Cair Paravel Enterprises: Kikki & Her Kids: Part II

As the contractions came closer together, Kikki started to work a lot harder to cope with the pain. She would lie down and contort her body raising her head up high and moaning, then drop her head and close her eyes and try to power through it. The number one thing to remember when assisting a goat giving birth is that even animals need to be comforted!

After a heavy wave of contractions, Kikki walked over to me
as if she were trying to ask, "What the heck is going on!?"

"Really!! What's happening!?"

A little scratch to let her know we were there for her.

Despite Kikki's best efforts to fool us into thinking she's never given birth before, we know better than that. This is her third time giving birth, and both times before she had triplets! Triplets is less common, but a great thing! After a couple minutes of down time from the contractions, the last wave comes and lands Kikki on here side. At this time Whitt has taken over the comforting and our first signs of the first born can be seen.

This is the goat version of lamaze.

Here's a great clip of Kikki moments before the first kid is born!
Keep an eye on her hind quarters. You can see a "bubble" at one point.
The "bubble" is actually the amniotic sac which, of course, contains the amniotic fluid.
That is the go ahead sign that the kid is ready and well on it's way out!

With the first kid moments away, I handed the camera over and got ready to catch! Kikki is ready for these kids to be out and into the world.

The first kid is born! Whitt and I assist in pulling the baby up to
Kikki's head so she can start cleaning him of right away.

A quick step back to help remind Kikki of her duty and let the new bond take effect.
It's incredible how Kikki knows just what to do.

Now it's time to tie off the umbilical chord and dip the chord into iodine
to help sanitize as well as aid in the shrinking and drying out of the chord.

The first kid is a little buck! There's just enough time to take a quick family
photo before the second kid is born.

Goats are typically born in pairs. The sex of the kids is never definite, but ideally two does are what goat farmers look for. The tricky part about a buck is that he is limited to which goat he is able to breed with within the herd. (i.e.- Cannot breed with his mother, or sister.) Typically only one unrelated male goat is necessary to act as herd sire. That is why typically male goats are rented by large scale goateries for the time needed to breed with all of the does. With a doe, their milk is very useful and pretty much trumps any other use the buck may have. It's a sign of a healthy goat to give birth to twins, and helps build up the herd a lot faster. A doe who only bears one kid more than once are generally undesirable for most goat farmers. Kikki has proven to be a great doe! We were able to get the second kid on video! Be warned: it's a bit graphic, so if you're susceptible to becoming squeamish -- maybe this video below isn't for you.

You can see in the video that I had a hard time cleaning the kids mouth and nostrils.
It's head became trapped inside the amniotic sac when I popped it and the kid was having
a hard time taking it's first breaths. Convinced the kid was extremely fragile I was terrified
first of hurting it, and second not being able to clean the kid off well enough causing it
to asphyxiate.The amniotic sac is extremely slippery! Thank goodness Ashley was there. She's
a nurse and was able to clean off the kid and allow it to get its first breaths easily.