The aliens have landed

Well, Persi and JoJo were very good girls and let me sleep most of the night.  I awoke around 4.30am yesterday morning to the sound of Persi yelling the barn down.  However, all went well and easily and she presented us with a very large and healthy female kid a short while later.

JoJo managed to hang on until lunch time and then popped out the 3 strangest looking little creatures we have ever seen.  Being used to other breeds of goats, the Anglo Nubian kids are quite a novelty.  They are quite small but have very long thin legs and the most enormous ears .. I expect that they will grow into them eventually!  They are also the spitting image of their mum .. it's really odd looking into the pen and seeing a large black goat with white ears and 3 tiny mini-me goats all the same!

Gorgeous!!

JoJo is doing OK for a first time mum - she is incredibly laid back about the whole thing but not terribly maternal.  She feeds them but doesn't seem to talk to them at all and she certainly doesn't lower herself to cleaning bottoms.  Guess who gets that job?!  And she is quite lazy ..here she is having her breakfast out of her bucket that was hung in the pen when she was lying down.  How lazy is this?!

Here's a good view of some of the kidding pens. 

They are made of recycled plastic and are strong enough to withstand a goat standing on the side to reach a hayrack!  They are big enough for most goats but larger girls or those with more than 2 kids are usually housed in larger pens made out of metal hurdles.  But, these pens are great - nice and snuggly for those born on cold nights!

Well, we have a bit of a break now until ZsaZsa decides she is going to give birth (in about 10 days time).  I was thinking of actually spending a night at home with Marmite but I am a little concerned about JoJo squashing her babies in the middle of the night, so I will be going back up to the caravan shortly. 

This concern is not without substance - I woke up around 2am this morning to hear a kid squealing loudly.  Leaping out of the caravan in my pyjamas and wellies into sub-zero temperatures, I raced into the barn to find JoJo lying on one of her kids - just the little head poking out and yelling very loudly.  She was completely oblivious to it and was trying to work out where the noise was coming from!  So, as you see, perhaps a night in the caravan might not be such a bad plan after all.  Poor Marmite will just have to wait another night ..