The Miracle of Birth

       

The Miracle of Birth!

On Wednesday evening, I knew Charlotte was getting close to kidding.  As I mentioned before, she had "lost" all of her ligaments near her tail.  From what I had read, this is a pretty sure sign of kidding within 24 hours (now I know from experience that is a very good sign that kidding is near!).  So, I woke up every two hours during the night to check on her.  But no signs of labor despite my lack of sleep!  When I woke up in the morning, Charlotte's udder had dramatically increased in size and was filled with milk!

The timing of Charlotte's kidding was an answer to prayer!  I worked all day Wednesday and again Thursday afternoon.  Guess when Charlotte decided to push her baby out?  Thursday morning when I was home!  Wonderful!  The timing was also good in another way.  It can get dangerous for goats to go more than about 5 days past their due date as the kids can get too big.  It was great that Charlotte naturally gave birth three days past her due date before I had to make a decision about inducing her.

Charlotte didn't lose her appetite and she didn't have any discharge either (both of these can be signs of kidding, but I guess not for my goat).  However, we continued to check on her throughout Thursday morning.  Around 10:45am one of my siblings came in the house and "nonchalantly" told me that Charlotte was pushing really hard!  Really?!?!  I went outside and saw her pushing about every minute.  I went inside for about 10 minutes, and it was a good thing I came back out when I did!

Charlotte Pushing...

I arrived back in the goat pen at 10:55am.  It was then that I saw the "bubble" emerging from Charlotte's back side.  I also saw some tiny white hooves.  Hurray--the kid was positioned correctly!  Baby goats "dive" out of the womb with their front legs and head coming out first followed by the rest of their body.

 If you look closely, you can see that Charlotte is "yelling."  She was quite vocal during the process.

It only took a few minutes before the head was out.  Baby goats are born with their tongues out.  I was shocked to see that the kid was black (one of the rarer colors for goats)!  I had wanted a black kid!

At 11:00am the kid was here!  The total process took 15 minutes!  I was in awe of the miracle! The amazing Creator took 5 months to form a perfect little kid inside my goat and now it was here!  

Charlotte immediately began licking the kid all over.

Charlotte stood up about 30 minutes after the birth.  I was expecting Charlotte to have more than one kid, but no more came and I began to suspect that she was finished.  The little buck was quite mature, so it seemed likely that he was a single (Charlotte had twins last year, so we were almost certain she would have twins or triplets this year.  Goats like to surprise their owners!).

Within about an hour, the little goat stood up.  About 30 minutes after that, he hungrily nursed for the first time.

I feel so blessed to have watched Charlotte give birth!  It was an amazing experience!