Kidding Season

[sheepdog 10]

In case anyone has noticed my absense, I am right in the middle of Kidding season this month. With that an all the dogs that need grooming and garden and planting that needs done, I have been busier than a one legged man in a butt kicking contest. Lucky for me, goats never kid in the middle of the night. As long as I check them every few hours during the daylight we are ok. So if I'm not just completly dead on my feet I do have evenings to catch up emails and of course, post here. I was going to post pictures of my first set of kids, but I keep getting an error message when I try to upload. I also wanted to post a picture of Mabaline, one of my goats I was starting to feel really sorry for, she was getting so huge she could barely waddle around, her belly was HUGE! My old man said she was going to have triplets, but I didn't believe him. I haven't had a set of triplest in years, but sure enough, she did have 3 adorable little kids, 2 bucks and one pretty little white doe kid. All that careful survailance did pay off, I had one goat that had a kid that got stuck coming out. It got one front leg out and then the head blocked the birth canal and the shoulders got stuck. I tried and tried but could not even find the other front leg. Kids need to come with both front feet first, one slightly ahead of the other so the shoulders are cocked to be as narrow as possible. When one leg is back the shoulders are too wide to pass threw the birth canal. I finally managed to get the head out of the way and then the shoulder would slide threw with a little twisting and pulling on my part. It was a big buck kid, a single birth, and she was my smallest doe so it was pretty rough but I did get him out alive, and she jumped right up and started licking him. He was still with her the next morning and I thought he was going to be ok, but today I can't find him anywhere. I'm afraid I probably lost him. That monsoon rain we had yesterday may of washed him away. So, now I am just about a little over half way threw kidding season. Wish I was half way threw the dog grooming! Haven't even started much of any planting. The big flower bed is ready to till, if it stops raining long enough for the ground to get dry enough to till. I have got manure out of the goat barn shoveled out and under most of my trees now, just have the row of cherry bushes along the driveway yet to manure. I have bought some more tree yesteday, 9 more, and we already planted 9, and have a few flower bulbs and some grape vines I picked up last week I need to get out. So, I'll drop in when I can, hopefully enough to keep up my mycents!