Baby Season

Yesterday, it finally happened. The mark of an exciting new phase in farm life. That's right. Our first small ruminant had vaginal discharge! Whoopie! I could barely contain myself when Donna pointed it out to me yesterday morning. I thought that discharge would never come.

Of course, that gooey stuff indicates that birthing is on the way. To be particular, it was one of our Nigerian dwarf goats, and boy oh boy, she looks pregnant. Definitely as wide as she is tall, which is the case for most of our goats. I should provide pictures of just how preggers some of these ladies are. Mental note.

Well, if you see the first signs of discharge, birthing is less than a week off. So, every night we're having nighttime checks so we don't miss any ewes or does going into labor. Hopefully this time next week I'll be telling you about our new Nigerian dwarf kids. I hear they're some of the cutest. Of course, the birthing season is going to take a while, extending well into March. The larger sheep and goats tend to have longer gestations. Also, there's a chance I will have to assist an animal in birth. I mean reaching in and pulling the sucker out. A chance, small though it may be. Anyway, I'm pretty excited, even though I'm not supposed to be because only women folk care about that kind of thing. I'm gonna go chop wood. F'in A.