Tuesday 12 May 2015

A night at the goat maternity ward

goats May 15 20

Yesterday morning I decided to leave open the door to the new goat house to ensure there was plenty of fresh air. Pinkie had previously shown no interest in leaving it. So when I returned in the afternoon, I was surprised to find her lying down in her favourite place on the allotment, next to the quail house. For the previous 2 days she had been standing. Was lying down a sign that she was getting close to giving birth? She had, after all, many of the signs of impending birth.

goats May 15 18

Pinkie however refused to move. We couldn't get her to stand. This suggested to us that she was even closer to giving birth than we had expected. Unable to move her, we decided as an emergency to build a temporary goat house around her. We also decided to spend the night keeping watch over her, with the expectation we would have kids by the morning.

goats May 15 19

I had the 11pm to 4am watch. For a while, I lay on the hay in the goat house with Pinkie next to me. At one point she put her head on my lap. Alas, by the time David came to relieve me, there were no babies. When I came back at 8am, there were still no babies.

She hasn't budged from her temporary goat house today. Had she given birth today, she would have been very early. This is day 137. We would expect at least another 3 days and more likely 8 days to hit the usual gestation period. She nevertheless is very large. She is likely to be carrying twins or triplets, maybe even quads (she had 4 the last time she gave birth though that was when she was owned by someone else.)

Anyway, sometime over the next few days she is due. Watch this space.

No comments: