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Byline: Karen McCowan The Register-Guard

LOW PASS - Pandemonium the goat did not live up to her name Saturday night, despite having good reason.

Nigerian dwarf does typically deliver two or maybe three kids per litter. Pandemonium delivered five healthy, spunky babies last weekend - including a breech doeling. But if you asked her to describe the experience, she might well have replied, "Not baaaaad."

"Some does in labor really make a racket, but she didn't make any noise at all," said Cheryl Smith, owner of Mystic Acres Goat Farm here.

Keeping an ear on the barn via a baby monitor, Smith's first clue the kids were coming was the sound of the first kid's cries about 6 p.m. Saturday.

"Maybe Pandemonium is just stoic," Smith said.

Or maybe she simply was relieved to be taking the load off. By the end of her 149-day gestation, the 21-inch doe was nearly as wide as she was tall.

"She was so huge, she would sit like a dog on her hind legs," said Smith, who has attended more than 100 deliveries since she began raising goats seven years ago. "She looked like she had a beach ball in her."

By the time Smith walked the 100 yards from her home to the barn, Pandemonium had delivered two kids, a boy and a girl, and a second buckling arrived soon after. That's when Smith, who is managing editor of the Eugene-based magazine "Midwifery Today," practiced some of that field's expertise. She saw the doe struggling to push out another kid, with no success after several tries.

"I got a bucket of soapy water, washed my hands, and reached in to check, and the baby was frank (completely) breech," Smith said. "I found a leg and gently pulled her out."

Pandemonium began cleaning off the fourth kid, another doeling later dubbed "Hullabaloo," and Smith thought the litter was complete.

"But all the sudden about five minutes later, she started up again," and a fifth healthy kid, a male, emerged.

Goat quints are not as rare as human quints, said Smith, who also publishes "Ruminations," a national magazine for people who raise Nigerian dwarf and mini dairy goats. But they are still rare.

"I have a section called `Quad and More Club' where I publish pictures of such multiple births," she said. "There are typically eight or 10 reports of quints nationally each year."

Oregon State University Animal Sciences Professor Jim Thompson, a sheep specialist who also provides Extension Service advice on other small ruminants, estimated that goat quints occur in about one of every 100,000 births. The rate of human quints is less than half that, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, even with in vitro fertilization and other techniques.

Goat breeders also sometimes use artificial insemination, Smith said.

But Peter Pan, the 2-year-old Mystic Acres billy who sired Pandemonium's five kids, didn't pass the buck to a turkey baster.

"He did it the old-fashioned way," Smith said.

CAPTION(S):

Cheryl Smith, owner of Mystic Acres Goat Farm, juggles the five Nigerian dwarf goats born on Saturday. Of the kids' mother, Pandemonium, Smith says that before delivery "she was so huge, she would sit like a dog on her hind legs."