2026 Kidding Season Whirlwind!

Ah, kidding season. Simultaneously precious and beautiful and miraculous and also stressful and nervous system (and sleep) disrupting.

With how much we’ve learned about taking care of goats in the last nine years and all the cull selections we’ve made to prioritize goats that thrive in our system, are great mothers with proper milk production and are fertile, we seem to now have a very, very fertile herd.

If we don’t pull the bucks they will easily kid twice a year which is doable, but can be hard on them and means one of the two kidding seasons is in months that are too warm. It might sound counter intuitive, but it is better for kids to be born in cool weather for a variety of reasons. They’re born with fur coats and moms and kids instinctively eat more to stay warm and fire up their internal furnace.

Fly and insect populations are down in cooler months and it is easier for the goats to stay warm than it is for them to cool off. All they can really do in the heat is pant and find shade and both appetite of the kids and milk production suffer in the heat.

So we do aim to pick a kidding window in the fall or winter, put the bucks with the does five months prior to that and pull them after breeding to limit when does kid and make sure they don’t get bred again right after giving birth.

But that doesn’t always happen! In 2024, the bucks broke out of their area and walked nearly a half mile to the herd, broke through that fence and bred 17 does in a matter of days! (After discovering this the day they broke out, we did opt to keep them in there for November kidding rather than pull them and have just a few does be outliers to the main season).

This year, we did pull off keeping the bucks separate (we do much more intense buck fencing now!) and we had a compact kidding season exactly when we scheduled it. There were some hiccups, as there always are, but overall I can say it went pretty smoothly and we had more triplets (and quads) than ever before.

Every year I know more than I did the previous year and can intervene if needed. I think it’s part of why I like the goats so much, because I am able to make interventions in the moment on my own. With 500-600 pound laboring hormonal pigs, by contrast, I can’t do that as safely or as effectively.

What follows are some of the highlights/most dramatic stories of the season, plus a general round up of all the kids born.

Prolific Penny’s Quads - A First at the Farm!

One my best does, Penny, kicked off kidding season the Sunday of Mardi Gras weekend with our farm’s first ever set of quadruplets!

Penny is mostly Kiko with some Boer and Myotonic in her, too, and for Kikos and Myotonics, the instances of quadruplets is just 2% of births. Quadruplets are more common in Nigerian Dwarf and Pygmy goats and sometimes even Nubians. They are also a bit more common in Boer goats, so channeling that part of her genetics is maybe where she got it from!

The funny thing was that Penny is such a long and thin-framed goat and she had some discharge about a month before kidding that looked more like a period, so it crossed my mind that she wasn’t even bred. And she’s had so many kids in her five years here (11 kids previous to these four!), that I thought to myself, whatever, if her body needs a break this season, oh well.

Joke was on me because she not only had one kid in there, but four!

She also carries low so she never looks like she has a basketball suspended on her right side when she’s pregnant like many of our other does do. I was similarly shocked when she had triplets on her second kidding in 2023 because of how low she carries.

At the early morning feeding that Sunday, I did see her with some fluid and go off by herself, so I was in no way surprised to see kids when I got back to check on them again late morning. I just was not expecting even three, not to mention four.

I saw her with three kids around her initially and then a fourth 10 or so feet away, the black and white doeling that may have been born first, depending on how much Penny was walking around to labor.

At first, I was like, someone else must have kidded in here and walked away??

But no one else showed any signs of kidding, birth fluid, placenta coming out or ANYTHING and Penny was judiciously licking them all off.

She chugged the molasses water I gave her as a boost, along with hay, some fresh grasses and alfalfa pellets. She definitely seemed extremely hungry, so in order to keep giving her feed and hay without the others swarming around her, I eventually closed her off in the hoophouse to have her own private suite. It wasn’t forecasted to rain, so I knew the herd would mostly be staying out of the hoop anyway.

I hovered quite a bit that afternoon and evening to try to make sure everyone was getting their chance to nurse. The one doeling was the first to the udder and had the most fight in her and there was one of the three bucklings that was way bigger than the others. The buckling with the white body and brown head seemed to be having the most trouble, but Penny is so patient that I hoped he’d figure it out.

He didn’t though. Monday morning I went to check on them early and Penny had three of them tucked into a cozy pile next to her with the white and brown one nowhere to be found. I truly thought maybe a coyote or something grabbed him through the cattle panel or something. A few minutes later, I found him sleeping about 30 feet away, outside the hoophouse by himself.

I brought him back to Penny, but he was hunching and seemed cold and therefore had no nursing instinct. I tried to help him get the nipple in his mouth, but without the desire to suckle (which they lose when their temp drops), it was somewhat futile.

