There are four does left to kid in April and all of them are due this week!

Day 145 for the lovely Incredible Violet is today and she is bred to Kingfisher.  I have been anticipating this kidding since the moment I agreed to purchase Kingfisher a day or two after he was born last year.   Any doe kid(s) from this union will be retained.    

Tomorrow is day 145 for first freshener Vita Viola and  Dassi and Blush are due on Saturday.   My guess right now is that best buddies Vita and Dassi will probably go over ) and Blush will kid before Saturday  

Blush was a very scared yearling when she joined our herd and was scared of her own shadow for a long time.  It took a couple of years of patience but now she is a big love bug and a family favorite.  She miscarried two years ago just a few weeks before her due date, so we are very excited to see her carry to term and are looking forward to finally getting to see kids from her.    Her sire is a full brother to Tide's maternal grand-sire Castle Rock Guy Noir and next year she will be bred to Tide. 

Alex isn't due until the middle of May.  We will retain any daughters from her and then she will be retired as she has developed a type of skin cancer and the pregnancy hormones seem to be expediting the growth of it. 

Cordelia kidded just after midnight on the morning of the 13th with 2 buck kids and a doe kid (back to the camera)   Usually I try to grab pictures of the kids outside in natural light but it has been very cold and windy the past few days and I didn't want to risk their health by taking them out.  So for now this is the best picture I have.  

Today (14th) is day 145 for Violet, tomorrow is day 145 for Vita and Saturday the 18th is day 145 for Blush and Dassy followed by Alex the 14th of May.  So we will get a little bit of break once the four due this week kid.  

We are very excited to see Violet and Kingfisher produce.  I believe her to be  the best doe in my herd at the moment, but that is without having milked any of this years first fresheners this year other than Presley and I am very impressed with her.

We are anticipate having does in milk available this year, possibly doe with kids sets.   And of course most of the doe kids born will be available along with wethers and potentially a future herd sire from Violet.
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Things have gotten a tad bit hectic around here the last 36 hours.  It started off with Moana going into labor about lunch time on Saturday.   

Moana x Cobalt resulted in 2 bucks and a doe kid (pictured in the middle).  It was an easy kidding with zero sign of prolapse and she has LARGE orifices and soft udder texture.  She is being an excellent mom.

Jasmine x Tide produced 2 bucks and 1 doe kid (doe kid is on the right)  around 2:30 a.m. Sunday morning.   This is her second year kidding and she has got this mom thing down pat.

Dusty x Cobalt produced 2 does and 1 buck around 7:30 this morning - just to change things up.   And for a switch the doe kid was the first born.   Dusty is a first freshener and our shortest doe. She wasn't sure quite what was going on  and kept trying t sit like a dog during contractions.  But she seems to have gotten the hang of things. 

Lacey x Kingfisher resulted in 2 bucks and a doe kid.   First born buck is very tiny, especially with the last born brother being so big!    Her kids were still wet and barely standing when I took this picture.   The tiny boy looks black in this picture but he is actually a dark chocolate.  His sister (in the middle) does look like she is black with just two small spots on her back.  Can't tell if they are moonspots or just white spots.    These are our first kids out of Kingfisher!

Hopefully Cordellia and Violet will hold off on kidding long enough for us to get the other pens vacated.  We usually keep babies and moms together for three days before we left them out with the whole herd to be sure the are well bonded. 

​Zippy walked around screaming most of the day yesterday - really gave the roofers quite the tongue lashing at the top of her lungs in the afternoon.   Maybe she was objecting to the noise?

Her ligaments were firm and her udder wasn't shiney, but her behavior was so out of the ordinary we figured she has to be in the first stages of labor and as a first freshener she probably didn't understand what she was filling.

About 9:45pm her first kid was born - the very cute reddish-brown boy.  Next was a doe kid and that was followed by another buck kid that looks a lot like his sister. 

Zippy is being a very good first-time mama and she and the kids are all doing well this morning.

After Levana finally kidding late the night of Day 156 it was a pleasant surprise to have first freshener Presley pop out twins yesterday afternoon on Day 143 with little fuss.

The large buck kid was born first and she did have a little trouble getting his big head out as she wasn't fully dilated yet.   Sister was next, and was half way out before Presley even had to push.  Both kids were very vigorous and up on their feet looking to eat  before they were even completely cleaned off.

