Heather Kidded, It's a Girl!

On Wednesday April 30th at approximately 2:30 pm Heather kidded, with a single girl! We named her Emmy Lou.
I was sitting on the couch after a late lunch, reading "The Wave", and listening to George Strait ( I know, it was a little distracting..), when my sister ran in saying, "Heather's in labor, hurry!". So we ran out with an arm load of clean old towels and a camera and found Heather walking around like nothing was happening, with a little black nose and a toe sticking out of her! I wiped the mucus off the little nose and we herded Heather into the new barn. She then suddenly went into labor in earnest, laid down, and Emmy Lou was born about 1 minuet later, right into my arms.  Actually she was half way out and she started trying to stand up! I had to gently pull her out with the rhythm of Heather's contractions because, since she was laying down instead of standing as usual, gravity was not helping.
After we got her out, my sister took Emmy Lou into the house and dried her off with the towels and a blow dryer. I stayed with Heather and made sure there was not a second kid and that she passed her afterbirth. I also gave her a handful of Texas Naturals Sheep and Goat Feed (this is a non-GMO, soy free, corn free pelleted feed which I purchased at Brenham Produce) mixed with a drizzle of molasses to give her an energy boost. She passed her afterbirth an hour later and seemed to be doing very well. Then I notice that she had a small tear in her vulva. I had never had this happen before, but then, she is also my first first freshener! I put an antibacterial iodine wash on the area and it seems to be healing quite fast! I tried milking her out but, although she did not kick once (good girl Heather! :D), she was not letting her milk down and what I got did not look like colostrum! I worked on her for awhile but only got about a cup and she was still quite tight.  Her teats are also small, but that is already improving. Luckily we had a colostrum re-placer (Manna Pro brand) on hand so we fed Emmy Lou that.
I am a bit proud of how fast Emmy Lou took to the bottle, it was like she had been drinking from it for years! :) Her mama and Aunt Lily had taken some coxing to take theirs. She drank the whole bottle, about 2 cups, that afternoon. Before she ate we weighed her and she was exactly 7 pounds.
Emmy Lou has been lots of fun so far. She sleeps through the night in her little box without a peep until she hears us moving around. She is staying in the house until she is through with colostrum, (about 3 days) and we have a few more kids born and ready to keep her company.
We have 3 dogs, 2 sweet Anatolian, Great Pyrenees, Akbash mix dogs, Eva and Zeki, who stay outside and protect everyone, and my sister's little Boston Terrier, Joey. Emmy Lou doesn't realize she is smaller then them and neither did Eva and Zeki. She chased the big dogs quite a bit before they realized what was really going on! The same thing happened last year with baby Lily and Heather! Now Eva thinks of her as her own little puppy and is always waiting by the door for Emmy Lou to come out so she can lick her and follow her around. Joey sees Emmy Lou as the only thing smaller then him on the farm, and at first he thought he was going to be her boss, but Emmy just ignores his attempts to be dominate and nurses on his face wrinkles and chases him!

Emmy Lou also got to meet her daddy, King. He was tied near by to eat a patch of poison ivy when she came out to use the bathroom, and when he saw her he immediately stopped and just stood there and watched her. We decided to let them meet, and picked her up and brought her to him. He was very gentle. He sniffed her very carefully and then just stood back and looked at her. She was very quite. It was the sweetest thing ever! :)

Today Emmy is really getting frisky! She prances around constantly! She is a joy to watch. :)