Copper's Babies & Other Goat Lore

Our little girl Copper has now come full circle and has her own little ones. Copper was born here last January and needed to have her ear fixed. She, like her mother One Stripe, had her babies 150 days from breeding. I have learned over the years that I can just about set the calendar on One Stripe. If I have her breed date correctly recorded, she will kid 150 days later. It appears Copper may be the same way. Interesting. This is something you won’t know if you don’t have a recorded history on your animals or if they are new to your place.

A warning here. If you don’t want to see some of the birthing process, close your eyes as you read. Otherwise, you may see some ick and goo. We penned Ivory and Copper up the evening of 149 days for Copper. Ivory was already at 154 days, which is her MO (mode of operation). I will tell Ivory’s story later.

Since Copper was my only first freshener, or first timer, she is the one I watched the closest. She started giving definite signs of labor on the morning of her 150th day. Her tailbone became very pronounced. Her hips were wide open. She kept looking at her stomach and tail like she was asking, “What’s going on back there?”

She also wanted a lot of petting, scratching and reassurance. I came and went from the barn, staying for a while and pulling up a chair.

The last time I came up, this is what I found. And with each contraction, Copper would yell in protest. Quite loudly. I have had some goats that don’t make a sound as they give birth, some that groan a little and some that really yell. Copper fit into the latter category.

Well, I let her be for a while. She got up and moved around some which lessened her pain because she quit hollering with each

contraction. But after a bit she laid back down and commenced yelling again. I only watched that for a short time. Then I went in and gently pulled on the protruding feet as Copper had a few more contractions. Out popped the head of her first born, with the rest of the body following quickly afterward. At first Copper visibly relaxed with a huge sigh, but didn’t turn around to begin cleaning up her baby. So I handed him up to her so she could easily reach him and, thankfully, she began to clean him up right away. In very short order with one or two more pushes, out pops another kid with little effort. The first kid was larger than the second. The length of time it took for the second one to be born makes me wonder if they weren’t competing for first place in the birthing process, thus causing Copper so much pain.

But she took to them, cleaned them and mothered them very well. All signs of a good, productive mother. Thank you. When you have a new animal or one having their first babies, there is always a question about how they will perform. It’s disappointing when the results are not favorable, especially after waiting months to find out. It’s great when they meet or exceed your expectations.

One of the things we do as soon after birth as possible is trim, if needed the babies umbilical cords. One to one and a half inches is a good length. Then we totally coat the cord with strong 7% Iodine. This strong solution will close off, basically cauterize, the umbilical cord and thus, the opening to the body, removing an avenue for bacterial infections which can be lethal.

I was very excited to learn that Copper’s second kid is a doe. I was hoping she would have one that we could keep. This means she had to meet our color requirements. Our original herd had more color

patterns and our original buck had a lot of spots. We have gradually been able to almost eliminate the spots from our herd. In the previous post on radios Frank mentioned the gray man who is nondescript and doesn’t draw attention to himself. This is the kind of goat herd we want as well. We found that the spotted goats just drew too much attention. The “Wow-wee, look at that!” kind of attention that we didn’t want. Our goal with the goats is to have milk and meat. Having milk also gives us the opportunity to make butter, cheese, yogurt and kefir. This is the purpose of our goats, not to draw attention to our attempts at self-reliance and ability to survive.

Copper’s little girl was born with copper rings around her eyes, just like her mother. When I mentioned this to our friend, CB, she asked us if Copper now had her little Penny, and the name has stuck. And if you don’t mind me saying so, Penny is a beautiful little girl.

Before you ask what her brother’s name is you should know that we ban the boys so they become wethers, just like a bull becomes a steer. The boys are our meat on the hoof. Meat that doesn’t require refrigeration or freezer space. Kind of like insurance. If the grid goes down or a long

term collapse occurs, we want to have meat we can deal with on a small scale, thus the wethers. So, most boys born here, like Velvet’s, get the names of Breakfast, Lunch or Dinner, or at least that is our standing joke. But seriously, these boys are part of our food storage. Meat on the hoof. So, I don’t give them cute names or get attached to them. I think Velvet’s boys are just beautiful, but I don’t spend much time talking to them or petting them. I want them to be tame so we can handle them as needed and they won’t run away anytime we are around. But, other than that, I view them as food. The girls, on the other hand, are a whole different story. I already adore Penny. 
 

I know some people say they just can’t eat an animal they raise, but to me, it is all in the way you approach the situation. If you raise animals for a particular purpose, then you keep that mind frame. Take Velvet for instance. She is for sale. She was born here, we named her, worked with

her, trained her to milk and have had two sets of her babies. She is One Stripe’s daughter and Copper’s sister, but we can’t keep them all or we would quickly be overrun with too many animals and be overwhelmed and give up. Believe me. We have been there and done that. Our first herd was Suffolk sheep, nine ewes and a ram, which quickly turned into 27 animals once all of the babies were born on our 5 acres. We were totally overwhelmed and instead of selling some and keeping the best, we sold them all. Not the best decision we have made. But we kept trying with other flocks and eventually switched over to goats.

And another thing we learned in the last two years, grandmothers tend to nurse their grand’kids’. Last year, Ivory’s mother, Katy, did just that. She ‘took over’ Ivory’s daughter leaving Ivory her son to

nurse. I thought that was very interesting, but I figured it was because someone came and bought two of Katy’s triplets when they were three days old, leaving her tons of milk and only one kid to nurse. But this year, One Stripe lost her babies in January and I have been milking her ever since. The other day I caught her nursing Velvet’s boys and looking just pleased as punch. One Stripe has always been an excellent mother and loves her babies. This now makes it easy to sell Velvet when her boys are two weeks old instead of waiting until they are weaned at eight weeks. Interesting. We never quit learning more about goats. They are always teaching us something.

I’ll fill you in on Ivory next. I really thought she would have her babies before Copper, but that was not the case. Ivory’s babies are beautiful though and arrived without a hitch. And the baby chicks are hatching and the garden is just about ready to plant. Ahhh….spring! The time of life and renewal. Take advantage of it as quick as you can. I pray things in the world don’t boil over this summer. That will give us more time to learn and prepare.


Until next time – Fern