Last year Maple shocked us with QUINTS, this year she looks even larger!  And given her history of kidding early we are keeping a very close eye on her.

She is bred to Elijah and we are looking forward to seeing just how good he is about passing along his polled attributes.   He seems to put a lot of spots on his kids two, these should be some pretty colorful looking kids.

Levana kidded yesterday afternoon for the first time with a single buck kid out of Midnight.   I was really hoping for a doe kid as this is the first kids we have gotten out of Midnight.  

Bekah got to midwife the delivery with the exception of one front leg that I fished around.  Other than that she handled the whole thing despite of the raging thunder storm that was going on at the time.   Due to the storm this handsome guy has been nicknamed "Thunder" and he will be available as a wether once he is weaned.

Today is the first day of spring, the sun is shinning the birds are singing and baby goats have a spring in their steps!   

Day 145 for Levana is the 21st of March so we are officially on kidding watch with this first timer.   While she is showing some dilation, she still has her ligaments so no sleeping in the barn for me yet and hopefully that won't be necessary.   She is bred to Midnight and these will be his first kids.  We are quite excited to see what color combos breeding a pure white goat to an almost pure black goat create.

Day 145 for Maple is April 3rd she is already looking much larger than she has in the past and last year she gave us QUINTS!   Hopefully she will have a more reasonable number of babies this year and kid close to her due date.

In other news, Miriam's doe kid fought a good fight, but her too early start in life was just to much for her to overcome and she breathed her last on March 16th.  Her spunky spirit will be missed.

Around noon today Mame' gave birth to triplets out of Matador.  First born was a blue eyed boy (left) who got himself stuck with just his head out.  He is being called "Mordechai"

He was followed by the brown-eyed blonde doe kid (right) he arrived without any assistance.   She has been named "Myrtle"

And finally hazel eyed "Esther" (center) was born.  She has white markings on both shoulder blades that look a bit like wings sticking out.

Hopefully the sun will come out tomorrow without the wind and I can get a few individual shots outside in better lighting.

Yesterday afternoon Miriam surprised us with quads!   She is a first freshener and didn't look like she was going to have more than just twins.

Baby #1 was a buck who presented hocks first - definitely not the best way for a kid to enter the world.   He is a very healthy boy.

Baby #2 was still born and looked like she probably died several days before.  Baby #4 was also cream colored and still born like his sister.

 Baby #3 was not breathing when she arrived  but I managed to revive her and she is a fighter and wasn't giving up.   Within 12 hrs she was standing on her own and taking the smallest of steps.   

All four the kids has blue eyes.   Of the four babies the surviving doe kid is the most colorful and she has been named Wags Ranch AZ Blue Ivy.

We don't have a firm due date for Miriam because she was bred already when she came back to the ranch.    But based on her udder I would hazard a guess that she will kid sometime this weekend.

She is Maple's first daughter and we are really looking forward to seeing her udder.  Right now it looks to be on the small side, but then Maple's wasn't very big (just so nicely formed!) for her first kidding either.

After Miriam the next up to kid is Mame'.  (pictured on the right) This will be her 6th kidding and if she holds true to her past history she will kid on day 142 which would be March 14th - which just happens to be her 8th birthday and the date she kidded last year.   

Her daughter Levana (pictured on the left) is due the 21st and we are not only looking forward to seeing her first freshening udder (which is shaping up beautifully!)  but also seeing the first kids out of Maple's son Midnight.   It is hard to tell Levana apart from her half-sister Rita who is also a Sunny daughter.   We are hoping that Levana will be a super producer like Rita and Mame' - she certainly has the genetics to surpass them both!