Budzi's Surprise

On Sunday morning (2/26), Budzi was showing many signs of beginning labor.  All day long we continually checked on her so that we could be present at the birth.  The poor thing was so huge, and was so uncomfortable that she could barely walk.  We have said for several weeks that we really thought she could have triplets, but sometimes a goat will look huge and only have one baby, so we weren't really counting on any more than two.  By Sunday night, she wasn't progressing in her labor and we were a little worried.  Greg checked her, but couldn't feel babies in the birth canal, so we knew they weren't stuck and we just would have to wait it out.  We checked on her late in the night and still nothing.  Early Monday morning Greg went out before work to check on Budzi.  He called from the barn to say that one baby was out and another one was on its way and for me to hurry to the barn!  Gideon had woken up and so I dressed him as quickly as possible, grabbed towels and a few other things and we ran to the barn.  After Greg helped pull out the second kid (it was a whopper and backwards), Budzi wasn't showing signs of immediately giving birth to another kid, so we brought the babies in the house to get them cleaned up and get some colostrum in them.  About 30 minutes later, Greg went out to check on Budzi again.  He called to say another baby had been born.  We were so excited to have triplets!  He brought the newest baby to the house and a little while, went back out to check on momma again, only to find another kid!  Now we understood why she was so huge and uncomfortable!  Quads are always a possiblity with goats, but they aren't the norm, so it was a special surprise for her to have four kids.  The biggest kid (Jupiter) weighed a whopping 9 pounds 14 ounces, while the smallest, (Venus) weighed 9 pounds 5 ounces.  We couldn't be happier with our four healthy goats, and we're working on nursing Budzi back to health, as the babies took almost every ounce of fat she had.  Here's our babies:

Here's the four of them when they were just an hour or so old.  (Yes, they're in my bathtub.)  From left to right they are Jupiter, Galaxy, Saturn, and Venus (the only girl in the bunch).

Here they are up and walking around.
(They had graduated to the laundry room by this time)

Lincoln is inspecting the goats and their new pen in the garage.  If you can't find Lincoln, check the garage.  He keeps sneaking out there to watch the baby goats!










Gideon dropping holding Galaxy. 

My favorite of the quads: Saturn.  I think he has the prettiest coloring!






And, a week later Sassy gave birth to twins: a buckling, Pluto and a doeling, Mercury. So we have five boys and two girls.  (Of course we would have all those boys around here!)  Even though we love our new cute and cuddly kids, we're so relieved that kidding is over until next year!  And, in the meantime, does anyone need a pet goat?