Searched the forum and couldn't really find anything that addressed the issue:
First time poster long time lurker. My wife and I have started a little "hobby farm" on a half acre, with ten chickens, four nigie goats (since Saturday the 2nd) assorted dogs, a couple ducks and a cat.
Our doe (a year old last August) just completed her first freshening and everything seemed normal right up until the morning she kidded. BTW, this was our first kidding as well but we consulted with the farm we bought her from, read up on all the forums, laid in supplies and watched videos so we thought we knew what to expect. However, she never seemed to "drop" but went into labor on the 145th day early in the morning. No "sounds" like talking to her kids or crying. She only made a sound when I turned on a light at 6:30 in the morning and come to find that her water had broken and there was a considerable fluid sack extending from her vagina. We moved her a few feet to the kidding stall when she presented a hoof, a rear one as it turned out. To make a long story short, the kids were trying to come out at the same time and were positioned head to rear, stomach to stomach, vertically with their legs wrapped around each other, making identification very difficult. Fortunately, my nephew was able to reach in, push the breach birth back, straighten out the foreleg of the correctly positioned kid and extract the first born. The breach had a hind leg bent forward and just had to be unceremoniously pulled out.
Mother and both kids thankfully, are doing great 24 hours later, which brings me to my question.
These kids weighed in at 4lbs 5oz and 4lbs 12 and a half at birth! They are monsters compared to what we understand is average birth weight. Combined with the information that the woman we purchased our doe from had a difficult birth the same week from an experienced doe and *the same sire* and had huge kids, we are wondering about using either of these two bucklings as studs. If they have the potential to produce gigantic kids (in multiples!), we don't really want to put our doe (or anyone elses) through this again, if we can help it.
The capstone to the story is the bucklings both have blue eyes and are truly adorable (aren't they all?).
Opinions, experiences, suggestions are greatly appreciated.
First time poster long time lurker. My wife and I have started a little "hobby farm" on a half acre, with ten chickens, four nigie goats (since Saturday the 2nd) assorted dogs, a couple ducks and a cat.
Our doe (a year old last August) just completed her first freshening and everything seemed normal right up until the morning she kidded. BTW, this was our first kidding as well but we consulted with the farm we bought her from, read up on all the forums, laid in supplies and watched videos so we thought we knew what to expect. However, she never seemed to "drop" but went into labor on the 145th day early in the morning. No "sounds" like talking to her kids or crying. She only made a sound when I turned on a light at 6:30 in the morning and come to find that her water had broken and there was a considerable fluid sack extending from her vagina. We moved her a few feet to the kidding stall when she presented a hoof, a rear one as it turned out. To make a long story short, the kids were trying to come out at the same time and were positioned head to rear, stomach to stomach, vertically with their legs wrapped around each other, making identification very difficult. Fortunately, my nephew was able to reach in, push the breach birth back, straighten out the foreleg of the correctly positioned kid and extract the first born. The breach had a hind leg bent forward and just had to be unceremoniously pulled out.
Mother and both kids thankfully, are doing great 24 hours later, which brings me to my question.
These kids weighed in at 4lbs 5oz and 4lbs 12 and a half at birth! They are monsters compared to what we understand is average birth weight. Combined with the information that the woman we purchased our doe from had a difficult birth the same week from an experienced doe and *the same sire* and had huge kids, we are wondering about using either of these two bucklings as studs. If they have the potential to produce gigantic kids (in multiples!), we don't really want to put our doe (or anyone elses) through this again, if we can help it.
The capstone to the story is the bucklings both have blue eyes and are truly adorable (aren't they all?).
Opinions, experiences, suggestions are greatly appreciated.