I love the new life spring brings. Flowers are starting to bloom, gardens are coming to life, and of course all the baby animals are being welcomed into the world. With Amelia bouncing around, we greatly anticipated Kissy's kids joining in on the farm fun. As her due date neared, we prepared the nursery pen once again and watched her closely for any signs of labor.
Midday on March 9th we knew that Kissy would be going into labor soon. She started to isolate herself from the herd and became increasingly restless. Jordan camped out in the barn to keep a closer eye on her and ensure she was making progress. Finally, after a few hours Kissy started to push. It wasn't too long before we knew this kidding was not going to be as easy as our first. Thankfully, the kid was in correct position with both front feet and head forward. The problem though, the kid's head was too big and Kissy was not dilated enough to push him out. She struggled for a while and made no progress. We tried for several minutes to help her by grabbing the legs and tried to pull the kid, but were still having trouble. Trying to remain calm, we called our vet to get their advice. They encouraged us to continue with the gentle assist. After more time had passed and we made little progress, we decided to call to our neighbor for backup. In just a few minutes, he came over to the barn gloves already in hand to help out. We held Kissy as he began to pull the kid's legs side to side and in just a few minutes, out came baby. It was a boy! A big boy! He was up and latched on to mama in no less than 5 minutes. Big strong buckling!
We knew that Kissy had at least one more kid to go, and in about 30 minutes she was pushing again. This time the kid came right out without any issue. A tiny little doeling! We waited and watched mama for either another kid or the placenta. Signaling her labor was complete, Kissy passed the placenta. After making sure that both kids got colostrum, we brought babies inside to blow dry them off and get them warm. We gave each kid a small dose of injected Vitamin E and Selenium to prevent white muscle disease and finally breathed a sigh of relief that kidding was over. It is such an amazing and stressful experience at the same time.
Only one more kidding and one calving to go. Actually make that 2 calvings! Trexy never returned to heat, which means she was most likely bred! We will draw a blood test on Monday to confirm, but either way, Trexy will finally be coming home. I can't wait to hug our sweet mama Trexy!
In other news, we have some chicks hatching! As we are writing this blog, we have two completely hatched and two more working their way out. The gift of life, the magic of mothering instincts, and the blessing and provision of God is definitely at work on our farm. We are so blessed to be able to witness it all, and still can't believe that we are here, starting our farm and growing our herd.
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