Abby kidded!

Abby is one of our second-generation mini lamanchas. Yes, I know she does not have lamancha ears, but that can happen when you get into the second generation of crosses. I did not intentionally breed her, but in mid-January we discovered all of the bucks loose. Normally the bucks don't bother busting through a fence unless there is a doe in heat, so we marked the calendar, and two weeks ago when my daughter Kat was trimming hooves on our dry does, she noticed an udder forming on Abby. We checked the calendar and realized she would be due in a couple of weeks, which brings us to today.

Katy the intern noticed that Abby was much more talkative than normal this morning, and she became more talkative as the day went on. So, this afternoon, Kat, Katy, and I planted ourselves in the barn to keep an eye on her. Then I realized I needed to come into the house to put medicine on my knee, and eventually Kat came inside, and finally Katy also gave up on her. We had the baby monitor on, but it's in my bedroom. We could hear it from all over the house and assumed that we would know when someone needed to check on her again.

I sat in the living room checking Facebook with my phone, and when the battery was down to 1%, I asked Kat to take it upstairs and plug it in for me. A few seconds after she walked into my bedroom, she screamed, "There's a baby! It's a baby!" and came running downstairs. Kat and Katy ran to the barn and I hobbled along after them.

Even though she is a first freshener, Abby did a fine job of giving birth to two little doelings and getting them mostly clean.

Kat and Katy each took a towel and helped her out a little. The belted doeling started nursing in no time, and her little sister was not far behind.

We are already very impressed with Abby's udder and orifices. Her udder was very large and tight before she kidded, so Kat milked her out after kidding (after her kids' tummies were quite full) and was really impressed with her whole mammary system.