she'd be able to push him out just fine with one leg back.

After that it was pretty easy. The second little guy came head-first. I had to push him back quite a bit because his entire head was hanging out while both legs were still inside. But he was much smaller than the first, and Petunia was so preoccupied with her new baby that she didn't seem to notice me fussing around with the second one.

Everyone seems happy this morning. Petunia still seems a bit confused what to do with these new acquisitions. She didn't lick them to nearly the extent that my previous mamas have done and she's the first goat I've seen who wanted nothing to do with eating the afterbirth. The dog ended up getting it, and both babies got a warm bath in the sink last night because they never got thoroughly cleaned by their mama. I toweled them, but they dried so fast in the hot windy weather that both of them turned crusty and Petunia didn't want to clean it off, so they weren't fun to pet or hold. Neither one liked the bath, but they both liked the blow dryer.