Flora :: A Birth Story

What an amazing experience...I've been present for the birth of my own children (obviously) and watched my best friend deliver her daughter, but I've never been present for the birth of an animal. All the goats have delivered at night or behind my back lol sneaky little ladies. But I had the most fortunate experience of being there for Flora's entire delivery.
Kait and I were in the barn doing a check on Flora - as we've been doing for the past week and a half or so...when Flora squatted down to pee, it appeared that her whoha opened pretty wide. Kait and I looked at eachother and questioned whether it was time. Kait ran to get Cora outside and by the time that they came running out, Flora had coughed out a bubble and a hoof! As soon as Kait got out with my cell phone, I started recording this video (warning :: graphic goat delivery video with a bit of a cliff hanger because my FREAKING CAMERA DIED JUST AS HER WATER BROKE!)!!!

At the end of the video, you see that her water had broken and there were two, quite large hooves sticking out of her. From that point, she was trying to deliver the baby goat and in so much pain. She kept throwing her head back and yelling in pain, pushing as hard as she could to get this baby out.

See the hooves and the little tongue sticking out - it kept wiggling during delivery.

It was obvious that she was getting tired out and was having a really hard time getting the baby out. I am usually hands off when it comes to stuff like this...but it was looking like she needed some intervention. I took a towel and wrapped it around the hooves that were sticking out. As she pushed (and ONLY when she pushed) I would give a GENTLE tug to the legs - helping pull, while she pushed...being cautious not to cause her any harm. Finally (after about 20 minutes of pushing) she pushed that little baby goat out of her. Kait, Cora and I watched the whole thing and David was able to join at about the point that the video ended - so he got to see the actual birth.

Newborn baby goat!!

Closeup on the newborn...

Flora, although exhausted, started cleaning off her baby and using her "Mommy voice" - a lower, very different Baa than her usual voice - SO cute. She kept looking at us like "look what I just did". I was so proud of her - my eyes were tearing up. I was just in amazement of what this goat accomplished. As she was trying to deliver her placenta, she squatted down again - we looked inside her whoha and SURPRISE!! Another baby was on her way out! There was ANOTHER BUBBLE with ANOTHER HOOF! I couldn't believe that little goat had TWO babies inside her. Thinking that it would take another 20 minutes or so to get the baby delivered, we hunkered down and watched. Within two minutes, baby number two was delivered!!! She was smaller than the first baby and I think the first baby made the path, she was just following along. So there was an exhausted Flora (yawning, yawning, yawning) trying to clean of these little (ok, they were actually pretty big) babies - we helped her along, toweling them down a bit. They got onto their very uneasy feet and tried to figure out the whole nursing thing. Flora, even though she's a first time mom, was standing there letting the babies try to figure it out...unlike Frankie who was doing everything in her power to get away from the baby. Maybe she was too tired to put up a fight - maybe she just knew what she was supposed to do from watching Mabel. Either way - Great job Flora!

Flora and her babies - a boy and a girl.

Flora and her babies.

Flora makes really beautiful babies - I'm incredibly proud of my girl. She finally did it - we have more photos and videos on other cameras and cell phones - I'll upload those when I can...but I thought I'd share our amazing experience.