Keep them coming!

Babies everywhere!  Little TiddlyWiddly goat had quite a large female kid but handled it all very well, despite her size!

Young Connie produced 2 tiny little babies ..

Whilst Daisy popped out 3 with ridiculous ears!

Valerie is proud mum to 2 and, it has to be said, Handsome Humps is missing his mum very much.  He has also hurt one of his rear legs and was standing about looking very sad.  All he wants is a little cuddle from mum but, as you see, she is far too busy.  Poor Humps!

And Husky's sister Wolfie has a little female yesterday afternoon.  She very kindly lifts her leg in the air so that baby gets a good shot at the teat.

Meanwhile, Husky is back in with the milking herd and now has to work for a living (which she is not impressed about).  She made a pretty good mum - here she is with one of the babies.

Other new mums also include Enid, Lamia and Tiffany but I haven't been able to get any decent pics so far.  Will try tomorrow for you!

Just an excuse for more pics!

Little Huskyettes fast asleep in the sunshine:

And the new mums for today .. Quince with her 2 girls.  Pure white and silly ears!

And first time mum Dumdidum who gave birth to a little mini Hugo during our Trading Standards inspection this morning!  Fortunately, our lovely TS officer Wendy was thrilled to be present at the birth and so everything turned out well.

All mums and babies are doing very well so far.  Husky's babies are off to the vet tomorrow for disbudding and so Husky will return to the main herd.  We will see how she copes without her babies.  I suspect that she will just revert to being her normal stroppy goatie self.  Only now, she has to work for a living and come through the parlour for milking.  Don't think she will be impressed with that!

Settling into motherhood

Husky has so far proved to be a very good new mum, but this evening she does seem to have taken exception to one of her babies for no apparent reason.  She keeps pushing her away, will not let her near the others but will let her feed and cleans her up.  So, not exactly sure what is going on in that little Husky brain but we are keeping a close eye on her.  We have also doubled the size of her pen to give her and the babies plenty more space and allow the little ones to find a corner away from mum when she is being stroppy.

This morning two of them were fast asleep in the food bowl:

And the third was having a little chat with mum:

The next lot are due towards the end of the week and then it's going to be full on for a few more weeks.  Fortunately, we have several excellent vet students coming to help - all of whom have been to us before.  I find it really thrilling that these young people are so keen to come back and visit us again.  Must be all the cake that we feed them!

Those of you who have followed our blog for some time may remember my dear Flora goat.  We are not allowed to have favourites but Flora was a very special goat and I was desperately upset when she died.  She left us a number of wonderful girls but there is one in particular who is beginning to look and act very much like Flora.  It is quite strange how she has taken on many of the mannerisms of her mum.

Here's my lovely Flora:

And here is Summer.

Very similar to her mum don't you think?  Sane colour, facial markings, ears and shape of face ... I know that one goat looks much like another to most people but you have to humour me on this one! When I look at Summer I see my dear Flora and she makes me smile every time!

Meet The Huskyettes!

Today started just like any other day .. me dashing about trying to get Joe off to West Hampstead and myself off to Penshurst.  David and Mel were busy milking those goatie girls before David got all his toys out of the shed and spent a gruelling day muck spreading.

All those piles of dung have to go somewhere and, in true grassland management fashion, we spread our manure (or FYM, as it is known in the trade!) over our fields to put nourishment back into the ground so that we can make good, nutritious hay for all those hungry goats.  This has to be done in fairly good weather and as this weekend was forecast to be dry and sunny, David decided to go for it!

He uses the smaller old tractor to load the dung into a large muckspreader..

And then he drives it up and down the field behind the larger tractor, flinging it all out of the back.  Which goes something like this ..

 
We have our own muckspreader but it's not man enough for this job and so we have to hire a larger one for a couple of days.  As it's quite expensive to do this, David works absolutely flat out to get everything done.  Poor chap is absolutely exhausted this evening.  And he has another day of it ahead of him tomorrow.

When I returned from market early this afternoon I went straight into the barn to check on young Husky who was due to kid today.  I found her standing around looking very 'goatie' and she chortled when she saw me.  Unusual .. she is not generally very vocal and so this was a fairly good sign that she was up to something!

