Punky Brewster

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Punky Brewster was born a single goat.  She and I spent a lot of time together when she was a kid, so out of all out goats, she is the most attached to me.  From day one, and for the first few weeks of her life I would bring her into our house, set her on the bed, lay down, and she would cuddle up right next to me and fall asleep.  She was so comfortable that she would stretch her legs all the way out and start snoring.  After a while she wasn’t interested in coming in the house because she wanted to be outside with the rest of her herd, but every time I’d lay down in the goat yard, she’d lay on my stomach and chew her cud or take a nap.  Once she got too big for that, she started laying down beside me, which she still does till this day.  Sometimes when I’m sitting in the bench swing, she will jump up and lay next to me.  She’s generally a well behaved goat and even warns me when the other goats do something they shouldn’t.  The other day I heard Punky cry out, “Bleeeeh, bleeeeh!” Translation: Ginny, all the other goats escaped! I’m still in the pen ‘cuz I’m a good goat.

Since Punky was a single kid and also female, we decided to keep her for breeding once she was old enough.  She’s now 5 and has yet to kid.  The first time we bred her, two years ago, it didn’t take and then we ended up deciding to put it off for a year.  Last year, she took but had a miscarriage.  That was probably our fault because we moved midway through her pregnancy and it stressed her out.  Punky is somewhat of a high anxiety goat (aka spoiled) and always wants to be comfortable.  We had a blood test done which confirmed that she was pregnant but her body reabsorbed the fetus.  So I wasn’t expecting a kid last year, but I also wasn’t expecting her to deliver a placenta.  A couple weeks after her due date, I noticed some bleeding which I figured had to do with the miscarriage.  So I kept an eye on her and, after a short while, she delivered the placenta.  At this point, I was waiting for her to go back into heat so I could start charting her cycles and we could breed her again. Then, a couple months later, I noticed her udder seemed swollen as if it contained milk.  So I tried milking her, and sure enough, she produced a little milk!  I was so surprised, even though I had heard of this before.  A friend of mine, a former veterinarian, advised me that it was likely a pseudo pregnancy.  A pseudo pregnancy typically happens the first time the animal is due to go back into heat following a miscarriage.  The timeline was right on for Punky.  I milked her for several months, even though she produced barely anything, but I dried her up a couple months ago since we bred her again in February and she is expecting.

We bred her with RedBull, a beautiful reddish-brown buck.  This one took and Punky is due in early July.  She has remained active, has a good appetite, and loves her belly to be rubbed.  Now I’m at the point where I’m watching for signs of labor.  I’ll keep you posted when we have baby goats running around the place!