A kid is born!

Lacey cleaning up the baby

Our Alpine doe, Lacey, was due to kid on April 12th.  I was very excited about our first dairy kids to be born!  She ended up kidding on April 14th at 3:00 in the afternoon.  I could tell she was in labor by mid morning and around 2 she went into active labor.  She didn't want any food or water and she licked me continuously.  When the baby began to come all I could see was a hard black mass.  I freaked out and thought breech!  Our only previous goat birth was a breech Nigerian Dwarf and it was a fiasco that ended with a trip to the vet and a crippled kid.  An experienced neighbor, Tami, had said that I could call her if I needed help with the birth, so I ran inside to call.  Of course, her number is long distance (which we don't have on our land line) and Jason had turned off his cell phone.  So I called Mom and had her call Tami for me and to have her head out here ASAP.  I went back outside and Lacey was doing just fine on her own, thank you!

I decided that I would still need Tami's expertise to make sure that there was another kid in there or not.  Lacey kept pushing and finally I could tell that there was a black head and two little feet (one slightly behind the other) in the sac.  Whew!  The sac burst and Lacey, in an effort to birth the kid, flung herself against the shed walls.  I'm glad that I was there to protect the poor little one's head from getting bonked!  Next chore - padded walls for the shed!  Anyway, The kid came out - a perfect black doeling with Alpine ears (her daddy is a Nubian).  It took less than 30 minutes, once she started pushing.