New Kids On The Block

or things have a way of working themselves out.

I was just telling the better half I was concerned about how much milk we were not going to have this year. Sarah Beth being retired and drying off, Isabella developing udder issues due to an udder injury last year after kidding- with only half her udder producing (just enough for her babies) and Barb... well as I expected Barb is not pregnant, just purely fat. This means we have little milk for dairy products.

Just so happens a goat friend from a neighboring town calls me on the morning of the 4th. She was frantic. Said one of her goats had just unexpectedly kidded 10 days early. The doe had triplets and seemingly was not producing any milk for the babies. Would I come get the babies to bottle raise. Happy to lend a helping hand, over we drove to help out and pick the babies up.

When we arrived at her farm I immediately recognized the goat as Violet. She was a doe our registered Nubian buck had sired. Violet’s mom was one of my friend’s Boer doe. That would make Violet a Nubian Boer cross.

The photo above is of Keifer our ADGA registered Nubian buck, Violet's dad. He was sold to a dairy goat farm when we downsized our herds.

At the time Violet was kidding, my friend checked Violet's udder for colostrum. Violet gave her nothing. Due to working away from the farm my friend was overwhelmed with just the thought of having to bottle feed triplets and worried about Violet not producing much if anything at all. She said take them all (Violet and babies) home!

Things were not as bad as they seemed. Violet is a first freshner with what looked like a small udder in the beginning. She just needed a bit of time to bring her milk down and a bit of TLC. Also starting her on a different feed routine and changing her over to Alfalfa hay helped.

I also left the largest two of the triplets on her. Mainly so Violet wouldn’t stress in her new surroundings. I was concerned about her being moved so quickly after kidding, her afterbirth was still in tact when we loaded her up.

Violet and babies are doing great. The smallest triplet is in the house being bottle-fed.

Meet Violet and her triplets, Brownie, Banner and Wisteria. Dear Son named and claimed the bottle baby, Brownie. The Better Half named the little buck Banner, as in Star Spangled. I named Wisteria in keeping with the purple color.

Violet

Brownie the bottle baby, smallest, first born doeling.

Violet checking Wisteria, 3rd born, doeling. Banner, second born, little buck is in front of Wisteria (he is so little he was able to crawl thru the cattle panel).
Banner carries his grandfathers coloring and some of his markings.

Violet nursing Wisteria.

Check out the udder now :-)