Hello everyone,
I have a doe who came to me pregnant, but with several possible due dates, the first of which was today. This is her 6th freshening, so she is a pro and has had anywhere from 1-4 per kidding. She isn't as wide as I would think for 4, so up until last week I thought we probably had a few weeks or more to go. Then Clarabelle, who was about the same size, gave birth to her twin doelings on Friday. I thought maybe GumDrop also has twins and could go anytime. I also saw that from the 11th to the 14th she got noticeably bigger. Bigger by the 14th than Clarabelle was when she kidded. (and GumDrop is 2 inches taller). So yesterday (the 15th) her sides hollowed out and she was walking kind of funny and I *thought* the ligaments were gone, but I am not very good at any of those feeling things. So I prepared her a kidding area and we spent the day in there. At one point I thought I saw some mucous, but it was questionable. She took full advantage of it, soaked up the attention and laid around under the heat lamp with all the food and water she could consume. =) This morning when nothing had happened (now 24 hours), I decided I would leave a monitor in there and not stay with her anymore. So I'm thinking I jumped the gun.
My question is, how far ahead of time will they hollow out? I don't think the ligaments is a true test in my case, since I'm not sure if they are there or not. Also, her bag is not full. I emailed the previous owner this morning to ask if hers usually fills up before she kids, but he has not responded yet. I know that is usually not the case.
Part of me wants this to be prelabor and part of me is happy if she still has a couple more weeks to go. She looks pregnant with two or maybe three at this point, so if she goes on, there may even be 4 in there, but right now it doesn't look like it.
She is always super friendly, so I can't go by that. She also loves to be in the shed, so can't tell with that either. And she's very quiet - althought she has been talking to me since we "moved out" of the shed. But that could be just because she misses us being there...
So, waiting and wondering. =)
Thanks!
Kare
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