All our goats are special to us, but Wicca holds the distinction of being Colorado’s first Mini finished champion, and even earned her milk stars as a first-freshener (with a singleton doeling). Her 2021 daughter already has her junior Championship leg. We repeated that breeding to Atlas and were anxiously waiting to see the results. Ultrasound predicted another singleton, but Wicca was just looking bigger than that to me.
On the morning of her 148th day, she appeared to be moving a little slower and definitely had that pregnancy waddle. Her posture had not changed much, but she has a very level top-line to begin with. Her ligaments were mushy and her udder was marginally more full. I had a super-busy day planned at the farm, so I made a note to check frequently on her. After milking, I grabbed some breakfast, then spent a couple hours cleaning my milking room and barn. I had completed a 1-day milk test the evening before, so I got my documents scanned and ran my samples to the UPS store. When I checked again, Wicca had distanced herself from the herd, but had not made many changes. The day was shaping up to be a nice one in the 60s, so I wasn’t overly worried about her kidding outdoors; I also wanted her to be able to move about freely for as long as possible. My vet was scheduled to come and disbud some other kids at noon, but was running late. I started a pot roast and took some pics of the herd. At 12:30, the vet arrived, and by 1:30, all 4 patients were disbudded, awake and nursing.
By this time, Wicca had taken herself to the polydome, and although I hadn’t seen any discharge yet, I knew she was probably getting closer to delivery. I went and prepared our kidding stall with clean bedding, fresh water and food. I put out towels and absorbent pads. I went in to grab some lunch and checked on her again about 30 minutes later. When I found her in the polydome, she had baby boy on the ground! Since the polydome isn’t the cleanest or most functional environment, I took her to our indoor kidding stall and got the kid dried off and weighed. He was 5lbs, 4oz. At this point, I was pretty suspicious that there was a twin, since a single buckling of hers should have been much bigger. I checked her, and sure enough, there was another baby. Within minutes, Wicca delivered a 5lb, 10oz doeling! Both kids are light brown bezoar with frosted nose and ears. I believe they both have moonspots.
Yayyy! I’m so happy she gave a girl and a boy!