Tuesday night was absolutely terrifying, my husband and I were just heading to bed, after watching the kidding camera for hours. Moots was extremely uncomfortable, was up and down and pawing and I was convinced she was going to kid, but by 1 AM she had settled down into what seemed to be a very comfortable sleep and we decided to also, go to bed. As soon as we laid down, I heard a noise like I had never heard before, it sounded like a freight train was coming into the house. I immediately grabbed the dog and ran into the basement, while yelling for my husband to shut the front door, and get into the basement. After about 20 minutes of hiding in the basement, praying that the barn would make it through unscathed, and watching the barn cameras the wind and rain lightened and we were able to go to bed. The next morning we saw we had lost two very large trees that were less than 20 feet from the barn, thankfully, they fell away from the barn, because if they had fallen the opposite way, they would have crashed into the barn causing serious damage.
In the aftermath of the storm, we were still watching Moots intently, to see when she would kid. Thursday, rolled around and I was cautiously optimistic, our normally quiet goat was running around screaming and yelling, so I put her in her kidding stall and watched her all day. When I went out around 7 PM to do evening chores, she has a small string of mucus and I told my husband she was in labor. We waited in the barn while she labored, and when she eventually started pushing we started the timer for 30 minutes. My rule of thumb is after 30 minutes of pushing there is a problem and you need to go in and check. After 40 minutes of pushing we decided to call the vet, who said they would call us back. Rob picked up the phone and immediately called our good friends at Caprigrem, who was able to walk me through the process of checking. I gloved up, sanitized my hands and lubricated. I went in and felt a mouth and a foot, so I gently applied traction to the foot, and I found the other foot, after several minutes I was not making any progress, so Jodi advised me over the phone to push the babies head from behind the does tail head on the outside, which was successful. I was able to get the first baby out, and thankfully, he was alive and healthy, a BIG deep chocolate and white buck kid. After cleaning him up and making sure his airways were clear we waited to see if there was another kid. Moots, was not pushing very vigorously and hadn't been the entire labor. After fifteen minutes had passed I decided I needed to go back in and check, and low and behold there was another kid in there! I pulled and out came a tiny little buckskin doe kid! I got her dried off and cleaned up and presented her to her mother. Moots got up soon after and the babies began to nurse. I had to remove the wax plugs from Moot's teats and hold her still for their first nursing, as she wasn't quite sure what was going on. By this time it was after midnight, and my husband and I were exhausted. I came in to take a shower and wait for the placenta to pass, as well as to get Moots some CMPK and some dewormer. I finally made it back out to the barn around 1 AM, and Moots had successfully passed her placenta, and her and the babies were resting peacefully. We were so thankful, that such a stressful kidding ended so well, with two healthy happy babies and a healthy doe! I hope your kidding seasons continue to go well! Happy Goating!
