I went back to check on her at 2:30am and found her back in that outdoor corner on the south side of the barn... It was really cold and windy, and under her were two little babies, still covered in the sacks they came out in. She was licking them, so I ran to the milk parlor to get the laundry basket and towels and a handful of sweet feed. I brought the whole new family through the pen to the milk parlor where I milked her out, fed her some sweet feed and started trying to get the colostrum into the babies. They were incredibly lethargic and cold, and had no interest in the bottle. I laid a towel down on the cold floor and the mama and I sat there for over an hour - I had them in my lap and she was licking one while I was rubbing the other... The little doe starting trying to stand, and eventually did...and she took a bit of colostrum... But the little buck was basically just limp in my lap. The mama kept licking and licking and licking, but he was hardly responding, barely opening his eyes.. Really scary, and I ached for her. :( So I brought the mama back to the barn with a bit more sweet feed, scooped up the babies and brought them into the hut in the laundry basket lined with towels. I got a bucket of hot water to serve as a hot water bath for the half bottle of colostrum to stay warm, put them in my lap and kept rubbing them down... Honey, what I've named the doe-ling, started taking a bit of colostrum soon after warming up, but the little boy was still limp (he's the brown and white one below...).
I just kept massaging him, and every 20 minutes or so trying out some colostrum again... I decided to call him Attila, so he could draw on the strength of his name, and because it's my nickname for a friend in DC with whom I once had a conversation about how Attila was probably just really a very sweet person, which is why he was called "the Hun". :) As in "honey", hence the name of his sister. :) I stayed up with them until almost 5am when I set them into the basket with the buck wedged between the bucket of hot water and his more lively sister. I slept for about a half hour...tried to feed them again and then left them to go do morning chores and feed the rest of the babies in the barn.
When I got back at about 7:30, Honey had gotten out of the basket (a first for a newborn of the past few days, usually it keeps them pretty well captured...) and Attila was a bit perkier. I rubbed him down a bit more, force fed him some colostrum, let him nap a bit, then helped him off my lap where he started actually making some effort to stand up. :)
By about 10:30 they were both doing a lot better:
I went back out to help feed and see how the rest of the babies were doing, and as we were there, around 10:30ish a mama named Squirt went into labor in the corner. She birthed two, seemingly effortlessly, and while we were watching her, another mama barely ten feet away birthed three one right after the other - two beeeeeauuuuutiful little light fawn colored does and a tiny black buck! She was absolutely silent about it! We went to help her rub them down, and the next thing we knew, Squirt had given a third one, another little black buck to go with her two brown, white capped does (Fawn & I haven't decided on the other one...hmmm)! We were cleaning them up, when a third doe went into labor over in another corner...She was grunting a lot, raising her ears, obviously struggling. About 20 minutes had gone by since the birth of Squirts two little does, and they kept wandering over to touch noses with the laboring mother. They'd wander around her side sniffing her, and we had to keep redirecting them so as not to distract the mama in distress. They started wandering off in other directions - crossing the entire barn and approaching every doe they encountered with a nose-to-nose hello. I've decided to call them Louise & Clara - like Lewis & Clark, but ladies. :)
At this point, one hoof was showing, and Lynn was here (thank God)... When the doe contracted again, Lynn slid her finger around the outside of the opening, got ahold of the other hoof, and when she contracted again, gave a gentle pull. The head appeared, and she helped pull a bit more with the next contraction... The mama was making some pretty serious bellows, but it was over quickly, and the next two came in quick succession. All three were massive - two light brown bucks and a black doe. They are the biggest ones of all the babies and are the youngest! Crazy! I'm calling them Thor, Hercules, & Athena.
We'll see if we get any more tonight. So we went from 5 yesterday to 17 total today. Oofta. Feeding them takes just over an hour now, though as they get older I'll be able to do two at a time, and then soon onto buckets with little nipples around the bottom... For now, I love feeding them...I set the little ones on my lap on a towel and lean against them so they bump their head just by my collar bone, brace their muzzle against the bottle and share little grunting conversations with them as they suckle. I'm going to miss them... Less than four weeks left.
Mom, can I please please pleeeeeeeeeease bring one home with me? <3
Squirt! Louise & Clara & the little black buck's mama.
Fawn's brother...like a pretty calico goat. :)
I hope it's a quiet nice... it would be nice if we stuck with three 10:30/11:00am births per day from now... : p
I'm feeling a lot better about knowing when to intervene and how to do it least intrusively...and I'm learning some interesting tricks about feeding newborns who aren't all that pumped about the bottle - draping a cloth over their head so they're just feeling for a nipple instead of looking at a red plastic one (I'd be pretty put off by that, too)...They also really like to try to stand up while they're feeding, so sitting on the crate and setting them between my legs so I can steady them with my calves, and when they try to back away the crate keeps them within nipple-distance. :) The new ones also seem quicker to take it when I lean over them so their head is up by my collar bone and they bump against it while they're feeding... Kind of fun...I really like trying to ease their frustration with this and make it more natural for them - and less of a multiple-times-per-day force feeding... :(
I'll keep you updated. :)
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