What a beautiful little kid. He has his dad’s body markings, brown with white spots on his sides, and his mom’s tri-color markings on his head, along with a tiny little voice and long, knobbly legs. He's jumping around like a rabbit, these days, and even trying to jump up on his mom's shoulders. Megan tells me sometimes Dwarf Nigerian kids RIDE on their moms' backs! The first time Megan and Lalo saw Flor, she was riding on her mom's back! AMAZING!!
When I was out at the farm taking pictures of everybody last week, he hadn’t been weighed yet, but he’s fully TWICE the size everyone was expecting—almost certainly because he was a single, and had lots of room to grow. This made for a rough delivery, though, since he was born head-first with all four legs behind him, rocketeer-style.
The most common kidding position is “diving” position, when the two forelegs come out just before the head—a handy arrangement because you can pull on the legs if you need to. But this buckling's size and position meant that Flor couldn’t push him out by herself. After she'd pushed for about 30 minutes and only gotten the his head out, it was time to intervene. A baby this size probably wasn't sharing a womb with any other little goats, but there was still the possibility, and after 30 minutes of labor, any other babies in there were probably dying, or dead. So Megan and Thea took turns pulling and trying to work him out, and after about 40 more minutes and one hard pull, he came out, alive and in one piece. He’d become unresponsive during the tugging, so they were afraid he wasn't going to make it at first, but nope. Flor licked him up and he’s been active and healthy ever since. Thea named him Ferdinand, after everyone’s favorite Spanish bull (see The Story of Ferdinand, if you haven't read it---it's a classic).
Flor has been recovering wonderfully from this traumatic first-ever-birth! She’s moving around freely, eating a lot, and has been “talking” to Felix and Ferdinand a lot. I love hearing this family vocalizing—what a neat mix of bleats, yells, nickering, and little murmurs. Flor is healing physically from an external tear, and Megan is planning to make her a salve of healing and antiseptic herbs. She also gets a special tea made with raspberry leaf and other herbs.
Baby Ferdinand gives us a lot, even though we’re not going to keep him, alas. While bucklings are lovely animals, the farm already has a great buck—Felix! So Ferdinand will probably be for sale to a good farm/home in 6-8 weeks. But his birth gives us some experience with one of the more difficult birthing positions, and it establishes Felix and Flor’s line: once a first kid is born, farmers or breeders can look at subsequent kids and get a sense for the quality and characteristics of a line. This is important for Care of the Earth, since Megan and Lalo’s tentative plan is to keep one doeling and to sell the kids that come after that. It’s good to know that Felix and Flor can make a healthy baby, deliver him alive, and that Flor is a good mother. She’s taking great care of Ferdinand, and—just like chickens—not all animals that make babies are good mothers!
Also, while first kids of Dwarf Nigerian does are usually singles---and subsequent litters are much more likely to be twins, triplets, and even quadruplets---it could also be a genetic indicator for Flor & Felix's line, since Felix was a single baby, too.
Ferdinand is big and strong enough to live outside with Flor and won’t need any bottle feeding, which is great. He’s nursing, pooping, is active and vigorous, and all these things bode well for him in the long run. Healthy kids are less likely to get sick or fail to thrive, and will do well without medicated feed—a common thing with large commercial enterprises whose kid-reading practices mean they have to use constant antibiotics to keep their goats healthy and alive.
Come to the open farm day in April to see this cute baby for yourself!!
--Anna Laura
