Sunday 4 March 2012

Tiny men and sleepless nights

Saturday night did not produce any more babies but I still didn't get any sleep!  Whoopi could hear me in the caravan and kept calling out for attention.  She has a strangely loud yell which always sounds as though someone is trying to strangle her and she only goes quiet once she has had a cuddle. Perdi kept standing on her tiny little man, even though I had tucked him away in a corner, and so I kept being woken up by him squealing.  I was also getting up every couple of hours to feed him as well, so it was a bit of a restless night all round.

As the weather turned very cold and wet today, David went over to one of our sheep farming friends and borrowed a heat lamp for our tiny man.  He has made up a cosy little house from a cardboard box  and the tiny man is very cosy and snug now:




His mum is just over the fence and so she is happy that she can see him.  She has the other two kids with her and they are doing really well.

Footsie was not doing so well this morning as I went off to market.  Francesca was particularly concerned that she had not finished her breakfast ... for those of you who know Footsie, this is totally unheard of!  David noticed that she seemed uncomfortable and looked as though she was still trying to push something out.  Thinking it could be something lurking after the bad kidding, he spoke with our vet (what a wonderful man Peter is to have his phone switched on on a Sunday morning when he's not even on call!).

David did a bit more investigation, much to poor Footsie's displeasure, and pulled out another dead kid.  It must have been so far down on Friday that I couldn't even feel it was there.  Once it was out, Footsie perked up and hasn't stopped eating again since.  Hopefully, that will be an end to it now.  Here she is with her little white man:

 
And, especially for one of my followers Richard - here are our first British Alpine kids, born to Dolores:


Market at Parson's Green was very cold, wet and windy.  Having packed up in freezing rain, I then drove back home in torrential sleet.  Lovely.  Needless to say, the old thermals have come back out of the cupboard tonight!

Well, that's another day over.  Just waiting for washing to finish while I read my email and then it's back up to the caravan to sleep outside the barn.  Noone is looking likely but you never can tell with goats!


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