April 25, 2022

Kidding Season 2022 Wrap-Up

And that's a wrap! We ended this year's kidding season with 72 kids (aka baby goats) from 36 pregnant does on our farm in Cambria, California. Kidding season is an exhausting, but vital part of our dairy goat farm and cheesemaking creamery.

Watch this video from Michelle as she talks through kidding season in more detail.

Kidding Season 2022 Overview

Luckily for us, the majority of our does chose to deliver in the middle of the day when we had a full contingent of helpers on hand to tend to their every need. It is a bit like the birthing wing in a hospital, with each doe getting her own personal birthing assistant, round the clock observation, and even breakfast in bed.

The birthing season kicked off with Stephanie’s daughter, Stevie, delivering triplets on February 22, 2022, and ended with Poppy delivering her twin girls on March 29, 2022.

Curry and baby boy

Curry getting to know her new little son.

Those five weeks were action packed on the ranch, with us assisting with births, milking the does, feeding their babies, cleaning countless pens, refreshing food and water every few hours, and making sure no doe delivered without her midwife. The majority of the births this year were twins, with only six of our does delivering singles and another six delivering triplets.

Heather with her baby goat

Heather's baby boy had very similar markings on his side as his mother - this is so rare!

Even though we anticipated some smaller kids this year due to the fact that many of the kids were the offspring of our miniature buck, Lyon, we still ended up with a lot of large kids. The average birth weight of the kids was 8 ¼ pound, with the largest coming in at 12.25 pound and the smallest weighing only 4.88 pounds.

Sorrel and her babies

Sorrel and her three babies - she's trying to relax and the babies are ready to play!

As grateful as we are to have made it through the trials and tribulations of another birthing season, it feels a little bittersweet for it to be over already.

We savor those moments when we help bring our favorite doe’s little ones into the world and are privy to their first quiet goaty conversation - or when those same little ones slowly stand on wobbly legs and plunge toward their moms as though they are on a capsizing ship in a hurricane - or when we move those kids outside into their larger pens for the first time and spontaneously skyrocket into the air as though they cannot contain their exuberance - those moments are priceless to us crazy goat people and we cannot thank our goat sponsors enough for continuing to make them possible for us!

Lavender's babies napping