I kept a close eye on her during the rest of the afternoon and we made her a little pen of her own just before milking started as she was clearly searching for somewhere to settle down.  Barely had we got the gates in place when the first little brown kid appeared!  Closely followed by a second one - a miniature of her mum.

Satisfied that all was well (as she had been scanned for 2 kids), I went to get her a nice bucket of warm water.  When I returned moments later, there was another little brown kid in the pen!!

And so here they are, ladies and gentlemen .. The Huskyettes.  Yes indeed - triplet girls.  Not a bad start to the season!

And young Fenn is a very proud daddy.  His first babies!  Contrary to expectation, Husky has been an absolutely brilliant new mum so far.  Babies were cleaned and fed very quickly and she is very attentive to them.  We shall see how long it lasts!

The waiting game

David spent a happy weekend mucking out so that we are all ready for kidding.  The girlies have a bit less space at this time of year to allow room for all those kidding pens to be put up.

At the moment there is a big empty space on one side of the barn:

But it will soon start to fill up!

The Boys have been moved back into the hay barn for the moment - Daramac and Hugo took it all in their stride as usual ..

Fenn and Clark were quite happy to have the big lads back in their house, though Fenn is still a little wary of Hugo.  I think it may have something to do with those ears!  And Beamish still has his smart coat on - probably for a couple more weeks.

The weather has been glorious for the last couple of days and the girls have been taking full advantage of the sunshine to get some fresh air in their field.  However, they have to cross the mud in the back yard to get out there and so there has to be a huge risk assessment meeting before anyone is allowed out in the field.

Everyone gathers in the sunshine up the side of the barn after milking ..

There is a lot of ear-pointing whilst everyone stares into the field to make sure that there are no trolls hanging about waiting to scare poor unsuspecting young goaties ..

And then finally, the brave ones tramp through the mud to reach the grass ..

And of course, there are always those who just prefer to stay indoors and keep their little goatie feet clean and dry ..

At milking time, Fizzy is still demanding to come into the parlour.  She likes to go up the ramp and join in with the other girls - I think it makes her feel important!  And so she comes round to the back gate, stands up on the fence and demands to be let in ..

Dear simple Marcie goat likes to come in with the very last lot and heads straight for the wheelbarrow.  Then she lies in it to make sure that she can reach the furthest and most tasty bits of food ..

No babies as yet but Husky is due in a couple of days and I think she will probably kid on time.  She has gone off her food a little and seems very restless.  Watch this space!

Just over a week to go ..

David and I are pretty certain that Husky is going to be a dreadful mother! We fully expect her to throw a tantrum and refuse to look after her babies .. but we shall see.  Just over a week to go until young Madam is due to kid .. she is starting to look very tired these days and prefers to spend most of her time lying in her favourite spot under the hayrack.

However, she does still demand to come into the parlour and drink from the tap ..

Someone else who has become very demanding of late is our little deformed Fizzy Wizzy goat .. Since most of her friends are now coming through the parlour, she doesn't like to think that she may be missing out on something and so she comes round to the back door and shouts until we let her in.

Then she runs up the ramp at the first opportunity ..

Small but very feisty.  Noone messes with a Fizzy Wizz!

This year's Dolly Parton award goes to Meryl (with Florence a very close second).

Poor Meryl still has a couple of weeks to go before the arrival of her babies.  I can't believe that her udder can grow much more before it explodes!

Happy New Year of the Goat!

Surely that's got to be a good thing!  The Chinese New Year of the Goat ... There were the usual celebrations in London yesterday with processions through the streets.  At Marylebone market we just displayed a discreet little sign .. just to make sure that everyone knows what a great year it should be!

I managed to snap a quick photo of Handsome Humps standing guard over mum Valerie this morning.  Still inseparable, even though he is very grown up now.

And that tail (from a previous blog) has been identified .. it belongs to young goatling Laurel.  Just thought you would like to know that ..

The sad news from the barn is that Poppy goat aborted one of her kids over the weekend.  Perhaps that was the cause of her having problems with her back leg .. Close inspection revealed that it was a small female - not fully formed, but it did have very long paper-thin ears.  A little Hugo daughter.

Poppy seems much happier since and is now back in with the rest of her goatie friends.  She was scanned for 2 or 3 kids (Michael wasn't completely sure) and so we will see if she manages to carry the rest of them until her due date.  Needless to say, everyone is keeping a very close eye on her bottom end in case anything else happens!