This past Friday, Frannie was acting a little funny and her udder seemed a LOT bigger than it had been in the past couple weeks, so I'm thinking today could be the day! Of course I have plans I can't cancel. All day I'm quietly freaking out in my head, hoping Frannie will just wait until I get home. And she does.
Saturday she tucked herself in the corner of the barn and spent the whole day there. I would peak in and check on her from every hour or so, hoping this wouldn't last through the night. At 3:30 pm she was just quietly sitting there, by 4:45 she had already had one kid and the other was on it's way out. Both Keith and I had been outside almost that whole time and I swear she didn't make a peep! And thankfully no babies born in the pasture this time!
Frannie had two girls! A clone and a little white and black one. I talked to my friend Kate who I got both Frannie and Snowy from and she said that Frannie comes from a long line of clones, so I guess we can expect more in the future!
Names. Names are so hard. When I first saw these too I immediately thought of the movie Bambi, watching the tiny brown goat kid trying to find her feet, then falling to the ground, just like Bambi-but using that name is just too obvious-so maybe Faline and Flower, that would be cute right? But it just didn't feel completely right.
I was thinking of Kate and when took Frannie and Snowy home and it finally came to me: Ruby. Ruby Peak Farms is the name of Kate's farm! That's perfect!
So meet Ruby!
And her sister Pearl. Little Pearl has wattles. Wattles are just kind of big, hairy skin tags that are common in dairy goats, but that sounds like they're gross. They look more like an extra accessory, maybe even little white pearls.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Goat kids are superior in cuteness to all other baby animals! Yes, even that pasture full of lambs cannot compete!
I love this shot: Frannie, I'm pretty sure she's yours!
Yesterday was their first day out in the pasture. It started well, but Frannie was not the most attentive mom, to the point where I think she may have forgotten that she even had babies. Thankfully my friend Andie was over and together we put the new little family in back in their own stall, where they spent the rest of the afternoon until this early afternoon. It seems to have done the trick as Frannie has been a calm, but attentive mom all afternoon.
Of course bouncing little goats call for video instead of just pictures! I have been taking way too much video!
As predicted, Snowy will be the last one to have kids. I think we have a few weeks before her kids will be here. There are these great kidding calculators on-line that help you figure out when to expect kids. For Frannie I plugged in the earliest day we put them in with Randy-Thanksgiving. For Snowy, I put in one of the last days of their stretch of time with Randy-Chistmas. I think we should expect kids around May 22-a full 20 days after Frannie had her girls.
The sheep and lambs are doing great. The lambs are growing like weeds and are still super cute!
I feel so lucky that all the births have gone so well this year! I hope I'm not jinxing it with only one left! Now we have a couple weeks to enjoy spring, get to work in the greenhouse and garden before our last round of babies!
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