That was the week that was ...

For those of  you old enough to remember :-)

Right .. it's been a bit of a busy week.  Not sure why it was so busy but it seems to have come and gone in a bit of a blur for some reason and I didn't get a chance to blog.  Merciful relief for you all perhaps!

Anyhow - main highlight of the week was the visit from the scanning man, Michael, on Tuesday.  Absolutely freezing cold day and I have to say that my fingers and toes were all completely numb by the time we had finished them all late into the afternoon.  I was so busy writing numbers down that I didn't have a chance to get any pics for you, so we will have to make do with one from last year!  It's all the same every year - just more goats!

This was young Dipsy goat being scanned last year. 

I haven't yet had a chance to go through all the notes and sort them out (a task for this week!) nor have I added up the total number of kids due (for fear of giving myself a nervous breakdown).  But here is the news (as they say) ..... 

Despite putting our lovely Larkin boy in early with the youngsters, it would seem that he didn't get any of them pregnant before he went off to Somerset.

We were hopeful that he may have caught a few so we could start kidding earlier than normal, but it seems that none of the girlies came into season in time for him.  The job was left to Daramac who rose to the challenge and has put every single goatling in kid, apart from one.  That's 51 small fat pregnant goatlings.  Little Fuschia goatling has shown as being empty but then she was poorly for a short time and so maybe her hormones didn't kick in at the right time.

Miranda goatling takes this year's prize for the highest number of kids showing at scanning - she is due to have 4.  Freddie and Shelley come a close second with 3 kids.  All first time mums so they will have their work cut out!

One of our older girls, Margot is due to kick off the kidding season on 25th February.  Remember Margot?  The one who comes to the back gate of the parlour and shoves the gate open?

Mmm.  Let's hope that she doesn't pass those particular genes on to her offspring. 

The rest of the girls then all follow in quick succession but one of great surprises of the scanning was when Michael confirmed that Twiggy goat is carrying twins.  Now, Twiggy goat is sister to Twinkle goat.  Twinkle is the one in front, Twiggy peering out from behind.

Twiggy was born in 2009 and, despite everyone's best efforts, has never managed to get pregnant.  As Twinkle kidded in 2011 and 2012, Twiggy just remained barren and fat.  A permanent goatling!  Although technically a 'useless' goat, we kept her in the herd (despite David's complaints!) to keep her sister company.  But this year, she has come up trumps!  A couple of hours with young Beamish seem to have done the trick.  Keep your fingers crossed ....

And what of our older girls?  Well, Betty is having twins while sister Wilma has just the one.  Daphne has two kids that she can hate and throw around whilst Thelma has one baby that she can fuss and fiddle with.  Thelma absolutely loves her babies .. and anyone else's actually.  Thelma is our Earth Mother! 

Daphne, on the other hand, is an old bag.  She hates her babies to start with - she gets very impatient with them, pulls them around by their ears and throws them about.  Every time Daphne has kids we have to keep a close eye on her and generally have to move the babies away from her for a few hours so that she has a chance to calm down.  Same thing every year .... and then we put them back in with her and she loves them to bits. 

And Tammy, our oldest girl, is due to have twins.  At 10 years old she is now considered to be a 'geriatric' goat by the veterinary world but she is still fit and healthy and so we decided to put her in kid once again.  As we said last year, this may be the final time.  But then we have been saying that for a few years now!

There are still a few girls who are too early in their pregnancy to tell how many kids are due, and a few of them have shown up as being empty.  One of whom is big fat Footsie goat.  Not sure what is going on there - I think she had such a bad time kidding this year (one little white man, a couple of dead babies and quite poorly afterwards) that she has decided she is not going through it again next year!  She may come back into season again in a couple of weeks, in which case we will send her round the back of the bike sheds with Fremlin!