I leave you alone for the weekend after watching that marestare goat birth and this is what happens!! We just got our computer back today...sorry I couldn't chime in and help, but I'm super glad everyone else was here!
Congrats on the new healthy babies and it sounds like you did an AWESOME job at it! Everything you've posted so far sounds exactly like what I would do and would have suggested you do.
Glenolam yours was one of the usernames I was shouting at my hubby to find online.....but luckily wannabefree, bubblingbrooks and framing fowl were online and played midwife for us.
Someone pointed out to me I should be happy Molly wants to claim Gingers babies, that it means she will love her own.
So we just milked Ginger for the second time. We noticed when we were checking them for the evening that she had filled up on the unfavorite side again....... this morning they were okay but I guess those kids are "lefties" because they like her left side. So we put her on the stanchion again and milked her again.
We are getting better but I still had to switch off with my son, and it still took three people. We had already fed Ginger so grain was not an incentive to get up there. She remembered it hurt last night I think, not that it helped. But we put her babies on a table I set up in front of the stanchion. I meant to put the grain there (I have a mini sized stanchion for my mini goats so it lines up with a card table) but we set the kids there instead. She kissed and licked them the whole time we were milking her and Hubby just made sure they didn't fall off the table.
One of us had to make sure she didn't put her foot in the milk, and then the third person milked her. I know to you experts that sounds terribly silly but at this point it is still a three person job for us. lol
I can see why the kids like the opposite side, the teat hole is bigger. Or maybe from nursing a lot it got larger? But I tested it to see how it was working and it is much easier to milk that side.
But as we milked her right side, it got easier and easier this time. I think she was really engorged before. We were able to get ALL the milk out and the two sides feel nice and equal now. Ginger really liked that and did not want to get down. She liked having her babies there under her nose. I was thinking the mothering instinct probably made her let down her milk too. But I think we got about twice the amount of last time. I saved it even though it is no longer that super valuable milk. I still don't have a strainer for it so I'm just saving this for a different kid, not people consumption.
If I have to keep milking this side though I'll have to figure that out sooner.
I have to try to catch a photo of Ginger's expression with the kids. She is an excellent mom now that she has stopped pawing the ground during her labor! She is almost never more than three feet from them.
Of course, she might be afraid Molly will steal them!
Glad to hear things are going well!!! Look forward to seeing pics. I hope you get the stall situation worked out. Seems it's impossible to predict what they animals will do, and what we will need to do to manage them. I love the idea of cattle panels, if that will work for you. I'll have to remember that, if I ever get more goats or for when mine are finally old enough to kid.