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Petunia was so cute last night... Phil and I took her kids into the house with us for the evening, but when we took them Petunia was too busy eating to notice even though I shoved Cupcake into her face and said, "Bye, we're leaving. We're taking your kids with us!"
Well, she finished eating and then she couldn't find her kids anywhere. She started wandering around the pen looking for them and calling. I thought maybe if we ignored her for a while she would settle down, but instead she became more frantic. Soon her kids were bawling back because we could all hear her even from inside the house! So Phil and I took Buster Brown and Cupcake back outside and showed them to Petunia from across the fence. Then we picked them up and took them back in with us and everyone was quiet after that.
Petunia is such a good mama, but I love that she totally trusts us to babysit for her and will settle right down and finish her dinner or take a nap the minute she knows her kids are in the house with us.
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The babies are so incredibly cute right now! Phil's parents, Jim and Lois, visited us for a week and left yesterday morning. The last two nights they were here we brought four baby goats into the house so we could each hold one during "movie night". It was so much fun and the babies were all very relaxed.
But then last night after Jim and Lois left, things took a turn for the wild side. Phil and I wanted a relaxing evening with baby goats, so we brought Thor and Mocha into the house. Phil entertained them by running around the kitchen and living room with them while I popped some popcorn. Mocha is our littlest but most acrobatic baby and she amused herself by jumping onto the back of the couch. Both babies were flying and leaping everywhere. It was extremely lively and funny, and it was all going marvelously well until suddenly I heard a cry of horror when Phil discovered Thor peeing right on Phil's side of the couch! The popcorn was just done popping so I left it to clean up the mess while Phil took Thor into the kitchen. I was drying off the couch and spraying cleaner on it when I heard another yell from the kitchen. Thor was finishing his business on the tile floor. Phil mopped that up and we thought we were good to go.
I tucked Mocha under one arm and set my popcorn on the end table, thinking Phil had Thor under control. Just as I was about to sit down, I heard a gasp behind me and from the corner of my eye I saw Thor come flying out of nowhere right onto the end table. The bowl of popcorn flew gracefully across the living room, scattering popcorn in every direction. What a mess! We put the babies downstairs in a makeshift pen in the basement while I cleaned up the floor and cooked a new batch of popcorn. The kids were exhausted by the time we retrieved them from the basement and the rest of the evening was uneventful, but what a fiasco!
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I saw some more photos of your babies on FB the other day being cuddled by human kids. Very cute!
Happiness is a baby goat snoring in your lap
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Whew! The first three weeks of May were a whirlwind of activity and excitement–so busy that I never even caught us up on the photos from the tag end of April! April 30th was a busy day. It was Snowball’s first day in the Wide World, and the day Petunia’s kids ventured out on their first walk.
Tigerlily had to slowly warm up to her new role as “mother”. She had delivered two dead kids in two previous births and didn’t quite know what to do with a live one. I’m not sure how anyone could be afraid of this adorable piece of dandelion fluff, but Tigerlily harbored a few suspicions. She also kept mistaking me for her baby and would sometimes reject Snowball in favor of me when I would interact with the two of them. She did better when I left her alone. She’s the first goat I’ve had to lock up in a separate enclosure with her kid so they could bond in private. Every time other goats’ babies entered the scene, Tigerlily would go into a frenzied confusion and start butting all the kids away, including her own.
“Look out, Tigerlily! Don’t be fooled by the small, innocent appearance. It can probably smell fear!”
Tigerlily also had a tendency to abandon Snowball for hours on end as if completely forgetting she had a baby of her own to look after.
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I didn’t like seeing Snowball abandoned on her own so I put her with TinCup’s triplets. When you already have three kids, what’s one more, right?
“Wait a minute, who are you?”
As long as Snowball didn’t try to nurse, TinCup was happy to let her hang out. Looking at them side-by-side, I’m very glad I induced Tigerlily. Though she was almost two days younger, Snowball was significantly larger and thicker than TinCup’s babies. If we had waited for Tigerlily to kid on her own, this little gal would have had a very hard time coming out!
TinCup’s kids quickly adopted their new “sister”.
Snowball bears a striking resemblance to TinCup’s first kid, Yeti. In fact, Tigerlily took an immediate dislike toward Yeti and even now, almost a month later, Tigerlily will bite his tail or butt him if he comes too close to her. She doesn’t do this to any of the other kids, so I can only think that she resents his resemblance to her own precious Snowball.
Yeti has the cutest swirl of hair on the end of his nose, just like his mama.
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Petunia recovered very well from her scary bout with milk fever and was looking sleek and fat again by the weekend.
Buster Brown discovered the joys of jumping and balancing on this wobbly log.
And realized he could use it as a launchpad to get onto Mama’s back! Mama wasn’t too pleased and sauntered off.
Meanwhile, Cupcake thought she’d try chewing on mama’s beard. Petunia tended to keep that beard tantalizingly out of reach.
Cupcake discovered her favorite hidey-hole inside the electrical spool.
Cupcake wasn’t too sure about Brownie’s wobbly log, but she loved these rocks!
And on the last day of April, Petunia decided that her kids, just shy of one week old, were ready to accompany the big goats on their evening walk.
April, fare thee well! You’ve blessed us with green grass and bounding babies! (Including the strange radioactive one in front.)
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May has been such a busy month I haven't had time to post all the pictures I took at the beginning!
On May 1st, little Yeti attended one of Phil’s work meetings in the office.
TinCup takes a break in the warm, sunny gravel with her three kids around her.
TinCup’s kids took their first walk on May 3rd. Poor TinCup looks a little ragged with that old winter coat still clinging. Thankfully she’s gaining weight now that she’s had the kids.
Little Buster Brown is one of the stoutest kids we’ve ever had. His build and personality remind me a lot of Finn.
Run Cupcake!!!
This has been one of the greenest springs we’ve ever had. I look out the window and feel like I’m in Switzerland.
After the first day or two, one of Snowball’s ears started folding back against her neck along a crease it had when she was born. It got worse over the following few days and soon the inside of her ear felt hot and weepy. She kept scratching at it with her hind foot. So I put a cardboard tube on the inside, a short piece of a paint stick on the outside, and duct taped them to her ear to unfold that stubborn crease. I thought it would straighten out in a day, but it ended up taking three days of wrapping before the ear stayed stiff on its own. It still has a funny little fold near the back, but at least she can hold it out now and the air can circulate inside.
One day I found all six babies curled up inside the small doghouse. What a fuzzy little pile of cuteness!
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How cute they are!!
Happiness is a working goat
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