Soon!

The goats are due to kid soon! They can't cross their legs and hold it much longer. Cookie is first up. Being a first freshener, I don't have past gestation lengths to base her due date on. Today she is at 145 days of gestation. Goats can kid anywhere between 145 days to 155 days.

Pepper is next in line to kid. She has kidded twice before at an average of 149 days of gestation. That puts Pepper due on April 7th. She has had two sets of twins for me in the past but this year she looks huge and is already starting to grunt and breath heavy with every movement. I am on the lookout for triplets or quads from her this year.

Lucy is up next. I have her due on April 12th. She has had two sets of twin bucks in years past at 150 days of gestation. I am assuming she will have two bucks this year at 150 days of gestation. She isn't very imaginative when it comes to kids so I would be shocked if she did anything different than this.

After that, Gloria is bringing up the rear. She likes to go late into her gestation with an average of 153 days. She has kidding 4 other times. She had 3 sets of twins and one set of triplets. The set of triplets was a birthing disaster so I am eager to see how she does this year and how many she has. Gloria likes to throw the same color patterns every year -- brown with black trim and white with black trim. She stays true to her Alpine genetics with the color patterns being very classic Alpine in design. I am super interested to see if she gives me kids in different colors than she normally has.

Hopefully the next blog update will be pictures of the new kids! I am praying they all just decide to get busy and all kid this weekend so I don't have to mess around. Here's hoping!!!!

Preparation

Kidding season is right around the corner. It dawned on me last week that I only have four weeks before the first kids are due. It's time to get everything arranged and be ready for the impending births. This weekend I cleaned all the stalls in the barn so I could move the goats into the kidding pens and get everyone situated. I wanted to put Cookie and Pepper in the kidding pens in the front because those have the heat lamp over them. Cookie is due first on March 31st and Pepper is due a week later. Cookie was living with Lucy in the big stall but Lucy was getting pretty grumpy about that situation so I needed to get Cookie separated ASAP. Lucy was going to have Gloria for a roommate for a while. That would have left the back pen open for the kids to go in. I wanted to use the back pen for the kids since it had been vacant for the winter and the parasites should have starved to death by now. With no goats in there, it wouldn't need as much disinfection to be clean for brand new kids to move into. Well, with Gloria and Lucy not getting along, I had to separate them. Lucy went in the back pen and Gloria stayed in the big pen. Now all the pens are full. I am not sure what will happen exactly when the kids arrive. I will need to rotate Cookie and Pepper out of the kidding pens so Lucy and Gloria can rotate in. Lucy is due when Pepper is. I will probably wind up shoving Cookie in with Gloria so Lucy can have Cookie's pen and the kids can have Lucy's pen. The kids will probably wind up in the house and then the garage for a while, so that will buy me some time before I need a kid pen ready in the barn.

Ah, the joys of goat raising!!!!