March 15, 2016

Remember what I said about appreciating quick easy deliveries with no complications?
Well I was reminded of that again when Della went into labor on March 12. 9 days early.
The strange thing was that she was only on Day 141. The day before, she had barely filled her udder at all and wasn't showing any signs of kidding soon. Which was to be expected since she was still 10 days out. We weren't sure why she was in labor but she came up on the stand to eat that morning and her udder was full and she had amber goo.
I hadn't anticipated kids that soon so nothing was ready. We got a kidding pen cleaned out for her and got all the kidding supplies together and I sat down to wait for kids.
After a while I decided she had been in labor too long with nothing happening. So I went in, and a found a nose, but no feet. I soon realized that the nose didn't feel quite right and upon further examination I discovered that the kid was upside down with BOTH feet back. Great. I finally managed to turn the kid around a bit and get the head out. 
As soon as the head was out I suspected that it was dead. It took me a little to find the legs but once I found them I was able to get the kid into the correct position. By this point poor Della was exhausted and therefore wasn't really up to pushing so I had to pull the kid out myself. It took longer than normal to get the kid out since Della wasn't pushing much, but I eventually got it out and confirmed that it was dead. It looked to have been dead at least since yesterday or maybe last night. It was a gorgeous Cou Blanc doe kid. Taxman's first baby.

Della had been enormous before kidding, I had thought she must have at least big twins in there but I checked her again and found NO MORE KIDS. I was shocked. How in the world did she only have ONE baby in there?

I was very disappointed that I didn't get a live kid out of this breeding, but at least Della's doing fine. She had a very rough birth and it took her 14 hours and a few doses of Oxytocin before she finally passed the placenta but she's doing OK (other than being quite swollen)
Hopefully she can go back out with the herd soon.

Well, Della was Doe #8 which means that all of the Senior Does have kidded and it's time to start on the FFs. I have 6  due in the nest 2.5 months.
On Friday I clipped the ones closest to kidding and took pictures of their adorable little udders:D

Empress is due April 6(22 days)



Tokyo  is due April 10(26 days)



Empress is bred to Adonis, and Tokyo to Google. I plan to retain doe kids out of both of them.

Both are Oreo's daughters, and Tokyo will be my first Adonis daughter to freshen so I'm super excited to how they milk and what their udders look like!

Praying for doelings and easy kiddings with no complications.
I've had 5 kids born DOA this year and I'm ready for some easier births.