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Tuesday, 24th February 2015
Today has been VERY emotional and rather momentous!!! Both Onion and Thyme have given birth but unfortunately Onion's kid was dead and had to be removed by a Caesarian section (cutting through her side and pulling the kid direct from the womb). Thyme's labour was just as difficult but did result in two female kids, now named Fig (first photos) and Apricot (second photo). For both births we had to call the vet to help us!!
It all began just after 5pm when Onion began to show signs of starting to give birth but after half an hour or so, it was obvious that her kid was very stuck. David had a feel inside but could only find the front legs. We called the vet who managed to find the head only to discover it was bent completely backwards over the neck. She tried to pull it forwards but had no luck and so we made the decision to go ahead with the Caesarian. It looked as though the kid was malformed and had probably died a while ago, hours if not days. It was a boy, mainly black in colour and a good size. Such a shame!!!
Thyme also had problems pushing her kids out and when the vet went inside her, she discovered the first kid had a back leg facing forwards as well as the front legs and the second kid was totally facing backwards. Fortunately she managed to get them both in the right positions (head and front legs first) and pull them out, alive and kicking and, within seconds, screaming as well!! Whether the screams were because they were happy to be out at last or being cross it had taken so long... who knows!!!
Apricot, despite coming out first and being the bigger of the two kids, was not as strong as her sister and it took us a long time (almost two hours) to get her to suckle on her own. As with Mushroom, we manually gave her some of mum's milk with that all important colostrun to make sure she had something inside her to get her warm and healthy. At the time of writing (2am) both kids have lovely warm, full bellies!!!
More tomorrow!!!
Find out more: Pygmy Goat kidding 2015.
