Relaxed Farming - our farm in your classroom

Welcome to Relaxed Farming

Grape Like Sage and Thyme, Parsley is an experienced mum who has always had twins or triplets in previous years. We were keeping our fingers crossed this was going to be a good kidding... We noticed a damp back end just after breakfast and then shortly after midday, we could see she wanted to lie down and start to give birth. Everything then happened very quickly and within minutes of her starting to push, the most enormous head came out. The trouble was that the front legs were not visible at all. As you probably know, kids are best born head first with their front legs sticking straight out (imagine yourself about to dive in the swimming pool with your arms above your head and that's the position we mean!). If the legs are backwards, that means the shoulders are likely to get wedged stuck. Help was needed straight away here, the head was NOT going to go back in so we had to see if we could pull the legs forwards or failing that help Parsley squeeze those shoulders out. In the end we did the latter as there was no real room for David to get to the legs when the head was so big. Poor Parsley screamed in pain BUT with the shoulders through, the rest of the kid followed and we welcomed Grape to the world.

Plum Plum followed within minutes and Parsley began the long job of licking them both dry. As the photos show they are very similar looking, both to each other and to Raisin, born yesterday. As they all get older and start to play together we are going to have fun telling them apart! The size difference between these two is enormous (the photos don't really show this) but when we picked up Grape we realised that even though she had just been born she was bigger and heavier than Raisin (born yesterday) and Fig (born the day before) and MUCH bigger than her sister. Nonetheless it was Raisin that got the hang of drinking milk from mum's teat first and she had such a long first drink. Grape kept finding a teat but then letting go but eventually she got the hang of it and within a very short space of time we had virtually dry kids with lovely warm tummies. In these first few days we do a lot of feeling the kids' tummies to check they are nice and round and warm, That way, we know they are getting enough milk. The other thing we look out for is when the kids get up after a bit of a sleep, we like to see them having a good long stretch. Again, this is a sign of a warm and healthy kid. Another successful kidding and so time (for us) for a cup of tea!!