Brooklyn

I had to pull my first goat last night.

Four goats were born already that afternoon, and triplets had appeared the day before. I guess they wanted to get on the ground before the wind and rain of the weekend storm. From one wet environment to another. All our does are first timers, and so far, we lost only one baby out of 17–a twin delivered while we were at church.

The does with their newborns and one doe in the early stages of delivery were in their kidding stalls along the side of the barn. Bruce and I went up for one last look after supper.

We made our rounds of the animals, checking the pigs—no piglets yet—and strapping the A-frame chicken tractor to a tree so it wouldn’t blow away in the high wind expected overnight. Then we checked on the babies. All was well. Turnip, one of our four purebred does, was still in labor but not distressed.

We lingered, playing with the babies, listening to Turnip’s progress. All the other deliveries were easy, and Turnip was a big girl. It was getting late. It was rainy. We almost went back down to the house, confident she would do just fine.

Then she started pushing in earnest, and soon the bubble of fluid appeared under her tail. We stayed.

In fifteen minutes the head was out, but no accompanying hooves. As hard as she pushed, no baby goat appeared, just the large wedge of head, and no front feet. They were probably folded back. I tried to remember the drawings in Storey’s Guide to Raising Goats that showed all the possible birth positions that needed intervention. My bucket of birthing supplies I had gathered earlier in the season was dismantled. I hadn’t needed it for so long it got parceled out and used for other things.

The minutes ticked by. Turnip stained and cried. I told Bruce I was going into the shed to wash up. He said he’d drive down to the house to get towels, KY jelly and the Storey goat book.

I took off my jacket, rolled up my sleeves, and washed up to my elbows. We had gloves, but just the blue medical latex gloves that covered the hands. One broke when I pulled it up over my wrist. I stuffed a roll of paper towers under my arm and ran back through the rain to the barn. I unlatched the gate to the kidding stall, feeling woefully unprepared with my one blue glove.

I knelt down next to the struggling Turnip, mumbling soothing words for both of us. I pulled gently at the head protruding from her rear end and cleared the little nose. The tongue was lolling and I thought the goat was dead.

I started this post by saying, “I had to pull my first goat last night.” I lied. I didn’t pull the goat— I got my hand in as far as my wrist, felt a complication of hooves and bodies, panicked, and called Brooklyn.

Brooklyn is a little wisp of a high school girl I met at Bruce’s cousin Angie’s 50th birthday party (the party where the men wore kilts and threw knives and axes at a target of Jamie Fraser’s face) who conveniently lives five minutes away. Otherwise I would have called Angie, nurse and practiced goat midwife, but she lives much farther away.

Brooklyn came over (“I’m in my pajamas, I hope that’s ok”), pulled on a shoulder length red obstetrics glove and went in there. I mean, she went all the way in without hesitation, up past her elbow. She confirmed what I feared—two goats were on top of each other, trying to come out all together. The first one, whose head was now swollen, was certainly dead. She pushed it back in, grabbed its feet, pushed the other twin back up as far as she could, all the while with the doe screaming and contracting hard against her, and pulled.

Two little bodies came squishing out in quick succession. The dead one twitched. Not quite dead yet! We rubbed them vigorously with towels, just like they did in the James Harriet books, and Brooklyn swung the mostly-dead one upside down, clearing his lungs by centrifugal force.

We placed the damp little rags of barely living creatures next to their worn-out mom. She went right to work licking and pushing them around till they stood up on their trembly little legs.

But she was exhausted, unable to stand up herself. We let her rest till the babies were almost dry and clamoring for milk. Then Bruce gently pushed her to a sitting position, and she rallied, got her back legs under her, and made a tremendous effort to stand up. We guided the babies, the smaller boy with his head still a bit swollen and misshapen, into place. They both drank, and mama kept her feet.

We named the girl baby Brooklyn, after the human girl who surely saved three lives last night!

Today is April first. I’m not normally superstitious, but it was with trepidation I approached the barn this morning. I had a brief moment of envy for professional goat breeders who have cameras and video monitors installed in their barns. No guessing, no suspense. No surprises.

Goats were sleeping everywhere, contentedly curled up in the wasted the hay they had pulled from the manger and strewn all over the barn, and a few babies were jumping off the white plastic chair we accidentally left in the corral—needless to say it wasn’t white any more.

Nervously, I made my way to the kidding pens. There was Curly with her triplets. Almond Joy with her twins, Oreo and Milky Way. Chai Latte with Chai Spice who looks just like her, and a chocolate brown goat we haven’t named yet.

As for Turnip, Brooklyn, and her frothy white, unnamed twin?

All thriving.

As are all the newborns. Mamas are strong and healthy and doing a great job with the little ones. Last night’s babies bring us to 27 kids, with two big Boer goats still to deliver. It’s an almost even split between boy and girl babies. We’ll keep some of the girls to increase our foundation herd–including Brooklyn, with the buff-colored ears.