As one of our Instagram followers pointed out, I totally called it with Nutmeg! She gave birth last night after evening chores. Though, I should probably give Girl 1 the credit. She's the one that reported to me early yesterday that Nutmeg was "gooey," prompting me to start watching her even more closely. (My kids are getting QUITE the education here on the farm!)
We were able to witness the miracle as Nutmeg became momma to first a little girl and then a boy. She's older but weighing in at 6.8 lbs, she's much smaller than her thumper of a brother who weighed in at 8.8 lbs. -- pretty hefty for a twin!
They are Carson and Mrs. Hughes. I'm pretty pleased that we had a boy/girl combo because I was hoping to get to use those names. We don't own a television and watch very few shows online, but we never miss a Downton Abbey, and the season finale left me actually clapping at the end as stoic Carson proposed to the reservedly wry and warm Mrs. Hughes.
Delivery went pretty smoothly. (Birthing footage has been posted to Facebook, but technical difficulties preclude me from posting it here). Nutmeg was amazing. But, she was experiencing a really strong instinct to paw at the ground and was doing it pretty violently right up until she delivered her afterbirth, which took several hours. She's such a large animal (literally off the charts on all of our goat dosing instructions for medications and such) and quite strong. Once the kids had arrived, we had to move them out of the way several times as she may have crushed them with her instinctual pawing.
And, I had been pretty excited that these kiddos were born before bedtime. Kidding season is pretty tiring, so I was looking forward to a full night's sleep. That wasn't to be, though, as the kiddos were having trouble latching on to Nutmeg's cow-like teats. I kept checking in on them throughout to the night and helping them find the sustenance they were trying so hard to get. At one point, they actually met up underneath momma and were sucking on one another's noses. :)
Today, though, they seem to have figured things out. We've seen them find the teats on their own and actually latch on several times.
Solo, Honey's 4-day-old little one, was pretty excited to see the new additions to the nursery. She keeps trying to get Momma to play, but Honey will have none of that nonsense. Now Solo has some friends to jump around with!