Kids and Kids

When I was little, one of us kids' very favorite family activities was when Dad pulled out the ol' slide projector and we'd look at the slides from when we were younger.  We'd turn the lights down and project the slides onto one of our walls.  I can still hear the hum of the projector and even smell the air that came off the fan.  Wow, that brings back some memories!  My dad spent plenty of time hunting, so we would laugh as a large majority of the slides included plenty of dead birds and deer!

So where am I going with this?  My childhood pictures are filled with pictures of pheasants, geese and deer, and my children's childhood pictures are going to be filled with pictures of GOATS.  Yep, it's goat kidding season again which means we are adding to our collection of memories and pictures with goats. The snow and freezing temperatures offer prime conditions for such an event.  Please take note of the sarcasm. 

Let's see, where do we start.  Oh yes, how about the (inevitable) yearly picture of goats in my house:

It seems inevitable that we end up bottle feeding goats.  Goat kids are such finicky little buggers.  For these two, their mom's don't have enough to feed them and their twins so we get to be the surrogate.  It's a good thing they're such cute little nuggets, it can be pretty time consuming taking care of these furry critters.  Three times a day gets really old.  Not to mention the amount of milk we go through- sheesh!

We had a new experience this year to add to the goat memoir.  One of our mama's started kidding but hadn't made much progress in about 8-9 hours.  We called an amazing lady in our ward who is a vet tech with the university.  She had come out a few weeks earlier and saved our bacon by helping pull a very large baby out.  I'm sure she was super thrilled to come out for a second visit.  It wasn't too long before she discovered that the mama hadn't fully dilated and there was no way to get the baby out without doing a lot of damage to the doe.  We basically were left with two options: spend a few hundred dollars and do a c-section to save the doe, or shoot the $1000 doe.  I really struggle seeing animals suffer so was grateful that after a few phone calls, we had everything arranged to head over to the USU farm for a c-section.  Well now that wasn't on the schedule for the evening- for any of us! 

Here is mama goat getting prepped for surgery:

Being the nerd that I am, I was so intrigued through the whole process.  The injection for the spinal block went in right above the tail.  For some reason I would have thought it would be further up along the spine.  Whaddayaknow?!  This was the point where I had to sit down for a bit lest I become a casualty.  Thankfully after that I got over it and watched the rest of it.  Yep, I'm a nerd.  I thought it was absolutely fascinating.

More prep (seriously, this goat is getting a lot of blog attention- I am so weird.  I was so intrigued!)

There we have our amazing neighbor Sara in the black who is the vet tech, then Lexi Sweat on the other side in red.  Lexi didn't do the surgery, but assisted the doc-whose-name-has-escaped-me.

Unfortunately, the goat had been in labor too long and the baby didn't make it.  Big sigh.  We knew going into it that would probably be the case seeing as though Sara could tell part of the placenta had detached.  I hate hate hate that death has to be part of it.  Later that night we brought home a weak triplet from another mama, but she didn't make it either.  The life cycle can sure be rough sometimes.

I have one more pic of the goat getting sewed up, but I'll keep that one to myself to spare anyone the ick factor.  But, here is the poor doe after it was all said and done and she was back at the farm:

My sympathy meter was just through the roof for this poor thing.  She had a rough day for sure.  Thankfully she is doing well.  Probably a little chilly with a quarter of her hair gone (funny not funny). Add that little experience to our memories, huh? 

Basically I'm ready for goat kidding to be done.  It's much too nerve racking for me.  Yet for some reason, we do it year after year.  When I say we, I mean Jacob.  Oh fine, let's be serious.  That inevitably means me.  How do I always get so invested in these furry, smelly beasts for crying out loud?!

Wait a minute, did I seriously just devote an entire blog post to goats?  Who am I, and how did I get here?  I need help.