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    Just Kidding: Stories and Reflections on Goats Giving Birth
    Just Kidding: Stories and Reflections on Goats Giving Birth
    Just Kidding: Stories and Reflections on Goats Giving Birth
    Ebook76 pages1 hour

    Just Kidding: Stories and Reflections on Goats Giving Birth

    By Deborah Niemann

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    About this ebook

    There is nothing about goat ownership that creates more anticipation, excitement, frustration, and fear than birthing. It’s wonderful to walk into the barn one morning and see a couple of kids bouncing around and nursing. But it feels like you’ve been punched in the stomach when you walk in and see a distressed doe or a dead or malformed kid. If you’ve never seen a goat give birth before, you don’t really know if something is normal or not. Since 2006, Deborah Niemann has been chronicling the births of goats on Antiquity Oaks Farm. In this ebook, she retells some of those stories and honestly discusses what went well and what didn't, what should have been done differently and what would not have mattered. You'll read 17 stories of goat births, from normal to tragic, including two c-sections. Although nothing can take the place of real life experience, the goal of this book is to help new goat owners feel a little more prepared before their first goats give birth and to help more experienced owners feel even more confident.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDeborah Niemann
    Release dateFeb 24, 2015
    ISBN9781311435262
    Just Kidding: Stories and Reflections on Goats Giving Birth
    Author

    Deborah Niemann

    Deborah Niemann is a homesteader, writer, and self-sufficiency expert. In 2002, she relocated her family from the suburbs of Chicago to a 32 acre parcel on a creek "in the middle of nowhere". Together, they built their own home and began growing the majority of their own food. Sheep, pigs, cattle, goats, chickens, and turkeys supply meat, eggs and dairy products, while an organic garden and orchard provides fruit and vegetables. A highly sought-after speaker and workshop leader, Deborah presents extensively on topics including soapmaking, breadbaking, cheesemaking, composting and homeschooling. She is the author of three books: Homegrown and Handmade, Ecothrifty, and Raising Goats Naturally, as well as the ebook, Just Kidding: Stories and Reflections on Goats Giving Birth.

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      Book preview

      Just Kidding - Deborah Niemann

      Just Kidding

      Stories and Reflections on Goats Giving Birth

      Deborah Niemann

      Copyright © 2015 Deborah Niemann

      All rights reserved.

      Distributed by Smashwords

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      deborahwrites@yahoo.com

      https://www.facebook.com/ThriftyHomesteader

      https://twitter.com/deborahwrites

      Ebook formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com

      Contents

      INTRODUCTION

      CHAPTER 1: Normal Birth: When Everything Goes Well

      CHAPTER 2: Not Bad - But Not Normal

      CHAPTER 3: When Things Go Wrong With Birthing

      CHAPTER 4: Caesareans

      CHAPTER 5: Challenges With Newborns

      CHAPTER 6: Death

      FINAL THOUGHTS

      INTRODUCTION

      There is nothing about goat ownership that creates more anticipation, excitement, frustration, and fear than birthing. It's wonderful to walk into the barn one morning and see a couple of kids bouncing around and nursing. But it feels like you've been punched in the stomach when you walk in and see a distressed doe or a dead or malformed kid. If you've never seen a goat give birth before, you don't really know if something is normal or not. As a former childbirth educator and doula, I knew all about human birth, but I soon learned that goats are very different.

      Only three months after I brought home my first goats in 2002, I became a member of several goat groups on Yahoo. Because I knew no goat owners, other than the woman who sold me the goats, the Yahoo groups filled the role that a knowledgeable neighbor or parent would have filled a century ago. Whenever something happened that worried me, I'd sign on and ask for help. There were always other goat owners out there in Cyberspace who offered advice and encouragement.

      Today there are also Google groups, Facebook groups, and Ning groups. Five years ago, I started my own group on Ning for owners of Nigerian dwarf goats (nigeriandwarfgoats.ning.com). Through the years, I have seen thousands of posts from goat owners all over the world, and I've noticed that kidding is the event that seems to cause more anxiety than anything else.

      So many people join an online group and post something like this:

      We're new goat owners and awaiting the birth of our first kids! Anything we need to do or know? How do we know everything is going okay? What do we do if we have to help? Any advice is appreciated! Thanks!

      This book is part of the answer to that question, but because every birth is different, it will also hold some value for those who are not new to kidding. In my book, Raising Goats Naturally: A Complete Guide to Milk, Meat, and More, I explain all of the technical aspects of birthing goats. But most people don't feel like that's enough to help them feel prepared because there are so many exceptions to normal that are not a problem. When someone asks me if something is normal, my answer is almost always, It depends. Every goat is unique, and every birth is different, even from one year to the next with the same doe. I have some goats that were born on this farm, gave birth for ten years and are now retired. All of their births were different even though they could usually be described as normal.

      The idea behind this book is to share stories of real goats giving birth. I view every kidding as a learning experience, from the very first one to the ones that will happen in our next kidding season. I also learn from experiences that other people share with me, and I sometimes think of those stories when I am with a goat in labor. The stories in this book all come from my Antiquity Oaks blog, where I've been chronicling the births of our goats since 2006. Most of the posts were written within a day or two of the kidding, so you get to read about all of the raw emotions - the joy and sometimes the sadness - that came with each birth.

      The advantage of reading the birth stories here is that I will comment on the birth as I see it today. As they say, hindsight is 20/20. Sometimes I look back on these births and know that I should have done something differently. With other births, I realize that nothing would have made a difference in the outcome. As you read through these births, you will probably be thinking about what you would have done in that situation and how you might have responded differently. At some point, you might also get paranoid - or you might think that there is something terribly wrong with our goats and that none of this will ever happen to you.

      When you read about the difficult births, remember that I am purposely sharing stories of our worst births. We have had more than 400 kids born on our farm as I write this, and the vast majority of births have been happy occasions with smiling humans and healthy kids. We have only had two caesarean sections, and only one has died as a result of kidding complications. There are farms with worse records, and there are farms with better records, but if you have goats long enough, you will have some unhappy experiences. However, the happy experiences will far outweigh the sad ones. Whenever anyone asks me what I love most about our farm life, I always respond, Kidding season!

      Disclaimer: Keep in mind that I am not a vet and that nothing in this book is meant to be veterinary advice. It can be challenging to figure out what to do when you are in the midst of a birthing situation, and it would be a mistake to assume that any information provided in a book represents the path you need to take in any particular situation. This

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