Relaxed Farming - our farm in your classroom

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We could see that Nutmeg was close to giving birth when we went down to the barn first thing. She was damp at her back end and a little restless. We kept checking her all morning and each time, we found her in a different place in the stall. Goats will 'nest' and chose one spot to give birth but Nutmeg obviously had not yet made up her mind. When she did eventually lie down, she began to push and we could see the water bag appearing and she also seemed to be opening up well at her back end. At this point we felt quite confident. After 10 to 15 minutes though, we felt less confident as the pushing continued but nothing appeared and then the pushing got less and less... It is important to keep a careful eye on the time at this stage. If a half hour of pushing shows no major progress, that is the time to think about seeing what might be wrong and certainly, if after an hour nothing has happened, it is very important to investigate (and/or call the vet). If a kid is stuck and stays inside mum for too long, there is a risk it might die. A dead kid is harder to get out than a live one and there is also a risk the mum may get injured trying to get it out. Fortunately in this case, when David began to feel inside Nutmeg he very quickly found two front legs and a head. This was great news as it meant the kid was completely in the right position to come out - the problem here was that Nutmeg was not opening up enough to allow the kid through.

We gave Nutmeg another few minutes to see if she could push the kid out on her own but it did not look hopeful. By this stage she had ripped her skin because she had been pushing so hard and it was bleeding. We decided we should get the kid out asap. Nutmeg sort of helped and after another minute or so, in a move that was very similar to trying to get a tight rubber band off a parcel without breaking it, David got the head and feet out and the rest of the body followed. Raisin was very weak at first and as well as Nutmeg licking her, we rubbed her with straw in order to get the blood flowing round her body and into her muscles. We took some milk from Nutmeg as we knew it might be a while before Raisin would be strong enough to start suckling. As with Mushroom and Apricot before her, that first drink (with all that nourishing colostrum) did wonders, and within minutes we felt her belly warm up. Poor Nutmeg was obviously quite sore and tired and she began to lie down - not great as we wanted Raisin to start to look for her teats and suckle on her own... we had however got 'some' milk into Raisin so we left them alone for half an hour or so. When we went back the change in Raisin was brilliant, she was up on her feet and looking really strong and with a bit of encouragement she found mum’s teats and took her first independent drink. Fabulous! At that point we then felt we deserved a drink too and went back to the house for a late lunch!!!