Jupiter's Next

The next goat due to kid over here was Metty (aka, Metropolitan Gurl). Her due date was March 20th. After Sunday's episode with Peaches beating her, I became concerned; wondering if the stress would cause Metty to abort her kids. She seemed okay though... And she carries her kids so deep, perhaps they would be fine after all?

They weren't.

Metty aborted triplets yesterday afternoon. Darn that heifer.

All three of the kids were absolutely lovely; two doelings, and one buckling, they turned out to be. They all looked like their dam in coloring: An eye catching black, with burnt orange trim. I was delighted to see that they all had solid colored ears, versus Metty's frosted colored ones. I guess Tamarack is good about throwing those colors! It was such a pity removing their cold, dead forms from the pen though... Metty's hormone's were in overdrive and she couldn't understand why her nudging wouldn't get her kids to get up, or why I gently put the three of them in a bucket and took them away. Sorry Metty. Better luck next year.

This change of events also means I will most likely lose Metty as a 2013 milker. It's possible that I can get her to come into production, but more often than not when a doe aborts, she lacks the hormone that begins lactation, and thus production will be either extremely low, or non-existent. But I'll still try and see what I can do with her. I haven't had any dairy since October, and I'm seriously craving milk these days!!

After dealing with the kids, I had to stop running from the inevitable fact: Peaches needs to be in a different herd. She needs to be with other cows that have horns too. It hurts to make this decision, but I have to keep reminding myself that this is business. It's not personal, it's business. I've lost five goat kids now, due to Peaches. That's a loss of $1,500 to $2,000 right there. Those kids were worth a pretty penny, and now I'm set back a year in my breeding goals. Sigh.

What with Metty having just kidded, that leaves Jupiter up next to watch. She's due at the end of March; the 23rd, or somewhere around there. So far she looks good, and now that Peaches is separated from the goats, I feel a bit more confident that maybe I'll finally have a successful birth around here!! Three time's a charm, right? Well, I lost Mattie and the calf, lost Shilling's kids, and now I've lost Metty's kids. So I've had my run of three things, now it's time for things to start looking up, right? I'm hoping.