The day started quite normally feeding everyone and putting some Neem on Ariadne who seemed to be rather troubled by flies yesterday. Claudia was a bit restless and we wondered if today was 'the day'. We cleared up all the buckets and were just making a cup of coffee around 9am when Neil noticed that a small foot was peeping from Claudia's backside. She did seem to be making rather heavier weather of the birth but it was her first so we went back into the kitchen to drink our coffee. I went out to check a few minutes later and was very concerned that there still only appeared to be one foot, although it was right out by now. I approached cautiously to check more closely and sure enough there was just the one.
I phoned the vet and left a message that we needed someone urgently and then we went back outside to prepare a bucket of warm water,gloves etc. Still no sign or phone back from the vet so we decided we'd have to get stuck in ourselves. I did phone Liz Barlow to check what I thought we should do was correct and then we went out. Neil caught her quite easily and I got the gloves on and eased the little one back inside. Then I started feeling around to try and find the other foot. I couldn't find it so Neil had ago. We were getting a little worried when the vet arrived. Were we pleased to see her. She found the 'missing' foot quite easily - it was just a little bit low and pushing on her pelvis- so she eased it out and then the baby started coming quite easily. After a while we left her to it and the baby was out by 10 am - a lovely little grey boy we're going to call 'Darius'. It's now just after 10.30 and Mum is sitting next to baby looking very smug. Everyone else has come to have a good look and Darius is trying hard to stand up.