My Babies!

 Talitha (her new name) checkin' out Weeble.

 Lol! Talitha looking for a teat on Angel!

 Angel has done pretty good with the girls. She likes to bump them with her nose to get them to play back. 

 This is what the cats look like while they observe the baby mayhem in the house.

 Caught the kittens playing on the "toys" I put out for the goats.

 This one is the fluffiest and cutest, but she's the scaredy-cat of the four!

 So far, these two have a home that they will be going to together on Valentines Day. 

 Back to pictures of my girls. . . 

I love mothering my four-legged babies!

Pictures of my outdoor sweetums.

 We had a sun break in today's forecasted rainy day. I walked up to the barn finding Frankie and Star playing. At least I think they are playing! Frankie, I think, is just so relieved to finally be out of the stall. I let momma and babies out today, without locking them back up after chores. I'll be heading out there every hour, I'm sure, to check up on them. 

 I walked in the barn and found all three cutie pies sleeping in the sun! 

 Isn't he handsome? The other two woke up, but he stayed asleep. Guess he's a hard sleeper!

 Beautiful here got caught with her tongue sticking out, lol!

 Hercules is such a social baby. He loves to be pet. And I love to oblige! Isn't his coloring awesome? He's a strawberry blonde like me!

 A close up of my boy.

 I had to take another pic. It just cracks me up how he just kept on sleeping!

*sigh* They make me happy. 

More news.

So my littlest girl seems to be doing okay. She weighed in at 2lb. 12.6 oz. this mornin'. She's almost a pound heavier than her birth weight!!! She's also taking to the bottle better. I don't always have to pry her mouth open to get the nipple in. I have noticed, tho, that she seems to be developmentally behind one day than the rest of the kids. Also, when I took the indoor girls outside with me to the barn this mornin', she stays to herself and doesn't engage too much. She would think about it, then draw back. I had to bring the girls in when Aquila started looking at Frankie's teats. It broke my heart to have to pull her away, but Frankie just can't support that many kids and I have to teach the indoor girls to depend on me for food. I don't wanna confuse them more than they probably already are.
I forgot the camera again when I went out this a.m., so I will go out in a few minutes to get some pics of my outdoor cutie pies.

Kid pictures!

 So here are some not-so-good pics of the kids. It was hard to take a picture because they don't sit still! Above is a girl and I think I am going to name her Aquila. What's unique about purebred goats is their names have to tie in with their mother's names. Well, Frankie's real name is Frankly a Star (off from her momma who was Moonlight Starrynite, I think--if I remember right.) So I decided I might go with Aquila because it is the name of a star constellation. I'm not 100% sure yet. 

 This one is a boy. He is so soft and beautiful. I am thinking of playing around with his name and calling him Burst of Fun, Mr. B for short. (So the way it would tie in with Frankie's name is: Frankly a Star Burst of Fun). If I don't name him that, I am thinking maybe Hercules because he is the biggest, strongest of the five and it's another star constellation.

 This one's a girl. I have no idea what to name her yet. 

 This is my other boy. I am thinking Virgo, Leo, Lupus, Crater, or Bootes (Boo for short). Again, star constellations.

 I think this is a picture of my last girl and the runt. Her name will probably be Gemma, maybe Gem for short. 

 Okay. So here's my story time. Frankie is not making enough milk to feed all five kids. I struggled with the idea, but I decided to bring in two girls to bottle feed--Aquila and Gemma. I am concerned about Gemma. She is the runt, who weighed in at 1lb. 15 oz. I brought her in because she cried and cried, which is a sign she was hungry. And when it would finally be her turn to eat (because she would have to wait til last when the other kids pushed her off the teat) Frankie would be outta milk and/or pushing her away cause she thought she was done feeding. All that combined forced me to bring her in. And no goat, under any circumstances, can be alone. So I brought in her sister, Aquila. She has no problem taking to the bottle! Gemma, I have to pry her mouth open and shove the nipple in. Even then, she doesn't eat much. She'll push away and I just keep re-feeding her. Consequently, she makes a mess! Thankfully, tho, she has gained a couple ounces since her weigh-in. That's promising. Since I am bottle feeding, I feed every three hours, round the clock. It's work. Especially when one doesn't wanna eat. But it's also rewarding. 

 Gemma has met her match with a kitten. Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention: we are also in the process of weaning and litter training kittens!

After every feeding, they need play time. So I plop them in the living room and let them go at it! They jump, run, tumble, and paw at each other constantly. They are so much fun to watch. Today, I took them outside to play. Took them a few minutes to adjust, but they played hard out there. Everyday, I am going to take them outside because, after all, they are goats. When they start depending on me to feed them and the idea isn't foreign to them, AND they are gaining weight enough to impress me, then I will put them back in the barn. That could take awhile. I am not sure. Even then, I will have to go out there every few hours and still feed. It's a commitment! 

