Circle M Farm

Weather.com is flashing yet another winter storm watch at our area, a storm which all of us here hope is the last big snow of the season. Meanwhile at Circle M, we’re in the midst of our own Gabby Watch.

This petite little lady, a Nigerian Dwarf doe, always looks like a barrel propped on toothpicks when she’s pregnant, and she’s really pregnant now. The picture doesn’t quite show how her belly is nearly grazing the ground at this point!

In a matter of days, Gabby will be having her third set of kids. Though she pretty much ignored her first twins, Bugle and Bunny, who spent the first weeks of their lives being bottle fed in our 2nd floor bathroom, last year she proved to be a wonderful mom to Tiny and Trumpet. We expect she’ll do a great job this year, too, though she continues to be the most belligerent animal on the farm, a situation somewhat mitigated by the fact that she is also one of the tiniest.

Whatever her personality deficits, Gabby does tend to compensate by being adorable, and her babies are exponentially more so! They tend to be shy, but they aren’t pushy like she is.

Here’s Tiny, a day after his birth last April. Now he’s a pet on a farm in Blue Mounds.

Before lambing and kidding season, I like to read up on the birthing chapters in my various homestead manuals. My dairy goat book tells me to look for signs of nervousness in the doe about 140 days after conception, since gestation is about 145 to 155 days. We don’t know when Gabby conceived, however, or even who by, since she’s slightly out of season based on our breeding plan.

And I wouldn’t call her nervous, yet, though I do see that she is standing away from the herd more and more. I think she feels a bit fragile now, where a week ago, she was just plain cranky with everyone. More cranky than usual, more willing to start fights. I also see that her tummy, previously held quite horizontally out from her sides, has dropped considerably, leaving a hollow space on either flank. When she’s really close, slight curves will sink in on either side of her tail, too, where her ligaments will loosen. She’s already “bagging up,” developing a generous little udder for her size. My favorite behavior the goats acquire as they near delivery is the habit of bending their rotund bodies nearly in half so they can itch and nibble at their tight bellies.

This morning Gabby stood still looking at me for a while, and I saw her nose flaring slightly as she breathed. I wondered if she was having some contractions or cramping or some other kind of mild pain that she had to stand and work through. Am I projecting? Maybe. Four births wasn’t quite enough for me, I guess, and I do take special joy in watching my animals enter into the miracle of life giving.