The goat who cried NOT pregnant! Or is she? Here I am again blogging about Honey's maternal status! I first would like to clarify that I do have an IQ in the triple digits. I have had two children of my own and been around hundreds of pregnant horses. I felt I was, at the very least, somewhat qualified to notice if a goat were to be pregnant. I was wrong! To recap: Honey was bred on November 9th. I was there... I saw it happen! Within 18 days she was in a full blown heat. Like clockwork she came in heat almost every 18 days following. I "assumed" she was not pregnant. As winter progressed, Honey's winter coat came in and only started to notice in the past 4 weeks how bulbous she was looking. It must be the feed, or her coat, right? Not one thought of pergnancy. Making many excuses for her global figure (I have years of experience doing that for myself!!). Ironically, 2 weeks ago, we had just returned, in the evening, from getting 2 of our other does bred up at Rusty Repp's, while David and I stood in the paddock with all the goaties, David commented on how round Honey was looking. We just paused in silence for a moment staring at Honey, slowly looked back at each other with eyebrows up! No... she can't be. It was getting dark fast, so had to wait until the next day to get a solid look at everything. First thing, put her on the milkstand and gave her a full exam! She definitely felt round and tight, but just couldn't tell about the udder with all the hair. She is not freakishly big, so it's not ultra obvious. With the hair, it was really hard to tell definitively. We actually spent last week, convinced she wasn't pregnant. Back to the hair excuse! It has been quite warm the past few days and the goats seemed to be a little stressed with their winter coats. We decided to rough clip a couple to give them some relief. We did Bear, and Nilly first. Pulled Honey out, and with each swipe of the blade across her side, we became more certain, this may be a baby. The ultimate test...what was happening with her udder. You be the judge! We are still not 100% convinced, but are erring on the side of caution, getting all our supplies and fixing her a nice place to have her baby. Here due date would be April 3rd...two weeks! Check out our blog posts regarding Honey's pregnancy 11/15/2010 and 1/19/2011
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