just kidding....

A baby goat is called a kid and in goats the act of giving birth is called kidding.  Yesterday that happened at the farm.  We have a small group of goats, three females and a male.  It is a bit smaller than the group we had when Cait was in 4H and showing goats but even then our group was only eight or nine at its largest.  .  They are not shown anymore--just hanging out at the farm keeping me company.   So, yesterday one of the females delivered her triplets.  The first one born was pretty tiny.  He is much smaller than his brother and sister who were born a little later.  He is not as strong so for now he is in the house and is being bottle fed colostrum  and later he will get milk replacer.  I will try to post more later but I wanted to get out a little birth announcement and a couple of pictures.  So even though it is April Fools Day, I am not kidding about the birth of the goat kids. 

babies with their mom in the barn

The bottle baby in the house

Often farm animals pick the very worst time to deliver their offspring--middle of the night, during a blizzard, you get the picture.  These were born starting about noon on a sunny 65 degree day.  My kids (the people kind) will be home on the weekend so the goat kids will get lots of attention--and maybe some names.   

Update April 2, 2015

I am sad to report that after such a optimistic start our bottle kid rapidly lost ground and died early this morning.  He was such sweet boy.