Pregnancy Test Results!

The results are in!

We sent blood off for seventeen goats two weeks ago. Goats are seasonal breeders and this was our first serious attempt at breeding goats "out of season" in order to make sure that we had milk through the winter. There is only one lab (that we are aware of) in the United States that does these specialized pregnancy tests for goats. It took a few weeks, but the results came back that we have six goats confirmed pregnant, three whose titer levels are borderline and who need to be repeated and a disappointing eight who came back as not pregnant. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised. We were trying to rather work outside of what is natural so we shouldn't have expected to see as many successfully bred as we would if it were the right time of year. And there are still those three who may well be pregnant...it is just so frustrating to have to go through the process of drawing blood and shipping it across the country. If only it were as easy with goats as it is for people, where you can simply pee on a stick and see an instant "yes". Like I did, the same day that we got the goat's pregnancy tests back.

So...somewhere between 6 and 9 goats due the first week of December and one person due the first week of May.

We are a fertile lot, after all.