What a surprise I received this morning!!  We knew that kids were coming--and normally we know that our does are going to kid before heading off to bed and plan accordingly.  Well this morning I was dreaming that horses were chasing me but they weren't "whinnying" like horses normally do but were making strange "blaaaaaahhhh" noises.  It woke me with a start and I lay there listening.  I heard it again but still wasn't quite coherent enough to put it all together.  I sat up and opened the window to hear better.  I heard the roosters crowing and birds singing and finally heard that strange noise again.  A baby goat!!  I had decided to leave the goats outside last night instead of putting them in the barn since my son only had the "nursery" stall cleaned out and I wanted to keep it clean for when the new babies came.  I knew that it was going to be cold but it got a bit colder than we had thought. 

     I woke my son Josh (16) up and we hurried out to the doe field to find a couple of very cold kids.  We scooped them up in towels and hurried back into the house.  They were so cold and not very responsive.  I threw a couple more towels into the dryer to heat them up and we sat rubbing them and using our own body heat to warm the babies up.  Finally after an hour or so we woke my oldest daughter Sarah (18) up so that she could go out and milk the momma so we could get some warm milk down the babies.  By then my youngest, Eli (2) was awake and wanting my attention and wasn't happy to find his mommom's lap filled up with baby goaties and while we were trying to feed them they were bleating.  Eli kept saying "baby" and I think he must've figured that I had my baby!!  Too cute!!  I had to assure him that mommom still had our baby in my belly. 

     I had expected that with all that had occured the babies would be hard to feed--not want to nurse.  Not so!!  The slurped down their milk like pros!!  Yay!! 

     Our feeding schedule is to feed 2-3 oz every 2 hours for the first 24 hours.  The children love it because I let them stay up all night and play computer games while the adults go to bed.  It's one of their favorite times of the year.

     After the first 24 hours we move to 4 oz every 4 hours for the next 2 days.  We then move to 8 oz every 8 hours until they are 2 weeks old.  The next progression is to feed twice a day starting at 16 oz working up to 20 oz in soda pop bottles until they are approx 2+ months.  It is quite a bit of work but we have had great success with this schedule!  And we do not pasteurize our milk for the full benefits of the enzymes and vitamins/minerals.  We only feed replacer as a last resort knowing that momma's raw milk is exactly what they need most!

     Oh, and by the way...  It was 2 bucks.  We plan to wether them and turn them out to pasture with the does this summer. 

     We have at least 2 more does due to kid and I'll keep you updated!