Zanzibah Zyisha .....has arrived !!

 

 

Well after 345 days we have our eagerly awaited new arrival and it has not been plain sailing !

Early on Wednesday morning I could tell that Salsa had gone into labour, by 9.40am the new arrival was here, firstly a lovely little girl !! She is beautiful, this is Zeto's very first baby here.  She already has nickname .....she is called Dolly Mixture !  If we didn't have a tradition of naming our babies with a 'Z' then that's what I would call her . 

 

Her real name is Zanzibah Zyisha ........

 

 

Salsa delivered her without any problems, but after she was born the problems began .... Salsa would not let the baby any where near to feed.  She stood guard and stayed close, but would not entertain any attempt for the baby to feed.  I noticed that we were having a few issues around 11am, its a bit of a difficult call, you don't want to interfere but you have to if there is no sign of any chance of the mother allowing the baby to feed.  

 

I keep powdered colostrum and goats milk for cases of emergency.  Thankfully the baby was strong and had a good sucking ability.  Zyisha actually took around 50ml.  The vet was called and it was confirmed that Salsa didn't have allot of milk, she has been given an injection to help with that.  Throughout the day Salsa continued to reject the baby, I supplemented feeds every 3 hours up to midnight on Wednesday.  I decided not to feed during the night just in case things changed and the baby managed to feed from her mother.  I went to check at 7am and found that both mother and baby were in the right place, it looked like there might have been a little bit of feeding happening !

 

I decided to supplement a feed around midday and then turned all the girls and babies out into the little baby paddock for the afternoon.

 

If this wasn't enough to contend with, I was multi-tasking ... I had two fields cut on Sunday, one to be made into haylage and the hill was hoping to be made into hay.  So during Tuesday night the contractor turned up to bale the haylage, I had spent Tuesday afternoon rowing it up ready for them, they turned up at 10pm for me to bale it up.  I have managed to get 32 small 3ft round bales of lovely haylage..... this will be feed for my animals through the winter.

Salsa is keeping a close eye on her little baby, but would not let her feed .... Zazu is greeting the new arrival to the herd.

 

I have also been busy turning the hay on the hill, this was ready to be baled up on Wednesday, the day it all happened ......and what a day it turned out to be !  The field was eventually baled up in the afternoon as we had rain forecast for Thursday ..... collecting the outside bales to be wrapped as this will also be haylage, I spent all day carting and stacking hay ready for the contractor to come and wrap it up last night ......

 

This is a very nice sight ....haylage made and being wrapped ....job done !!  We were on all night until around 11pm .....

 

I have around 52 bales of haylage and in total have managed to get approx 87 bales from the two fields.  This is me now going to have a little bit of a break !  Well, actually I have to collect the remainder of the hay up off the field, sometime over the weekend.

 

Finally ........... I shall end with our new arrival .....she is definitely going to bring lots of colour here with her multi-colours.

 

Well this marks the end of the birthing season for us here this year.  I'd just like to say 

 

 ......... the Future is still .... Fine 'n' Fancy ..........

 

Here in Zanzibah Land !!