Fortunately, one of my favorite goat friends, Irene at Say Goat Cheese dairy, was kidding at the same time, so I brought him over to her makeshift goat NICU that morning. She got him warmed up and fed him fresh colostrum from one of her does. He made a full recovery and then was later sold as a bottle kid to another family.

I monitored to make sure the other three got plenty of colostrum from Penny, then started supplementing them with bottles. The biggest buckling never had any interest in bottles, but the black and white doeling and the black and white buckling figured out the bottles immediately. I could have kept supplementing, but with so many more goats about to be born and lots of demands on my time, I put the feelers out to sell one more, so Penny would be left with two kids for her two teats!

A friend who has gotten other bottle kids from me in past years, including premies that she doctored back to health ended up getting the black and white doeling on Friday evening that week. I am so happy she’s with someone I keep in touch with and getting all the milk she needs! She has a nice herd of goats to live with when she’s grown up, too.

The last picture in the collage is Penny, with her mom, Pepper when she was born in December 2020.

Hero Annie & Her Adopted “Triplet”

To keep things dramatic, the next goat to kid the day after Penny was a yearling from Shiloh. (A few years ago, I stopped giving doelings we planned to keep names until after they successfully kidded and mothered their kids because if they don’t work out in our operation and we sell or cull them, then I won’t waste a good name!).

Shiloh’s yearling showed some red flags starting with her labor. She didn’t go off by herself and then even just snuggled up to her mother to push, next to the hay bale and all the other goats.

The kid presented normally, but was pretty big for a yearling! I did end up helping to pull it. Maybe I shouldn’t have and maybe that traumatized her more, I’ll never know for sure. I have pulled many a kid from yearlings without them abandoning their kids, so I chalk it more up to instincts and hormones not properly kicking in for Shiloh’s doe.

After it was out, she ran away and showed zero interest in cleaning it off. I kept bringing it to her and she’d walk away again.

I got Grant out there and we jugged them together for bonding. That’s the term used for putting them in a stall or other small private space. It worked for Grace last year when she only wanted one of her twins at first and Jazzy when her kid got stuck under a feed trough and must have smelled different and she wouldn’t let it nurse until we moved them into a stall together.

This did not show signs of working out, though. Shiloh’s doe was freaking out and stressed and kept bucking and flinging the kid around when she tried to nurse.

Before we jugged them together, I noticed Annie in labor and she even came up to Shiloh’s kid and smelled her and licked her a little.

So in the midst of the chaos with Shiloh’s doe freaking out, I had an idea to give the doeling to Annie.

By this point she had one of her own doelings out and when I stuck the orphan under her, she started licking it, too, and let it nurse. Amazing! Goats mostly operate off of smell in identifying kids, but I’m sure things get confusing sometimes.

A few minutes later she did have a second doeling, so I knew keeping all three with her wasn’t likely going to be a long term solution, even if she continued to accept all of them. But getting Shiloh’s doe’s gorgeous little doeling real colostrum from another goat was her best bet at survival and thriving long term.

And that’s what happened, Annie was a real hero here!

I did offer a colostrum supplement and then milk in a bottle to all three of the doelings just to make sure they were getting enough.

And by Thursday morning, I was noticing that Annie was being less protective of her adopted doeling and even gently butting her away a few times. By Thursday evening, the jig seemed fully up. It makes sense, since so many more kids were born on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, that if Annie had all kinds of newborns coming up to her and trying to nurse, she was being even more discerning with scent and after the wave of oxytocin from labor and birth had worn off, she could distinguish the smell of her two actual kids from her adopted kid.

On Thursday evening, I had to scramble to take a buckling born that afternoon that I could not for the life of my figure out who he belonged to to my friend Irene, so I took the orphan doeling along, too, and they both spent a little time in the kid nursery and now are at new homes as bottle kids.

Since I dug up the first photo I have of Penny, I also included a selfie I took with Annie the day she was born in May 2022. She was such a cute kid and who knew what an amazing doe she’d become!

More Triplets + A Dramatic Birth & Adoption for Uma

My darling Uma and I had quite a high stakes moment together this year.

She went into labor on Friday morning of kidding week (after 50 other kids had already been born). It had already been a hectic morning following up on making sure all the kids born Thursday when I was off the farm were still matched up with their mothers and nursing.

But I noticed her pushing when I was getting ready to leave the farm and I figured I might as well stay to make sure it all went smoothly.

She already had one of Chloe’s bucklings hanging around her and stealing colostrum during labor and even using her for shade when she sat down (and Betty’s kid was, too, you can see them both in one photo).

It all was such a blur that I can’t even remember now if I ended up pulling the first kid. If I did, I do remember that it was presenting properly and it was a gorgeous chocolatey brown doeling. And then the second kid must have had just one foot out but no signs of the other foot or face, so I reached in.

