Baby Goats on the MOVE! (Newsletter)

The big question of the day, “Baby goats???”

Alaska says, "Trust me, it will be when you LEAST expect it." Well, I expect it to be 3am one night so does that mean it will be in the middle of the day? I'm REALLY good with that.

So, nope, not yet. I’ve been keeping an eye on Alaska during the day and at night I’ve been waking up every hour or so to turn on the camera in her stall. Her babies dropped (began moving down to a good birthing position) on Wednesday and Thursday they were even further down.

I was lucky enough to get this little video of the babies swimming around in there—check it out!

Because I'm watching it so carefully, it feels SO slow. Babies dropped Wednesday and the ligaments around the base of her spine have softened (in preparation for giving birth.) Yesterday she started yawning a lot which, depending on who you talk to, means either she is in some discomfort and/or goes along with those softened ligaments. Last night when I was watching her on the camera, I noticed that she would be chewing her cud and then just stop and stare into space. During one of those times she turned her head and touched her belly on the right side which is the baby side :-) So! Things are moving along slowly but surely.
I have three udder pics from Wed, Thur, Fri and maybe there is a slight change? Hard to get a good photos when she hates having me take pics of it!


I ask her to jump onto the milking stand and give treats, she’s happy to do it but as soon as I want to take a picture of her udder or touch her in anyway (I’m debating on milking again so I’m getting her used to being touched) this is what she does:


Haaaaa! “Oh HELL no.” and just folds herself up. I tell her I’m not letting her out of that milking stand until she stands up and she does lol.
This morning (all these newsletters are written on Fridays) as we were cleaning out the bedding in the barns (it rained 1.5 inches yesterday so they stayed inside all day) all of the goats got back together in the larger field. They were so happy! We’ve been keeping Alaska and Charlotte in the mama area and they are put into their birthing stalls at night. When I let them out to clean this is what happened:

That’s Snickers (brown) protecting Alaska (on right) from Denali (on left and Alaska's half sister) who want to bop her around a bit.
Alaska just laid her head on Snickers' shoulder for a minute. It was so sweet! Snickers quickly had enough of the pregnant lady cuddles, jumped out of the way and as Alaska walked away, Snickers head butted her right in the rear and pushed her out of the barn! Hahaha! They are never ending entertainment!


Brad finished the birthing stalls and mama/baby paddock this week. Great to have Alaska in there at night where I know she will be safe from having her babies stolen by another goat! Mesh gates for the little stalls, hooks for water and food buckets. I found these little water containers for gerbils and we are using them for the loose goat minerals. They are always pooping and peeing in every container on the ground so I'm pretty excited about poop free mineral holders!



The birthing stalls are just to either side of that sliding door. The new mama/baby pasture goes out to the dark 3 board fence. They share a fence with the girl goats which will be nice so they can still be with their friends. On the left side will be runs for the horse's stalls.

Snickers really liked the new pasture:


Yep, those are her feeties in the air, she's rolling like a dog.

"Did you just call me a DOG???"

The pollen…you guys. Holy smokes. Sometimes a puff of wind hits the forest just right and I can literally see it in the air, like smoke, or fog. Gross. When we had our rain storm this week, this was water pouring into a drain. Ewww.

I was standing at this water tank the other day, debating on what to do with all that pollen. Anything? Do you just leave it? Yuck. Then Brad got the idea to skim it off like you would fat. Also yuck, but worked well!

There are, of course, many kinds of trees here but the majority are pine trees. And this is what a pine tree looks like in “bloom” so to speak:


Isn’t that incredible? I never realized that the baby pine cones look a bit like flowers from a distance


And for all of my Colorado friends (and anywhere else that is still winter) here are some spring pics to boost your spirits until you have your own: 






And finally, check out this leucistic red headed house finch!
So cool! He started hanging around a couple weeks ago. So pretty!

(I found out it's not albino (which would have red feet, legs, beak, and eyes—lack of melanin allows blood vessels to show through) it's actually "leucistic." Leucistic birds appear lighter than normal but aren't fully white. It can also cause some birds to be piebald—white patches across it's body.)

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