They have arrived!

[dosthouhavemilk]

The first kids of the season have arrived here at Morning Mist Herd. True to form, I had been graining Giselle around 7PM and she kidded around 6:30PM. I missed it. I'm house/pet sitting for two homes and had to go play with dogs right after work.

Here they are;

Gee....ya think the BoerX buck was the daddy?

Trying to show her udder. It was even and she is gonna milk down to nothing! I cannot wait to get her on the stand. Except she hates having her udder and belly touched. I'll just have to cure her of that. The spur teats aren't a problem and she milks so nicely (I strip all new mothers to make sure the plugs are gone and check the milk).

Second born. A buck. Don't ya just love the spot on the nose? And my goodness, does he have a set of vocals on him...sheesh. He has spur teats.

The first born...a doeling. She has erect ears though it doesn't show here. She is clean two teated.

Well...there they are. Oh, Sweetie (Alpine) was bred today...yup, I'll still be kidding five months from now and on......

[Obe-Willow]

Aren't they cute

[DocM]

I like to wait until the threat of snow is over, so usually my kidding doesn't start until late March, bucks had other ideas back in July and escaped, and wouldn't you know, the two does that were chained out must have been in heat that night... now I have to wait until the kids are born (~Dec 6) to match up kids with daddies.

[dosthouhavemilk]

I didn't want any kids here before January 5th at the earliest.
We purchased this doe back in June and she had been exposed to a BoerX buck for two weeks.

Unfortunately, our first four homebreedings are due Dec. 22nd and Dec. 23rd, with the possibility of a Boer doe going sooner.
We find that our Jan/Feb kids thrive so much better than those born later. We have a set up where we don't lose them which is nice.
That also tends to be when we run into high count issues with the cow herd due to them being in the barn in the winter so we have something to do with all that wonderful milk! Feed kids!

[vtfarma]

They are so cute. I know "the watched pot never boils" thing right! I watched ours for weeks and then she had them bright and early in the am before I got out there to feed them. Aw well, they do it so well without us, ya' know.

Congratulations on the babies. Looks like momma has this down.

[susanne]

roeseanna they are so cute. congratulations to the new kids

[pookshollow]

Awww, nothing cuter than new-born kids. I'm still waiting for one of my Nigerians to kid - she's as big as a house, has been for weeks. I figure she'll either kid or explode one of these days! Last time, she kidded early morning before I got out to the barn, so I missed that one.

I'm just getting into the swing of breeding - four down, two to go. Of the last two, one is my big Saanen, and I don't want to breed her for a couple of months, so we don't run out of milk before the other two kid. The other one is a Nigerian doeling and she's not quite old enough yet.