My goat, Alice, gave birth to 2 beautiful bucklings! This was the quickest labor I've had at our farm. Around 2:30, her contractions were 2 minutes apart, then I went back out at 3:00 and she was pushing. The first baby came out with just a head and one hoof directly underneath his chin. And the second came out with the head and one hoof, the other hoof was curled over his head. Alice is a super attentive and making sure they both get fed. I also want to note that these kids are 4th generation babies for our farm! I'll post more photos and their birth videos on my Instagram @the.goat.geek
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Thank you for your kind words! I'm going to the feed store soon and will look into getting them goat grain. Have a great weekend!
You may want to consider switching her to a good goat dairy grain instead of the all stock. It will give your lactating girls a much better protein source as well as a nice balance of vitamins and minerals to assist with good production. That should help keep them in tip top shape while making milk. :)
Thanks for sharing these lovely photos. I have a shorty that is a full Nigerian. I have held off on breeding her because she is so small but I finally put her up next to another doe and decided she is plenty big enough in body, she just has short legs - LOL. She is getting fat, so I’m hoping to breed her soon.
Have a great rest of the week, and enjoy those sweet babies!
tammy
This is the kids mom
This is the kids dad
My herd is not purebred Nigerian dwarfs, some of them are very small. The kids mom is around 18 inches tall and their dad is a bit bigger. Currently she is on a diet of mostly alfalfa pellets mixed with allstock (for energy \weight gain) and coastal hay.
I have realized my herd has some nutritional deficiencies. Because of this, I'm going to work on getting their health in tip top shape this year. I'm going to switch to better minerals, add alfalfa to my doe's diets, and am going to rotate my herd when spring\summer comes around. I want to make sure my goats are as healthy as can before breeding again.
(Just to let you know, this isn't the goat with the kidding issues. I'll keep you updated on what happens with her.)
I was thinking that they look like they are less than 2 pounds, which is extremely small and still indicates some type of nutritional issue. Usually you don't have kids that small unless a doe has at least 4 or 5 kids at once -- and then maybe one or two will be that small. NDs should be closer to 3# at birth.
We use our digital kitchen scale to weigh kids. Put a small cardboard box on the scale, turn the scale on (so that it registers 0 with the box), tuck the kid's feed underneath it, and then sit it in the box.
Weigh them the same time every day to be sure they are gaining at least 4 ounces per day.
I don't remember what we talked about with feed during lactation, but Purina Goat Feed or Dumor Goat Sweet Feed would be good options for mama to be sure she has enough protein and minerals to produce plenty of milk.
Thank you! No I haven't weighed them. They are very small though, probably around 1-2 lbs. and only like 6 inches tall.
Deborah Niemann-Boehle said:
Congratulations! I'm jealous! I love that color buckskin, and I've only ever had one goat that color in 20 years.
Have you weighed them?
Thank you!
Naomi D'Andrea said:
Congratulations! So sweet.
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