Finley

Bella had her baby on Sunday evening. And, it's a girl!

Meet Finley! 

It was quite exciting. Sunday morning I got up and checked Bella and found that she had "lost" her ligaments. There are two ligaments that run diagonally from just above the tail. When those loosen enough that you can no longer feel them then delivery will be within 24 hours. So I got my kit and pulled up a chair. And waited, and waited, and waited. She was showing signs of early labor off and on all day until about 5pm when her stage 2 labor started and she was ready to deliver.

My concern was that Bella would only have one kid thus making for a larger baby for her first delivery. Unfortunately I was right. When a doe kids you want to see little hooves first followed quickly by a nose (or two back feet). We only saw a little nose. The baby's feet were tucked back. I gave her a few minutes to see if she was going to be able to deliver, but it appeared that the baby was stuck. I was able to go in and find one foot and gently pull that one forward, but I couldn't find the other front foot. The foot was straight back. A doe can deliver that way and Bella probably could have delivered if it had been twins (because chances are they would have been smaller), but with the baby being bigger her shoulder was caught on Bella's pelvic bone. I ended up sliding my hand along the top of Finley and down over her shoulder during a contraction and dislodging the shoulder and allowing her to slide on out.

There were a few tense moments, but it was wonderful to see a healthy baby doeling slide out and see Bella get right to work cleaning her up. Bella was a little bit of an overzealous mom. All she did was lick Finley and Finley couldn't get close enough to eat. We had to hold Bella to let Finley eat the first couple of times. They have now both settled in and are doing well now.

Here are some pictures of the delivery (*warning, they are a bit graphic)...






Here I am trying to find the feet

Here I've found one foot and the head is out. We couldn't get past this point until I dislodged the shoulder.

Here is Bella cleaning up Finley. I dried off the major goo and cleaned up around the nose and mouth, but let Bella do the rest. It was a nice warm sunny day, so I wasn't worried about Finley getting too cold in the process. 

First time up on her feet! It was hard to stand with that much licking from mom.

Holding Bella while Finley got her first drink.

My mom and her husband were over for the big event. The original plan was to let the kids watch, but when the birth didn't go as planned my Mom took the kids inside and kept them busy (Thanks, Mom!) until we were sure that everything was going to turn out ok. Here is my son meeting Finley for the first time.

Finley at 2 hours old.

The plan is to keep Finley and breed her when she gets close to 1 year old. After all that work I don't think I could sell her anyway. She is exactly what we wanted (and she has ears!)