Hindel Kidz 37: Maybe Baby
HINDEL KIDZ #37
MAYBE BABY
Rhonda hoped Belle would not be bred since her body was so small. Being her favorite goat, Rhonda didn’t want Jack to lose Belle due to any complications.
On March 26th, they learned Belle had been bred. Grace noticed it when she saw Belle had milk. She thought Belle was going to have a single.
After Dr. Robb had delivered Jane’s twins, he asked Jack, “How many more are bred?”
“Six,” Jack replied.
“Six?!”
“I have six loaves of bread in the fridge,” Jack answered. At first, they thought he was joking, but he was completely serious. He must have thought Dr. Robb wanted to know how much bread he fed the goats
since Jane was so heavy.
When Jack didn’t say anything else, Dr. Robb put it bluntly, “How many more goats are pregnant?”
“Oh.” Jack realized he had misunderstood. “You should have said how many goats are due to kid.” Then he answered the question. “One.”
Belle’s due date was April 10th. Dr. Robb gave Jack two inducers and instructed him to give them to Belle on April 8th and then bring her in April 10th. Dr. Robb doesn’t like to do C-sections if he doesn’t have to. He would much rather do a scheduled one instead of one because of an emergency. He said inducing usually worked out well and it had for Jane. The closer the goats are to their due dates the better chance the babies have of surviving. Grace was thinking how awful it would be if inducers had been the key to having live babies all along. And they were just finding this out now? What a freaking shame!
Jack was hoping Belle’s baby would survive and he wanted it to be black. He loved teasing Jess about how Belle had to eat snowballs in the winter just to get something to eat because Jess wasn’t coming up to feed her. Jack wanted to take a picture of the baby and send it to her. He was going to tell Jess since there were no more snowballs for Belle to eat; this is what she looked like now.
But on April 7th Jack called and canceled Belle’s appointment. He didn’t think she was far enough along yet. Days went by and Grace started thinking Belle was due in May. By May 5th, (Cinco de Mayo) they were all wondering if Belle was actually expecting. It might not be true.
A week later, Jack thought Belle might be due at the end of the month. But he was still unsure. Her back end had not puffed out yet. She looked like all the other goats that were not bred in that aspect. She had all the other signs. Her sides were sticking out, it looked like she had milk and her teats looked like they were swollen. Jack said he would wait to give her the inducers until her back end puffed out. And then it was off to Mt. Vernon.
As far as names went, if Belle had a doe it was going to be named Annabelle. If it was a buck then it was going to be called Simon. April had turned into May and May turned into June and Belle still wasn’t showing any signs. She must have had a false pregnancy. Jack has started calling her Butch, since she has been acting more like a male than a female. He is disappointed because he didn’t get any babies from her.
Jack said Lainie was now his baby. Well, Coco is probably right up there, too.
Coco, Libby, Clark and Susie went the fair. Coco, Clark and Susie all won first place in their class. Then Coco went on to win junior grand champion, Susie won senior grand champion and Clark won reserve champion in the wether category even though he ran circles around Savannah. Then Coco and Susie went head to head for over all grand champion. Despite all the problems and surgeries, Susie came back to win it. She had surprised everyone since the day she was born. Libby won second place in her class. As far as showmanship goes, Susie was in first place and Coco was in third. Showmanship was more about the people than the goats. Whenever Libby and Clark saw Jack they would bellow at the top of their lungs. They brought home six ribbons, two banners and a couple of frames. No thanks to Savannah or Joey. The judge told Joey she had a good goat and Coco will do well next year. It shocked Grace when Savannah said, “We don’t deserve to keep the ribbons we won.” And it took Savannah this long to figure it out?