It happened very fast, but of course felt like an eternity at the time. She was super dilated and not swollen, so that was a positive. Old me early in my goat shepherding days was very anti-intervention if I could avoid it, but there are some things with birth and kidding that I learned the hard way by not intervening in time, so I don’t risk it anymore.

I could feel that the kid’s head was turned sideways and his other leg was back. The method is to get two fingers behind a kid’s ears and gently pull, working with contractions. It worked and was over much more quickly that it felt like, but certainly a little traumatic for both of us! I was convinced that I was killing the kid in order to get him out, but he was fine. And fairly big, too!

And it was definitely painful for Uma. But I saved her life as a kid and she is bonded to me and I know she trusted me during that ordeal.

Two years ago, Uma had two big bucklings. I watched from a little ways away and didn’t need to help because they were presenting perfectly fine, but the pain I think caught even her off guard a little and she just stood there staring at them and yawning (which is a pain response in goats) and not licking them off for a few minutes. Panic was mounting for me that she wasn’t going to take care of them, but she snapped out of it on her own after a few minutes.

The time, she laid down and I put both kids in front of her and she did the same thing. Yawning and staring, but no licking. At least this time, I knew she’d come around, she just needed a minute!

While we were sitting there and I’m catching my breath and aiming to return my nervous system to some semblance of normal, a white and tan wavy haired little doe popped out breach. They can be born breach safely, but it is really nice to be there for it to clear their airway, because they risk breathing in more birth fluid when being born backwards than forwards.

So I wiped her face and added her to the pile and waited for Uma to get her wits about her.

Grant came over and insisted I get her standing and then she snapped to it.

We did end up giving her antibiotics and a steroid that evening. My hand was fairly far into her cervix to get the kid out, so I just didn’t want to risk her going septic on me. The steroid just helped her feel like superwoman a bit post kidding, which I think any mom of triplets could especially benefit from.

By that evening, it was clear even though everyone was cleaned off, the white and tan doeling wasn’t nursing on her own very well. She had a bit of an underbite, plus Chloe’s brown buckling had definitely taken a bunch of Uma’s colostrum, as had Daphne’s doeling and maybe others! Uma’s natural hormones must have been pumping because she was letting almost any kid nurse and this was before we even gave her the steroid.

After getting home, meeting up with my friend who took Penny’s doeling and Daphne’s rejected doeling and evaluating the situation, I went back out to the herd with a jar to milk Uma and a bottle to transfer it to to make sure the white and tan doeling got colostrum.

But man, Uma had let so many kids nurse that she hardly had anything for me to milk! There is a delay between colostrum production and actual milk coming in, so this wasn’t super surprising, but stressful for the little doeling.

Whitney and Pepperoni also kidded that morning right before Uma. Whitney is extremely friendly and always demands pets, chews on my hair and clothing, etc. But she was NOT helpful and writhed and threw a fit when I tried to milk some of her colostrum.

Enter Pepperoni. She is the younger sister of Penny and for some reason, momma Pepper did not have the milk production that season that she often did and I supplemented Pepperoni starting at a week or so old. So she was raised by her mom but also got bottles and for awhile she was kind of the worst of both worlds in her comfort with humans, busting out of the fence all the time and generally being a bit annoying.

But she has been an incredible mother herself and most importantly in this case, stood there for me in the dark like angel while I held her horn in one hand and milked one teat at a time in to a jar with the other. I got a solid 4 ounces, which Uma’s doeling chugged down like a champ and went to bed relieved!

The next morning, I fed the white and tan doeling colostrum supplement bottles all day and was surprised to see that Uma still seemed to think that Chloe’s brown buckling belonged to her, as well. She was taking care of all three of her actual kids, plus him. And not just absent-mindedly letting him nurse, but seeking him out when he was napping and waking him up to nurse.

I have no idea what happened, but he has not gone back to his actual mother even though he only has a twin!

By Monday evening, I was confident that the white and tan doeling had gotten plenty of colostrum and was trained to a bottle and brought her to Irene’s, along with one of Clementine’s triplets and Corinne’s buckling. Her name is now Mushroom and she lives with a family with 5 and 9-year-old girls, along with her cousin, Clementine’s triplet, who is now named Ellis.

And Uma is still taking care of her two remaining triplets and her adoptee, bless her heart. I’ve tried offering bottles, but so far they all seem to be getting enough.

The last pictures are throwbacks from Uma as a kid, too.

She has kind of a tragic story, you can read more on the blog about her kidding last year here. But basically she lost her mom and her twin as a kid.

The other night I took that picture of her with her two kids, her adopted kid and two of her four grandkids from this season cuddled around her. She also has three grown granddaughters and three great granddaughters and one other newborn great grandkid in the herd. It makes my heart explode a little to see her surrounded by her goat posse after her tragic start in life!

Besides those dramatic stories, we had lots of normal births, mainly twins for our older goats and singles for our yearlings and second-timers.

