Evening Conversation

We are through the month of March and we now have 71 new lambs! We have an almost even split of 36 boys and 35 girls. Born from 35 ewes, with 7 sets of triplets! Apart from one hellish night where nine sheep lambed throughout the night,several at the same time, and my mom and I were up all night, we have had a nice, gentle, mild weather spring and lambing season.
So, on with the pictures!

The barn


( If you'd like to see more, proceed! )

Yesterday morning Mama goat Francesca had QUADRUPLETS!

Two boys and two girls. They are enormous for quadruplets!

We didn't want to take them away from her right away because its stressful for the mama. Having the babies there helps her have the afterbirth and let down her milk and eat good, but it was nose hair freezing cold out today(that is -15 with wind chill, for those who want to know) so I spent the day swapping kid goats inside to outside every couple of hours.


All four of the new ones are inside now sleeping in the kitchen, and making loads and loads of laundry. And being rather cute. The other three are in the barn in a straw bale house with a jug of hot water and a blanket keeping them warm. The best news of all is that we are forecast to have weather in the upper thirties and maybe even forties this weekend! Hallelujah for spring!

( More Pictures! )

For anyone who is suffering from goddamn-why-is-it-only-february Winter blues, I have some pictures of pure cuteness for you.

In the wee hours of Monday the 31st, mama goat Aimee had three beautiful baby goats, two girls and a boy.

Because it looks like this outside
and gets below zero at night they are living in the house for awhile.
And because they are babies and impossibly cute they get to sleep in front of the fire

and on the bean bag chair.

They aren't the only animals who like to come in for a snooze now and again either.


The littlest kid goat

had E.coli and didn't feel good for the first couple of days but now she is healthy and back to bouncing all over the place again.


The goaties have been living in the house for almost a week, and are soon to be shifted to the barn, because it is getting warmer, and because you seriously cannot imagine how such little animals can create so much poo and pee. They did go out for adventures in the snow on Wednesday.
Here, have some more pictures of cuteness, to stave off the winter blues. Playin' with chairs.



And a bonus kitty sleeping in a hat.


There are two more goats who should kid in the next several days and the clan of cuteness will likely grow to seven or eight.

Also, I'd like suggestions for names. Normally we have a theme and name them all within the theme. Previous themes(and names) have been: cheeses(Bleu, Brie, Havarti, Gorgonzola--yes we did subject a goat to the name gorgonzola and to the nickname gorgi, yes we are very very cruel people! :D ), fabrics(Cotton, Satin, Denim, Corduroy), classical composers (Sousa, Holst, Ticheli) and cities in India(Palumpur, Taki, Kullu). So, have any suggestions?

y̆