The kidding season this year has been a bit out of our usual.  Usually we start near the beginning of March and string things out until May or June.  That way we are inundated with a whole lot of milk all at once, and it lets me rebuild my hand muscles gradually.  But after not getting anyone bred in November, by the time the next heat came around we went a little crazy getting them all bred - well except for Lotus.  We thought Lotus was due the same day as Puzzle, but she apparently is due when the other girls are and bred date didn't get updated.  

All that means we have 6 does all due between the 2nd and the 5th of May.  Gal, Dassi and Lotus are showing signs that they are done with being pregnant, although Lotus still doesn't look bred and all has a very small udder.  However she is long bodied enough she could be hiding twins or triplets in there.
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Gal Kahol shares a due date with Dassi of May 2nd.  She is a first freshener and was also bred to ACE.  (Ace's dam scored a 91 on L.A. last year just a few weeks after he was born.)

Gal (pronounced like the actress Gal Gadot) is a half sister to our lovely Violet and a grand-daughter of my very first doe. If we are blessed with doe kids, more than likely at least one will be retained.

As explained above, we don't have a due date on Lotus.  She was supposed to be bred to ACE.  We will DNA check any offspring we decide to register just to be 100% sure on who the sire is.  She will be a first freshener

She has a bit of roundness showing, but not a lot and doesn't have much udder, but since she started losing her mucous plug yesterday, I'm going to bet she is due at some point next week like the others.

When Violet's (left) dam was the herd queen she had an enforcer - and rarely did any disciplining.  Her enforcer was Creamy's (right) dam.  These girls are several years apart in age but I am seeing that same dynamic starting to crop up.   Typically a herd queen does her own enforcing so their dam's partnership was a bit unusual. 

Creamy and Violet were both bred to TUNDRA.  Creamy has a due date of May 4th and she will be a second freshener.  Violet has a due date on the 5th and she will be a 5th freshener.   Creamy was supposed to be sold last year, but she has an udder like her dam with lots of capacity and long teats.  She may be available after LA as a doe in milk if I can bear to part with her.  

Violet has brown eyes so this will be a test to see how well TUNDRA does at passing on the blue-eyes.  Violet has two blue-eyed parents, and had two blue-eyed brothers in the same litter.   Right now I have only one daughter of hers in my herd, and if we are blessed to get a doe kid out of this union the odds are high I will be keeping at least one. 

Wow am I behind on the updates! 

So a quick update before the rest of the does start kidding in a few days.   On the evening of March 19th Puzzle gave us three beautiful blue-eyed boys.   I do not want the boys to be split up, so I am looking for a special pet home for these cuties.