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Goats

Toshua Thomas
Professor Autrey
English 1003
October 6, 2008
Kidding
Early one Friday morning, August 1, 2008, I walked outside to feed Anna Belle, our Pygmy goat, and I noticed she had stared to discharge gooey, yellowish mucus. I rushed into the house to tell my husband, Jacob, “Anne Belle is in labor!” I ran back outside to see her as I paced the ground and waited for thirty minutes to see the moment I had anticipated for five months. Nothing was happening though I ran back into the house, got on the internet, and looked up nanny goats in labor. While I had searched and found my answer, I heard Anne Belle bellow out a loud, forceful cry….
Goats are bread for a many purposes: milk, milk products, meat, brush control, mohair, and cashmere, skins for leather, commercial antibody production, packing, and companionship. A pygmy goat is a small breed of domestic goat. Pygmy goats tend to be more robust and breed more continually throughout the year than either dairy or meat goats. Pygmy goats are precocious breeders, bearing one to four young every nine to twelve months after a five-month gestation period. Does are usually bred for the first time at about twelve to eighteen months, although they may conceive as early as two months if care is not taken to separate them early from bucklings; a buckling is a young male goat. An adult female goat that is pregnant is called a nanny goat and her young goats are called kids. The act of a pregnant nanny goat giving birth is called kidding. A farmer must recognize any problems that may arise before, during, and after kidding to properly care for the nanny goat, kids, and prevent any complications that may occur. When proper care for a nanny goat is taken, watching her pregnancy, labor, and birth is the most amazing and exciting moments ever experienced. To properly care for a nanny goat pregnancy, first, a farmer must know how to care for a pregnant nanny goat; next, a farmer must know how to care for...