3/24/16Lemon Meringue was a bit a wild thing when she first arrived at our farm. With some time and lots of attention, she quickly turned into a very sweet and quiet little doeling. I was eager to get her bred because she was a lovely, solid, very hardy doe. And of course, she wouldn't settle. At all. Finally, this season she settled and I've been eager to meet her first babies.Lemon was very unhappy when we tried to put her in a kidding stall two days before day 145. She screamed. A lot. We caved and let her out with the other girls during the day, putting her in the kidding stall at night so we could keep an eye on her. Sunday night, she woke up around 2 AM and hollered into our monitor. We didn't sleep. Monday morning we were zombies.Since Monday was day 145, we figured we may still have a day or two of lead time. My husband had to leave for the morning to go pick up a side of beef that was finished at the butchers, and when he gave Lemon a check over, she seemed fine, no signs of labor.As my husband was in route, we were both checking the barn monitor, and low and behold, Lemon began to show signs she was in labor. We both worked on heading home.After we both got back to the house, Lemon began to transition into hard labor. She pushed, but only in very short stints, and not very hard. We were very nervous after Tali's labor, and wondered if there was anything we should/could be doing. When a bubble finally appeared, it was dark and I couldn't identify body parts. She continued to push in short stints without progressing. I decided I needed to check the position of the kid.I found one leg, then the other, and checked the position of the head. All appeared to be well, except I could feel a second sac over the baby's head which appeared to be stopping up the works. I worked on pushing that back and wrapped a small towel around the front legs, working with Lemon's pushing to finally work the baby out. A lovely black and white baby boy.Lemon didn't seem all that inclined to keep pushing, but we knew there was another baby in there. We put the little buckling for her to clean, and after a few minutes, and little gold and white doeling was out and ready for us to clean up.Even with our nervousness and some small snags, we were happy to have another good kidding under our belt, with two beautiful, healthy kids to show for it. I was even able to clean up and go back to work and finish my day, which made the people in my office happy. I call that a good day all around.

2016 Kidding Season - # 6 Lemon

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