Tales from the Goat Birthing Pen!

Denver our F3 Mini Nubian

first time Mom, did what?

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Denver is my beautiful F3 Mini Nubian Doe who looked slightly pregnant and may be due in the next 6 weeks. This first time Nanny has the most beautiful blue eyes and top line. Denver and I are very close. I raised her as a bottle baby and we snuggled nightly when she was being raised in the house. 

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I go out to the Mini Nubian Doe pasture in the evening on March 20th and Denver was laying around being super lazy, grunting occasionally and I thought she is going to be in for a long pregnancy. I loved on her and spent some time observing her throughout the evening. To my surprise labor kicked in and she started pushing. I ran over to comfort her. All I can say is that it was a blessing that I was there.  She pushed out the baby boy, Dale, first. She walked off and didn’t even look back at him. I was shocked but began to clean the bag off of him.  We got his airway cleared and took him to Denver.  She didn’t want anything to do with him! After about 10 to 15 minutes she gave birth to a beautiful tan doeling, Darla. She walked off again! We cleaned this doeling off and took both of them to Denver. I tried to get them to nurse but she ran off. She was appalled that these bothersome babies wanted her to be a Mom and I was heartbroken that she wanted nothing to do with them.

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We moved her the babies into a birthing suite in Mini Nubian pasture. I thought she may settle down once we got them settled in with no other goats around. I was very wrong. I went to plan B and held her while they nursed. I refused to let her abandon or reject these kids. Together we were going to figure this out even if it took all night. I settled in to stay the night with Denver and the kids. I held her every 30 minutes to let them nurse until almost 1 am. Finally the kids went to nurse and she didn’t run. She let buckling latch and then the doeling latched. I didn’t have to hold her. I broke out in happy tears! This was the end of her new goat Mom jitters. She has turned out to be a great Mom and I am super proud of her.

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Her twins are gorgeous and both the doeling and buckling have her blue eyes. Dale the boy is so loving I can hardly get a picture of him because he is always in my pocket. Darla is sweet as well. She is a lighter brown, almost tan color with Denver’s blue eyes.

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