Yes the moment we have all been waiting for, (365 days waiting!)   Lil Luster had her cria Friday about 1:00.    It is a black male, so far we are calling him Lil Dude, but I am hoping those of you reading the blog can give us a better name.   It was over 100 degrees and very humid.  Poor girl.  During early labor she cushed in the kiddy pool, but once I saw the nose I had to get her out, the cria starts gasping for air as soon as the nose emerges.  So then I stood with a hose keeping her cool, or holding a towel up over my head to shade her.   Thank less job this mid- wife thing!  no body worried about me during all this! 

Proper birth should see a nose,  then shortly after two feet,  most the time the legs will come out up to about the knee and then the head,  after the head comes out,  some times you have to wait a bit for anything else to happen,  because she needs to dilate a bit more to get the shoulders out.  Once the shoulders are out pretty much the whole cria just slides out head first on the ground.  I like to catch them on a towel so they are not all covered in dirt right off the bat,  but catching 20 pounds of wet slimy wiggly cria is no easy feat!.

Once out I first check to see if you have a boy or a girl, and is it breathing? Next I stick your finger in its mouth to see if there is suck reflex, and then make a quick assessment of over all heath.    If the weather is cooler I towel dry it, even blow dry if it’s cold, but with Fridays heat, the towels were used to keep the sweat out of my eyes.   There is a very thin kind of bag on the cria, it dries quick and pretty much just falls off but you want to be sure it’s not wrapped around the foot or nose.  once dry it will shrink up and get very tight!
Chickens love to eat this bag.  Yum, string cheese! 

Now you pretty much stand back and let mama bond and cria get to its feet. Mama still has to pass the placenta, a big blue blob that fed the cria while he was growing. The hope is the cria will be standing on his own and nursing in about an hour. 
 A lot of people like to stay away from the cria let it bond with mama, I like to touch the cria all over, ears, feet mouth, and belly.  We often put a halter on it the day it is born.   My 11 year old daughter does all the training and it’s much easier to train a 20 pound cria, who has no idea he’s suppose to be afraid of people than waiting until they are six months and 80 pounds and not at all trusting of two legged creatures.