Uma’s older sister Clementine also had triplet does as mentioned above. They did great, but a couple days in the littlest one started taking bottles and was getting beat out at the udder by her bigger sisters, so I knew she’d do better as a bottle kid.

Nutmeg’s yearling showed some confusion with her kid like Shiloh’s, but I give her more grace since many kids were born overnight and the early morning hours when she kidded. We jugged her and her kid for three days and they’re doing great. Bond established and kid growing and thriving, just like you want to see!

Daphne’s yearling was the third yearling to kid and she was the polar opposite of Shiloh, given that she wouldn’t even leave her kid to eat that first morning and she is in the running for helicopter mom of the year for the way she freaks out and looks for her kid even if her kid is peacefully napping and doesn’t need to nurse. It’s precious to see.

My dear Pippa (the only triplet from Penny we kept from 2023) both impressed and disappointed me a little with her kids. She’s had two single black and white bucks in a row, so I was happy she had twin does this year! She took great care of them initially when they were born.

But I got home that evening (after a bunch more kids were born) and she only had one with her. I thought Grace had two does, but I realized the next morning that one of those two was actually Pippa’s. Unfortunately, Grace’s actual doeling died about 36 hours after birth.

She either had something inherently wrong with her or because she wandered from mom overnight, she didn’t nurse enough and couldn’t bounce back. Irene and I threw the book at her, but she didn’t make it.

So in a way, it worked out that Pippa’s doe had migrated to Grace and Pippa wouldn’t take her back. Grace is mothering her like her own and it’s both sweet and heartbreaking to see. Both doelings will probably grow faster and stronger with all the milk from one mom to themselves.

And despite it not being ideal, I’m giving Pippa a pass. Both of her first kiddings were in smaller groups, where just a few other does kidded around the same time as her. Likely if we had jugged her with both her twins, she would have realized and come around. But in this case, giving one to Grace seems to work out anyway.

I was glad to be there for Nutmeg’s birth, too. She is a pro and even had triplets last fall, but as she was laboring, she started making the craziest guttural noises I’ve ever heard out of a laboring goat. Then she kind of ran the first kid out, a doeling that looks just like one of her kids born in May.

Then she starts up with the guttural noises and takes off running again, but this time it’s enormous back legs sticking out. If I remember correctly, she did get him out herself through the motion of bonafide RUNNING. Or maybe it’s possible I caught up to her and helped pull, I don’t totally remember.

All I know is that he was huge and not moving initially and probably took in quite a bit or birth fluid. I actually had to swing him around upside down a little to get him going and as I was suctioning his mouth and nose off, Nutmeg got in there and licked the mouth and nose, too.

Good instincts, Nutmeg! As smart as they are, one of my pet peeves is when they don’t lick the mouth and nose first. Kids are often fine without it, but if I’m there, I am definitely making sure their airway is clear. Both kids are fine now, but I feel for Nutmeg on how big especially the buckling was at birth! She let it be known how painful it was.

Shiloh herself had another set of buckling and doeling twins that are gorgeous, the tri-colored buck especially. Pepperoni had two hefty bucks and I’m still so glad that despite how much they nursed that first day, she had some colostrum to spare for Uma’s doeling.

The Saturday started a litany of bucklings born to Heidi’s line. She is our only dairy breed, a Saanen-Oberhasli cross. Her 2022 daughter Margot had two bucks on Saturday morning and then Heidi had her own two bucks in the same spot a few hours later.

The next day, Heidi’s 2023 doe, Lena, had a gorgeous single black and white buckling in the hoophouse, followed a few hours later by Heidi’s 2024 doe, Ingrid, having twin tan and white bucks in the same spot.

Then Heidi’s 2022 granddaughter, Corinne, daughter of Greta and twin of Grace, had a single buckling. At about the same time right nearby, Lena’s yearling doe had a gorgeous doeling and she didn’t need any help bonding with it either!

We had no kids born that Monday or Tuesday and then wrapped up with Paris (a second-timer born to Penny in 2024) having a beautiful doeling and Summer (Uma’s granddaughter, also a second timer) having a cute buckling on Wednesday.

Technically, there’s seven does left that could kid before March 28th. Of those, four are second timers and three are yearlings. Jazzy, Nova and Lena’s other 2024 yearling doe look bred but not particularly close to kidding and Pixie, Daisy and the other two yearlings don’t look bred at all.

Time will tell when these last kids arrive, but the chaos of so many kids being born at once is definitely over.

We had 61 born and with a few losses and selling a bunch, we have an even 50 left at the farm currently.

It is always lovely to see the kids transition from their sleepy newborn phase to doing wind sprints all over the place and jumping on all the logs and hay bales they can find.

I’ve got lots more pictures of the less sleepy phase to share in the next farm blog!