Accidental Homesteader

Since it was brutally cold and the Husband was at work, our first goat decided it was the perfect time to go into labor. Unfortunately, the baby was stillborn.

The thousand-yard stare of a goat in labor. CW: A couple of pics of the birth. Nothing gory, or of the goat after delivery. Also discussion of stillbirth. If this isn’t for you, don’t read more. Just know that Violet is fine, she was checked out by the vet and all is well.

So I was in a meeting, and looking at the trail cam. Violet seemed to be restless and talking to her belly. Translated from the goat-language “Get out of here, dammit. It’s cold, I’m tired, and want this over with.”

So when I was done with my meeting, I went out to check on her. Um… there was a hoof sticking out of her hoo ha. So all of our meticulous planning was out the window, because I was by myself, it was snowy, icy, and cold, so I didn’t trust myself getting the entire tote out to the shed. So I run inside, call the Husband to come home now.

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Aside: I started to say, nah, just stay at work. Because I always try to just “take care of it myself.” There’s a feminist lesson there, but this was a little like the time I called the Husband to say that I was having chest pains and was on the way to the ER with my friend/coworker/work mom, and that he didn’t need to come in. 🙄 Yeah, right. Except I learned from that lesson. Note to actual Mom: this was in, like, 2014, so don’t worry.

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I grab some towels, and head back out. Surprisingly, I was less squicked out than I expected, probably since there was no time to be squicked out, so I just had to cowgirl up and do the thing. In any case the feet were out by the time I got back with the towels.

Hello goat feet.

I was a little worried because the legs weren’t moving, or showing any signs of life. But I’ve never done this before, so maybe it was okay. I keep on helping Violet push, and guiding the kid out.

Here we have legs and a butt. At this point I’m pretty sure that this isn’t going well for the kid. Still no movement or muscle tone.

We finally get everything done, and I wrap it up in a blanket to try to assess the situation. By this time, the Husband has called and said that the vet was available to talk me through things if I needed. So I called and they gave me some things to do to try and get the baby to breathe.

So I did chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but to no avail. I let her bathe the baby for a while, but then let her get ready for the second birth (we were expecting twins).

It didn’t come immediately. So by now the Husband was home. We decided it was too cold for Mama and baby, so we brought her into our mudroom.

Waited, still no evidence of a second labor. Hmm… so I call the vet’s emergency line, and they agreed that we should bring her in. Longest 45-minute drive in a while for us. We get there, and the vet drives in to meet us there.

We bring her in to the garage where they treat the farm animals, and our vet gloves up and goes in there to get the next goat. Ope – it was just the one. That’s good news. And the other good news is that Violet is just fine. They tied off the placenta and gave her some pain medicine.

The husband said that she was pretty vocal last night, probably looking for the kid.

In a couple of weeks, Oreo (shown above) and Clover are due – each with one kid. I learned a lot from this one about what to do. But I’m sad we don’t have a new kid today.