Yipes!! Stripes Has Twins!!

I'm just going to start this entry off with a warning to all you who are faint-hearted or squeamish in any way.  You'll want to skip this post.  It's a bit on the gory side.  Go on, leave now before your keyboard is covered in...well...just go on.

Now...I think it's safe.  All of us who are a bit more of the iron-stomached variety can take a look at some of these pictures.  In this first picture, Stripe has just had her babies.  The first one is still soaking wet but is trying to get up on her legs and the second one is covered in goo. 

I found it comical how Stripe kept looking at the babies.  These were her first ones and she would sometimes look at them like, "What IS that?  That came out of ME and it's moving around!  And look at all that goo on it!  What is going on???  I thought I just had a bad case of indigestion."

The babies both stayed wet for quite a while and it was so cold and windy out that Harold decided that we should probably clean them up a bit before they got too cold.  So he and John Wesley got some towels and started cleaning off the goo.  We found out later that was the wrong thing to do.  The momma is supposed to do that in order to facilitate bonding.  Thankfully, it hasn't seemed to cause any problem for them.  Stripe's a great momma.  But, if she were the least bit hesitant toward them, this much of an intervention could have caused her to reject them.  Evidently it's okay to wipe off the kids' faces, but you should leave the goo on the body and direct the mother to wash her baby herself.

This picture doesn't really show this very well, but this little doe's back legs were splayed out behind her and paralyzed for the first 3 days.  We never really found a solid answer as to why.  We researched online trying to find out what to do.  The only website that I found that addressed back leg paralysis in baby goats suggested doing physical therapy with them 4 times a day or more.  I wasn't even going to go there.  I like my goats as much as the next gal, but I got enough PT to do with my human kids, the goat kids are gonna have to make it on their own.  Thankfully, she did.   You'd never really know she had such a problem now.

This cutie pie has been vigorously healthy from the very beginning.  I think she's one of the cutest little ones I've ever seen.  I love her coloring, and she's just spunky.

The kids were born so close to Christmas that the kids were giving them reindeer names, these two were Dancer and Prancer, but Harold wants to change them.  Any suggestions?