Many of you remember Scotchie as our exceedingly friendly bottle baby of 2019. We don’t have many pictures of her because she is always in your face. She would often try to hop into visitors’ cars and was a talented escape artist. We were excited to see what she would produce, and what kind of mama she would be. We bred her last fall to Green Gables SOF Atlas*B and she had ultrasounded for a single kid. She looked pretty big for a single, so I was preparing for another big boy. I had been carefully watching her through our terrible 3-day cold snap. The entire nation was under freezing temperatures, and our place got down to -14. I was worried about the stress on the pregnant does, as well as the welfare of the 10 kids already born. Thankfully, we made it through with no casualties. Monday dawned with temps finally above zero, with a high in the 20’s. It felt like a heat wave! Scotchie’s udder was noticeably more full and her ligaments were gone. I placed her in the kidding area and went about my morning chores. When I checked on her a little later, she had dumped her feed bowl and ripped her water bucket out of its holder on the wall. I suspect she had tried to launch herself out of the pen this way. I called my daughter, Bella, out to keep Scotchie company (Scotchie is actually her goat). By noon, Scotchie was noticeably more uncomfortable and was up and down a lot. I decided to check kid placement before she started pushing in earnest. There were two little feet and a nose! With a few pushes from Scotchie and pulls from me, we had a kid on the ground! It was a little gold and white doeling. You could have knocked me down with a feather when an even tinier gold and white doeling delivered a few minutes later. Does are rare on our farm, and twin does have only happened 3 times for us. The second doe only weighed 3lbs 6oz, and had a difficult time keeping her temperature up, so she got to spend a couple hours in our laundry basket incubator. Scotchie seemed stunned by the whole ordeal. Typically confident to the point of cockiness, she was poleaxed by the arrival of kids. She alternately stared at the and licked them, but really seemed genuinely confused. However, we were able to get the kids dry and nursing, and her instincts took over. It will be fun watching this little family! Bella has decided to retain one of the does and sell the other, although we haven’t decided which one yet.
