It seems like we’ve just wrapped up milking and the holiday hubbub.  Instead of  just relaxing, we find ourselves immediately looking forward to the coming year.

Case in point:  The girls are pregnant again and preparing to start milking anew come March.  At least some of them are, anyway.

Here we are, checking each goat to make sure that they are pregnant  Our trusty veterinarian, Dr. Barry, clips  the hair from a little corner of the tummy of each girl.  With a little rubbing alcohol and a livestock ultrasound machine, he can determine if the goat is pregnant.  For extra credit, he might even mention how many kids he sees.  (We don’t tend to worry about that too much- one is enough!)

Vicky is pregnant!  Yay!  The picture below shows the cotyledons in the uterus where the placenta attaches (the little white bean-shape).   The black space is amniotic fluid.  No little goats in this picture, though they’re hard to distinguish from other things going on in an ultrasound anyway.  If Vicky weren’t pregnant, there would be nothing but solid white.

The overall results?  43 pregnant, 11 not pregnant (they will be rechecked- if they’re due later the pregnancy might not have showed up) 3 we couldn’t catch!