I went out to the barn and cleaned it out--again (it's becoming the story of my life). When I did, I let Frankie's other three out of the stall and into the big world. They loved it! They were romping around everywhere! I forgot the camera, but when I go back out there later today, I will try to remember the camera and take pictures. I only let them out right now while I am there because Alice is still adjusting to the newest additions and has tried to head butt them a couple times. She did a lot better today and only did it once. But until she's totally compliant, they can only come out when I'm present.

Birth Pics--A little Graphic!

 Okay, so when I walked into thebarn, this is the goo I saw. . . 

 Frankie became very lovey and wanted my attention. 

 The you-know-what hadn't hit the fan yet, so Frankie was able to poise for a glamour shot! The bump on her jaw is another side issue poor momma had--a salivary gland abscess. It got lanced and drained the day after kidding.

 Dominic was watching intently. Poor guy kept asking what's wrong with her "butthole". I must have corrected him a thousand times that it was her vagina. He kept saying "oh". I don't think the whole sex thing has clicked with him yet. It may be time to have The Talk.

 Frankie starts pushing, but not hard or bearing down yet.

 So we stopped for a quick bite. Nothing says family like picnic-ing in the barn with a birthing goat!

 The first of several sacs coming out. 

 Baby #1! Soon as I wiped away the goo, she was a kicker and a screamer! She may be the tiniest of the lot, but she is a firecracker!

 Cleaning her off and aspirating her.

 This is where I was figuring out what to do with that dang umbilical cord. I had read about a trick that if you dry it off with paper towels it will just break away. Frankie didn't give me a chance to try that theory, since she jumped up right after this picture and tore it. 

 Momma doing her job. So the work begins!

 She's only five minutes old and she's getting her sea legs to movin'.

 Anticipating arrival #2. . . 

 There he is! Notice I clamped that umbilical cord before I did anything else, lol!

 Frankie is such an awesome momma.

 Thinking two was all we'd have, we start showing them the teat. Which they refused and balked at.

 After some trial and error, we realized there was a kid #3! Notice there's another sac coming out right behind the just delievered kid.

 Kid #4! He was a biggin'! At this point I was scramblin' and just trying to keep babies mouths clear and passed off to momma as soon as I could.

 At this point, all organization and neatness flew out the window.

 See the big one? He had no problem finding his food!

 Poor Alice and Star were besides themselves. On the other side of the pen, they wanted to know, what the heck is going on in there???

 There are five kids at this point. All doing their own thing. Looking for milk in the wrong spots. So we settled down to showing them again. To get them fed, it took hours. Melinda said this was common when there are so many kids. . . they come out kinda disorganized and stupid. Frankie was such a champ. I was so proud of her. I never seen an animal just keep calm and do her thing as well as this girl. 

 Adorable, yes???

 The smallest one, shown here lying down, was our biggest concern. She was first born and refusing to eat. She was also the runt.

More pictures coming later today! 

Oh Boy{s} and Girls!

About 2:30 in the afternoon on January 31st (yesterday's Thursday, if you wanna get that detailed), I had just finished up doing a chore for each of the kids so they didn't have to after school. (I felt like they needed a break.) Call it a premonition twice over (they never did a single chore), but I had a funny feeling it was time to check Frankie, despite the fact that the baby monitor had no sounds telling me that anything was out of the ordinary. And I am always having an inkling to go check Frankie. In fact, I believe this check was the seventh one of the day. So I, non-optimistically, donned my boots and sweater and headed out.

I got to the door and peered into the barn. Frankie had her back end turned to me and it was (finally) oozing amber colored goo. My heart started racing and I reached into my pocket to grab my cell phone cause I had to tell somebody--anybody! But it wasn't there. Well, that wouldn't do cause you can't deliver kids without a cell phone, so I ran into the house, grabbed one of each phone, and ran back out to the barn. Not only did Frankie not move and inch while I was gone, but she never even paused to stop chewing that cud either. She wasn't nearly as excited as I was. So I did my texting and then gently (I acted like I was gonna break her, just so you know) corralled Frankie into the "birthing stall"--a tiny little square Scott made full of fluffy clean straw; it's really not much. Anyways, I deter. . .

Nina comes home and hollers out the back door (I guess mom's always in the barn), asking if she can have a cookie. I holler back with my mom-voice, "Nina, it's time!" She hears, "Nina, it's fine!" and goes and has her cookie. So I wait. I wait for Frankie and I wait for Nina. Neither show progress so I use my cell phone and call the house (because I absolutely can't leave Frankie now, says me.) Nina doesn't answer, but comes out and wants to know what did I want. I tell her, it's time. She says, "Time for what?" Good grief.

Fast forward thru Dominic coming home, calling Scott and asking when he'll be home, and him being home. I waited and watched that goo the entire time all that happened. I never left Frankie's side until I had to pee. Once. But I was back in a jiffy! (Yes, I washed my hands.)

