Joon's Surprise!

Joon's due date was technically tomorrow, but we got a big surprise Sunday morning 5 days early when I went out to feed everyone and didn't see Joon come out for breakfast, which is not normal.  I called her name and still no Joon, so I went to look in the goat stall and was I ever surprised to see 3 of the cutest little tiny goat kids all dry and cleaned off nursing her.  She looked up at me as if to say, "Look Mom, I did it all by myself, see I have triplets"!  Was I ever proud of her at that moment, I went in to say hi and welcome our newest additions, 2 doelings and a buckling.  The mostly black one is the buckling and the two with more white on them are the doelings.  Joon had their umbilical cords nipped just right and had licked them clean, they were all strong and nursing well.  Amazing little goat that Joon is!  I ran to the house and came in breathless to tell the wonderful news, "We have triplets"! 

I got my supplies and went back out to tie off and dip their umbilical cords in iodine, I also sprayed their feet with iodine, and gave them a BoSe shot (we are in a selenium deficient area of the country), some vitamin E, and a small dose of Probios.  Then I gave some attention to Joon to help her get all cleaned up and gave her some grain, alfalfa, and water.  I told her what a good job she did and how proud of her I was, she listened intently the whole time and loved being fussed over.  I then moved Zolena and Snowdrop out of her paddock, as I still hadn't separated them from her since I wasn't expecting her to have them for a few more days.  I wish I could have seen the birth and been there for Joon, but she seemed to handle it just fine, maybe with some love and support from her room-mates Zolena and Snowdrop.  We have doubled our goats from 5 to 10 now, with Zolena next up in the middle of April, I'm going to be ready early for her just to be sure.

My daughter Christina brings our grandson Roman over on Mondays for us to watch while she goes to work. We love having him here every week, he is now 4 and a half months old.  As he grows up he is going to love to come over and see all the baby animals we have here on the farm in the Spring.  The kids are only one day old here and this is their first time outside.  I let them outside for a few minutes for her to see them,  they are kept inside their stall the first week and then they'll be ready to go outside and play in the small paddock, I let Joon out for recess breaks and to stretch her legs.  I'll let Joon's kids in with Jersey's when I separate the mom's at night when they're two weeks old.  These kids are super friendly and love to crawl all over me and play, I've been going out several times per day to play with them they're so much fun and so cute!  We're thinking of D names, Diamond, Dazzle, Dasher for the buckling, none are for sure yet, we'll just let the names come to us as we spend time with each of them.