Can you even believe these two??
We had our first of many births here on the Hooker Homestead!
We knew our goat Pearl was going to have her kids "any day", but we never imagined they would make their entrance literally minutes before totality of the solar eclipse!
There really isn't a crazy, cool birth story (though every birth is crazy and cool, IMO). We were building our nesting boxes, which are right next to the pen we keep Fern and Pearl, our two Nigerian Dwarf goats. I stepped out and glanced over in the corner where Pearl was laying down, but it wasn't just your average "laying down". I could tell she was a little more uncomfortable and things were in motion. Fern came over like the gentle, helpful midwife she is (NOT) and stood up and gave her a good solid headbutt. Pearl tried to react to this rather forceful high-five of encouragment (face palm, haha, literally), but decided against it.
I quickly grabbed a rope and tied Fern to the opposite corner of the pen so that she'd leave Pearl alone for a while and in less than 2 minutes, an adorable little tri-color female slipped out.
Pearl stood up, paying little attention to the new little baby, and laid down again. As it was her first time kidding, I figured she might only have 1 ... maybe 2. So when she went down again, she very quickly pushed out another little kid, this time, a brown and white male.
Pearl passed her placenta about 2 hours later, and both babies were up and nursing very quickly. We got to enjoy the solar eclipse, knowing that we had two extra little babes on the place to see it with us (though I'm sure they didn't care too much haha). It's so fun watching Pearl be a mom, too. She's so good. One of my favorite thing about watching animals have babies is how natural they take to being a mother. So nurturing. So protective. So intuitive.
And c'mon, what an adorable set of kids! I can't get over how small these Nigerian Dwarf babies are! And watching them run and jump ... oh, that's something else.
We're pretty obsessed with our little Solar (male) and Eclipse (female)!
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