So, it's about five thirty in the evening--kids and hubby are getting hungry. Scott does a DQ run and as he's walking into the barn with my chicken tenders, Frankie starts pushing. I scarfed the four tiny chicken tenders (don't get me started in how tiny those tenders are and how much we have to pay for them) and skipped the fries. It was time to get to business. Get down and dirty. Grab the bull by the horns. Pray to God that I didn't screw it up.

About 6:30, Frankie starts pushing hard. Not the wimpy little "eh's" she was doing earlier, but now she was grunting and bearing down. Baby number one showed up around 6:45. She was very tiny and beautiful! I cleaned off her face, aspirated her mouth and nose, and handed her to mom. Frankie starts licking her to life. Oh, I forgot Scare #1: nobody told me what to do with an attached umbilical cord (because all the you tube video's show it just falling away from the mom), so while I was figuring it out, Frankie jumps up, ripping the umbilical cord. Blood starts gushing everywhere and thankfully my level-headed husband clamps it up for me, while I applied pressure. And try to stay calm in front of my kids. My heart just about came out my throat on what had just happened, and knowing that umbilical cords aren't supposed to bleed like that, but second guessing what we were doing, I call Melinda, from Left Foot Farm. She encourages me and tells me we're doing the right thing.

Okay, so this is where it happened so FAST. Baby #2 comes out about ten-fifteen minutes later. This time we clamp the umbilical cord and cut. I check and this one's a boy! Thinking God had blessed us so richly with a boy and a girl, we were all oh-ing and aw-ing the new arrivals. Frankie was licking them and they were starting to look less gooey and wet & more fluffy and cuddly. We thought God had done enough so we assumed we were done. Then Frankie starts bearing down again. But nothing's coming out. Well, a fluid sac was, but not baby-filled. So we thought maybe it was the placenta. But then Frankie starts crying and something doesn't feel right in my belly. So I start panicking. Just a little. Scott's asking me questions and the kids are giving me their input. . . I look at Scott and I tell him I dunno what to do. He says go in. To appease him, I put on a glove and slip my fingers into Frankie and feel around. I feel nothing. But my gut, and Scott's gut (and Frankie's screaming), tells me that things are not over. Scott puts on gloves and goes in, too. He thinks he feels something, but is not sure. We decide to let it ride out and two minutes later, out comes Baby #3 followed by Baby #4 on it's heels--literally! I was scrambling. I clamped and cut umbilical cords. I was wiping faces and aspirating and it was all crazy. We thought, how the heck are we gonna get four babies on two teats? So we call Melinda again. She laughs at our good fortune and says to put the tinier ones on first and. . . and. . . I didn't hear the rest because Scott's telling me--and wouldn't you know it--Baby #5 is on it's way. I tell Melinda I'll call her back and I rush to Frankie's side just in time to catch it. After Nina ran to the house and got dental floss for the umbilical cord, we stared in shock. There we had five squirming, bleating nigerian dwarf kids. Oh, and a lot of goo. I was wearing it, the walls were wearing it. . . you get the picture, don'tcha?

You would think this is where the happy ending goes. No, no, no, no! The babies still had to eat! And it's vital that they get some colostrum in their belly in the first hour they are alive. Hence Scare #2. Well, the firstborn had been trying to eat, but momma was so busy popping out siblings, she gave up. As did Baby #2. And we were on that hour mark. They had to eat. So we start showing them the teats. They don't get it. We put the teat in their mouths. They scream and yell at us. Four of the five were doing this. But # I-have-no-idea (the biggest and loudest) is doing fine. He attaches himself and up to the moment you read this, he's still probably attached. Baby #1 starts winding down and gets a little listless. She rolls her head back when Scott picks her up. We are besides ourselves at this point. So we call Melinda and tell her the scenario. She tells us, and we follow, the advice: she needs glucose and so a drop of honey will do that in a pinch. Check her temperature (it was 104). Make sure it's 104-105. Try getting her on the teat fifteen minutes after the honey. Repeat honey and teat try. Melinda says she may be in shock. So while we are working on her, we are also working on getting three others attached to Frankie's teats. It was not easy. It was as if the clock stopped. Baby #2 started acting like Baby#1. It was all mayhem. I have not slept because I am still processing it all!

But I'll spare you the details. After three more calls to poor Melinda and as of now (about 6:45 a.m., 12 hours since Baby #1's arrival), mom and kids are doing great. We don't know what it's gonna be like over the next few days. I suspect that Chunky Monkey Baby will probably take his fair share and that a couple will probably suffer and perhaps need to be bottle fed. Maybe. I do know that we have three adorable females and two handsome males that I would very much like to keep alive. I would be so appreciative if you'd please pray for my little ones. Oh, I mean, Frankie's little ones.

Pictures to follow a.s.a.p.