Our Goats Are Pregnant

Well, Midas isn’t because he’s a buck. Oakley and Bailey are possibly pregnant but Champ and Bella sure are! I guess I could reword the title to say Champ and Bella are pregnant. Meh. Either way, I am ridiculously excited for some goat kids on the homestead!

Let’s Go Back

In October, I watched Midas do his business with his girls. At the time we only had Champ and Bella. About a month later we had the vet come out to do a herd check and see if the girls were pregnant. The vet did an ultrasound both girls and didn’t find anything. She said that Midas was too young to get the job done. Well, someone forgot to tell Midas that.

Over the next several months we noticed that both girls were getting heavier and were excited because they were pretty thin going into winter despite how much we fed them and negative fecals.

They’re Not Fat… They’re Pregnant!

One day I went out to hang out with my goats and bam! Champ’s udders had gotten huge and her vulva was pretty swollen. If you don’t know anything about goats, these are pretty solid indicators that they are pregnant and close to delivery. I posted a picture on one of the pages I’m apart of on Facebook, and every single person came back and said, she’s pregnant. They also said we probably only had a few weeks before delivery.

Instant panic! I had no idea they were even pregnant and now we are weeks from birthing. So we have been prepping for the birthing and Jared has been building kidding pens. Constantly checking ligaments and making sure they get enough grain. Midas was not impressed that he is not allowed to have all the grain.

With all the panic, the wonderful lady I am buying our two new doelings from has been amazing and answering all the questions I have. She has talked me off the ledge a couple of times without her even realizing she did. She’s also been very helpful when Oakley (brown and white goat) got really sick.

Today, March 20th, starts our baby watch for Champ and Bella. We are hoping for a safe delivery for both girls. As for the kids? We don’t care if they are boys or girls, as long as they are healthy and thrive.

Oakley and Bailey are possibly pregnant but it’s hard to tell because it’s so soon for them. We may have the vet do an ultrasound on them when they come out to disbud the new babies, but we shall see.

We will follow with an update when they are born and everyone pulls through *fingers crossed*

The Long Awaited Update

So this post was written on 3/20/21…. As of this update, the original post is 3 years old. Man, time flies! A lot has changed with our goat herd and both life and death has occurred on the farm.

I am pleased to say that all four girls, Bella, Champ, Oakley and Baily were pregnant. Bella gave us a healthy buckling named Be Be (or Bella’s Baby). Champ gave us three doelings but only Stella was born alive. Oakley and Bailey both gave us beautiful bucklings.

Unfortunately, we lost Oakley and Bailey’s bucklings due to worms that fall. BeBe was sent to freezer camp this past January. And Champ died this past winter at the ripe “old” age of 9 years old. While we know that death is a part of life, especially on the homestead, it still hurts.

However, Bella has given us 3 more babies over the years, as have Oakley and Bailey. Our herd has grown from 5 to 14, healthy, happy bouncing goats. We have learned a ton about goats, raising babies, and cooking goat meat.

Maintaining Flexiblity

I mentioned homestead flexibility in this post, and it is a skill that is absolutely necessary when you are learning how to grow food, raise animals and be good stewards. Our original plan for the goat herd was to sell registered goats. But as time has gone on, we shifted our focus from breeding registered goat stock, to breeding for hardiness and milk.

We have learned when to breed and when to hold back. We’ve learned more tried and true methods to tracking pregnancy and how to raise bottle babies.

I think the most important shift that we have come to accept is that we just can’t keep all the goats. That sometimes, they will need to go to freezer camp (slaughter) and that’s okay. And yes, it’s hard. I’ve got three kids that we are raising for that purpose right now. We can’t keep all of them because our livestock are not pets.

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