The kids are all born

9 kids from 5 does in 10 days!

The first set of twins were born on Sunday March 6th. The mother is Agatha and father is Rufus. They were born about 1:30 in the afternoon. I really did not want to breed Agatha because she was not even a year old yet, but because my farm is still a work in progress, she did not want to stay with the weanling ewe lambs and kept going through the fences. I was afraid she would get tangled up and really hurt herself or worse. So I left her with the does and the buck and hoped she would be alright with the pregnacy. She produces two small doelings, both weighing about 4 pounds. I was worried Agatha did not have enough milk and bottle feed the smallest doeling for a couple of days and also had her nurse off of Cedar for a couple of days.

I am happy to report all are doing well now and both are growing very nicely.
I have named them Brenda and Babs. Babs is a very bright white and Brenda is an off white, technically I think she is considered a faded red, but not sure. The color is only noticable when they are right next to each other. Sure hope Brenda gets just a hair darker as she grows so I can easily tell them apart. I really don't want to put an ear tag in them yet.

The second set of twins were born Tuesday March 8th. Unfortunately, they were born in the early morning and Cedar, the mother, had them outside in the cold rain. Neither one of them survived. They were both black doelings. The only good thing was I was able to supplement Babs off of Cedar for several days while Agatha developed more milk.

The third set of twins was born Saturday March 12 at about 6pm. The mother is Abby, a red doe, and the father is Rufus a black. The two of them look almost identical. But one is a buckling and the other a doeling. They both already have their mothers sweet personality. The doeling is named Bailey and the buckling is named Baxter. I was away on a fiber retreat and Rob did a great job of being nurse 'father'.

The only single kid born was born Sunday March 13th at about 7pm. The mother is Cedar and the father is Rufus. I was very surprised when I saw that this doeling was white! Both mother and father are black. So I will have to do some investigating into the mothers pedigree and see if there is any whites or spotted in her lineage. The buck, Rufus, has no pedigree so I don't know anything about his lineage. I was watching her stand up for the first time and I had not gone in yet and I thought Cedar had pooped on her babies back! Then I discovered that it is a little spot!

The last set of twins was born on Tuesday March 15th sometime early afternoon. When I got home at 5pm they were dry with tummies full. The mother is Ziva and the father is Rufus. I was thrilled when I saw that they were both doelings!! And one of them was brown! They should be friendly like their mother.

I still need to come up with names for three of them, but I am SOOOO thrilled that I ended up with six girls!

So far this has been a total opposite of last year. I just hope this doesn't mean that the four pregnant ewes will have all single ram lambs! But, I guess if they were all healthy I would still be very happy.

There is going to be lots of 'work' getting these kids friendly. I love that kind of work! :)