We were told that goats give birth easily, not to worry, we'd possibly see signs of them wanting to give birth, then the next day come down to find one or two new arrivals in the pen, no problems at all.

How wrong they were.

Our introduction to goat keeping and goats giving birth was not an easy ride. We'd been told by lots of experienced goat keepers how easy it was, that the goats did all the hard work, and they were no problem at all, not like those pesky sheep that get into all sorts of problems.

On Friday Snövit started showing signs of going into labour - for the last couple of weeks she looked like she'd swallowed an articulated lorry sideways, and now she was ready to give birth. The evening went by, and no sign of anything happening. The next morning, a few contractions, but still nothing really happening.

We started to get worried. We phoned a friend, and then we really started to worry. This wasn't normal. This isn't what goats do. It was Saturday morning, and the vet was with us within half-an-hour. He checked over the goat, spotted a problem, and basically we had to whisk the goat up to the neighbouring village for an emergency caeserian. It became apparent that most people in the village had never seen a goat in the back of a car before!