I have never had a doe go past day 151 without kidding before.  By day 155 I was really getting worried and called the vet out to induce her.  Thirty hours later almost to the minute of getting the shot of Lutalyse she kidded with three healthy triplets!  First born boy is standing next to her in the picture above, followed by the second born doe kid,  and finally another little boy.

The doe kid, Wags Ranch HT Gal Kahol  (Gal =wave, Kahol = blue) is only the second doe kid Levana has given us.  Like her dam her name is Hebrew and the "wave" is in reference to her sire High Tide.   She will be retained. 

Her two brothers will be available as pet wethers after weaning.

Emmylou Harris did it again!  This is the third time in a row she has given us twin blue-eyed doe kids.  And this time it was a different buck as the father!

She kidded yesterday afternoon just about lunch time.  The doe kid with more white was born first, and the dark haired one was born breech a few minutes later.  Mom and babies are doing great.  

The dark haired one will be called Raven, for no reason other than that was the name that popped into my head the first time I picked her up.  We are still looking for a name for the white one. 

Some years we have a naming theme, but this is not one of those years.  So we are welcome to name suggestions. 

In other news today is day 151 for poor Levana and as of this morning she doesn't look any more ready to kid than she did 5 days ago.

Our 2020 kidding seasons started off with a bang early yesterday morning with first freshener Velvet, who barely looked pregnant, producing quads out of Cobalt.  Fortunately for her she started off with the little guy at the far left.  

Next was the kid laying down at the top who was breech, and then the big buck kid.  We thought she was done at that point because he was a bit of a surprise.  She then had a few contractions that seemed stronger than afterbirth but not quite as strong as kidding.  Bekah at first thought it was placenta - then realized it was moving.  She had to tear the sack of the nose and Velvet's contractions disappeared so Bekah ended up having to aid the kid the rest of the way out.  And the little girl standing up was the result.  She has the most adorable markings on her face.   Not sure yet if they are moon spots or just markings as the lighting is off due to the heat lamp.

Sadly the big boy in the middle, who was doing just fine yesterday, started going down hill overnight and he passed away a little over 24 hrs after birth.  No idea why, but all three kids and mama seem listless today.  Not sure if the 4-5 inches of snow we got overnight have anything to do with it or not.   This is always the hard part of raising any animal, you hate losing them.

First born girl is going to be named Wags Ranch CA Blue Suede and her sister (the one standing) is going to be named Wags Ranch CA Azurite Chiffon.    More than likely both will be available.  Mostly because I can't keep them all and there are 14 more does to kid.  But boy do these two have personality - especially little Chiffon!​

We are expecting a whole lot of blue-eyed kids once again this spring, and there is also a possibility that some will have moonspots.  But more importantly they all have great pedigree's behind them!   We will be hosting Linear Appraisal this year and going on milk test as well since we are signed up for ADGA Plus.

If you see a particular breeding you are interested in obtaining a kid from please let us know and we will notify you when kidding occurs.  We will be retaining at least one daughter from each of the does bred by Kingfisher for sure and a few of Cobalt's daughters as well.   But with 15 does due to kid I am sure there will be something for everyone. 

Thanks to a surprise gallbladder surgery in December I wasn't able to draw all the goats at once as I had planned and have been doing them in batches of 5 or 6 at a time.  

Everyone so far has had negative test results for CAE/CL/Johnes through WADDL. 

Blush was only 29 days bred when she was tested and her score put her right on the bubble although WADDL marked her as pregnant so I am retesting her just to be sure.  And Alex came back into heat and was rebred on the 21st of December so we are waiting until the 26th of January to do that final round of blood draws which will include the littles since they will be 6 months old by then.

The bucks are so hairy right now that we have decided to hold off until May to test them.  We are hoping that they will have shed most of their winter coat by then and we can then shave them, draw blood and get good pictures taken.    They are also slated to be seen for LA which we will be hosting this year.

Here is a quick reference for our breeding/kidding schedule for the coming season:

Cobalt only had one set of kids last year as a Jr. buck, so this year he is our featured buck.  Even on days when he had multiple does he still managed to get the job done.  And this years Jr. buck,  Kingfisher, has managed to settle a couple of does as well, and we are quite excited to see the kids they throw.   

If everything finally works out for us to go on milk test this year, then Tide and quite possibly Midnight will be earn their first milk stars.  Although Midnight is no longer residing with us, I would still like to see him get the recognition he deserves.