I knocked three times on the kids bedroom doors, they moaned out a barely audible, "I'm up." and within three minutes everyone was sitting under blankets in the family room reading scriptures.
Shortly after 7:00 a.m. family prayer was said and everyone went their separate ways.
Luke immediately headed outside to feed all the hungry animals.
Not long after, I got a phone call from him with a plea for help. There had been triplets born sometime during the night and they were not doing well. All who could, mobilized and rushed to the barn to help.
We swooped up the biggest baby boy, he was close enough to death that I was afraid he wouldn't make it to the house. He must have been born first and was now way too cold. We also grabbed a second one that definitely needed warming. probably the second born. And left the third one, (who was doing OK, not great) with the mother, so she wouldn't freak out.
The next couple of hours were spent bringing the babies temperatures back up, by placing them in sinks full of warm water. The big boy was the slowest to come back around and I worried he might have been cold too long. After about forty minutes in the warm water his little tummy starts to rumble and rumble. I'm beginning to think they must have been born shortly after Grant fed the night before.
Luke goes outside to milk one of the other moms so we can bottle feed each of the babies a couple ounces of milk. This usually gets them strong enough for when we put them back in with their mom. They can then usually get milk from her on their own. But even once they are warmed up and fed they aren't strong enough to stand and take nourishment.
This is when the brawl takes place.
Steve is at work, Grant is at school, Luke had to drive Hannah to seminary, so now I'm alone in the stall trying to help three weak, non-standing baby goats feed off of their mother.
*In our experience the quicker we get the babies back out to their mothers the more likely the mother will accept them again. This is why we warm them up, dry them off, get milk in them and rush them back out to the barn as fast as we can.
Each doe has a different personality and a different level of protecting instincts. this young doe has given birth twice now and her instincts are over the top. I have had animals stomp at me, try to put themselves between be and their babies. Some have even lowered their head as if they might ram into me, but none of them have ever been as aggressive as this young doe was to me today.
I'm in the process of getting a couple of her babies to dune. I reach for the third baby and this girl bites me. I ignore her and continue to help. That was a mistake. I should have given her a firm rap across the nose right away because over the next twenty minutes she proceeds to bite me no less than twenty times. Several of those bites resulted in me losing hair. She would whip her head around and grab a chunk of my hair before I could stop her. I gave her several firm raps across the nose but I had missed my chance to teach her.
Things rapidly deteriorated and the situation became unsafe for me and the babies. She was determined to get me out of the pen, away from her babies, one way or another. She succeeded, I was forced to flee the pen. I returned with a lead rope because I need to restrain her. There was no way I was going to leave that barn until I was sure each baby had got its fill of milk.
I wish it had been a better situation. Live and learn, that's what I say.
The good news...I have been out to the barn a multiple times since then to make sure everyone is getting fed. She was less aggressive these last few times. Her and I seem to be reaching an understanding.
Last time I was out there two of them were standing better on their own. But the third one was still struggling to keep his hind legs under himself.
I'll post better pictures of them sometime soon under the red barn critters section.