2018 Kidding Schedule, Ultrasounds, Puppies, Freemartin?

A whole post on reproduction...

So first, our 2018 kidding schedule.

Molly is bred to Mr. Black and due January 31st.
Marion is bred to Sam and due February 27th.
Simcoe is bred to Serrano and due February 28th.
Izzy is bred to Sam and due March 1st.
The others are not confirmed bred yet, but are as follows
Sonnet bred to Black and Serrano(stupid fence jumper) and possibly due March 15th.
Bunny bred AI to Willow-Run Chevalier Riposte and possibly due March 29th.
Clare bred AI to Iron-Rod Sullivan Advance and possibly due March 31st.
(Sonnet, Bunny, and Clare's kids will have to be DNA'd thanks to Serrano.)
That leaves Jazzy to be bred to Serrano in a week or so, and Li* to be bred to Sam or Serrano when she finally decides to come into heat.
We don't have any clue about Desi.


Mom recently invested in an ultrasound machine and we've been having loads of fun with it. Below are some of the results we've gotten from it.

Molly's kid at 66 days. We couldn't count how many kids she has because they are too big to fit into the monitor screen at the same time.

 

Marion, Izzy, and Simcoe all have 2 for sure, and possibly more that we missed.

Marion baby #1, already very distinguishable as a baby goat.

Marion baby #2 It's head on in this image and a little distorted. It was very hard to find and was doing flips so we didn't have a chance to get a good picture.

This blog post was written, added to, and edited, over the course of 8 days. I vowed that I wasn't going to put this post up until I knew for sure whether or not Kate was pregnant. I was almost positive she was, but wanted to know beyond all doubt before saying anything, lest I have to eat my words. You can't even believe how hard it was, and how many times I almost just posted what I had already written, without the latest details!

I bred Kate to a stud here in Goldendale. He's almost 11 years old, and is a tri color, and a very strong worker. The fellow told Lucas that that dog'll grab a cow by the nose and flip it. I'm not sure what he meant by that-like, if the cow in running away at full blast, the dog will latch onto to nose and the momentum will cause the cow to flip? I'm really not quite sure. But anyway, he keeps reiterating how hard of a worker that dog is/was before both he and the dog got too old to go out helping on the local ranchers' cattle gathers and drives. When I saw the dog, I was immediately impressed with his temperament-he seemed very level headed and friendly, but not overly friendly or excited. How much of that is genetics and how much is due to the fact that he's getting kinda elderly is anybody's guess. 

I originally wanted her bred to their younger dog, because I was worried that this dog was too old to be fertile, but the younger dog didn't know what he was doing and never ended up getting the job done. 

So, I've been waiting impatiently, keeping a hawk eye on Kate, looking for any signs of pregnancy. I was quite positive that her belly started filling out, and got excited, because at 19 days from the first breeding, I thought her gums were getting white, which is a sure sign of pregnancy. However, it was just the fact that she had just gotten out of bed and her circulation wasn't going yet, as the other dogs looked the same and they pinked up in a few minutes. 

After two attempts at finding puppies on an ultrasound, we finally found them today! We think we counted five, but they are still small and hard to see. We're gonna ultrasound again in a week to get a more sure count.

All pups will be for sale, and should be great working dogs and wonderful pets too. Kate is touchy around other dogs, but has never shown anything other than submissiveness and affection for humans. Contact me if interested in buying one. 

Oh, and Bonny is currently in heat too, so she's been bred to Kimber and should be due mid-late January with 3/4 Golden Retriever and 1/4 Border Collie pups.

*So, onto the freemartin part, and the asterisk next to Li's name in the kidding list. I typed up the kidding list last week, before I knew the below information.

Li was born last November, and has never come into heat. Her teats have also always been very small, and she looks a little odd "back there." I started thinking about it on Saturday, and wondered if she could be a freemartin like 99% of bull/heifer twins are-the heifer, not the bull. Though it's more uncommon in goats than in cows, and extremely common for goats to have buck/doe mixed litters with no issues, it's not rare to get a freemartin out of a mixed litter. More often than producing a freemartin, certain lines and especially breeding polled/polled goats will result in hermaphrodite kids-basically the kid is half buck half doe, and, depending on the severity, cannot function as either. That animal generally looks and acts very bucky, i.e. big beard, masculine, etc. Li is not showing any of those signs-she looks, acts, and sounds like a doe, which is indicative of a freemartin.

Anyway, Mom suggested that I see if I can put an AI speculum in her. In the case of a freemartin, the tract is extremely short and the speculum probably won't go in more than an inch. I couldn't get the speculum in for anything. Finally, I decided to "go in" like I would to help a doe kid, and didn't get one finger in more than 2 inches before hitting a solid wall. I contacted the breeder and she offered me my money back, or I can apply that money to a kid to buy from her. I'll take the kid option-I don't  yet know if it'll be a kid from this fall, or next spring. 

Needless to say, I'm extremely disappointed, but I'll probably keep her around as a pet because I love her too much to sell at this point. For a long time I've talked about doing an experiment to see if goats can be trained like dogs and learn tricks and such. I never really followed through with it, because I needed an animal that wouldn't need break from training(i.e. pregnancy, kidding and trying to keep weight on while milking) and wouldn't have a big udder always getting in the way of, say, jumping over things. I could have saved back a wether, but I never really wanted that for some reason. Well, now I have that animal. Maybe I'll train her for cart and pack too, while I'm at it.