Goat Quadruplets

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January 24, 2022 Mrs. M interrupts this “Andi” blog with an author trivia post.

It was a long night and an even longer day. Our first goat of the season, Mocha, acted like she was going to kid. And kid she did! At 1:30am, after a terrible time, the doe delivered a buckling and a doeling, “Domino” and “Cookie.” My daughter, Kristel, should be a vet! The twins were tangled up and could not be born. She has a small hand and went up inside Mocha and straightened everything out, all the while whispering, “I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know what I’m doing.” I advised (since we had dairy goats when Kristel was a little girl) and suggested she make sure the two little hooves went with the head. She shoved everything back up and then Domino was delivered. Whoosh. One down, one (three!) to go.

The second kid stuck her head out and opened her mouth, but one leg was left behind. Eeks! I am the goat pediatrician, while Kristel is the OB. I wiped Cookie clean so she could breathe, but then I said, “If you have to push her back to get that other leg, you’d better do it quick!” She did. Sigh of relief. Second kid safely delivered. No more kids presented themselves and since it was late (1:30am) and Mocha looked content (although still pretty fat, but her mother always looked fat even after deliveries), we all went to bed.

Imagine our surprise at 6am the next morning, when Kristel checked to make sure Mama and babies had made it through the night. She found two more baby goats, newly born and still wet! Mocha had waited four hours to bring another doe and buckling, Chocolate Chip and Socks, to join the family.

But Mocha suffered. All the next day she went downhill. No milk. No interest in food and it looked like she might die. We prayed for her and hoped she would make it through Sunday night so Kristel could call the vet bright and early Monday morning. In the meantime, we started bottle feeding all four kids! Kristel had lots of colostrum and milk in the freezer for “such a time as this.”

Good news! On Monday, Mocha got a couple of shots and seems to be on the mend. What a roller coaster ride with losing sleep and feeding four kids every three hours all day long. Whoosh!

Just thought you would enjoy this random Author Trivia post. Mocha is doe #1. Five more (plus two Dwarf Nigerian does) are due this week and into the next couple of weeks. We are sure hoping for no more sets of quads. Enjoy the quickie video!