Grandmother to a Goat

My kid's (pun intended) farm has grown by many little animals this cold spring. This baby however drew a clinker in mother lottery. She left him still in his birth sac, lying in the field. He was noticed in the morning with his mother, nothing unusual but several hours later he was still there and mom and the herd had moved on. Amazingly he was still alive. He was cleaned up and brought to the Dalan farm. They have a herd of milk goats and a freezer with frozen colostrum when served warm is the perfect thing for a baby goat who life is in the balance. I got to take care of him along with two of my granddaughters on the days their Mom worked. He is two days old in this picture, skinny, sleeping, eating, and pooing. Mostly sleeping.

Here he's being fed momma goat's milk with a pop bottle and special goat-like nipple designed to fit on said pop bottle. As you can see he can stand up though he's wobbly. He sounds like a human baby when he's hungry and cries. I, a not-farm kid, was instructed that they have to eat standing up or there's a risk of the baby aspirating the milk and dying.

I call him BG, Baby Goat, the girls were calling him Oliver. I suggested they call him Whiteout. He's a Boer goat but with none of the brown face markings they usually have. He has blue eyes too. At two days he thought legs-in-jeans was his mother. Now he thinks my daughter-in-law Heather is his mom. He's fat and mostly happy. Except he thinks he belongs in the house. He sleeps at night with the other goat babies but will follow Heather all around the house and kitchen any time he can. Not sure his mind can be changed. He is too cute to turn away.

I know it's spring because

1) My son’s farm has baby goats. They were born this the winter while it was still snowing but it looks like spring to me.

2) Spring cleaning extreme:
http://blogs.ublabs.org/probablynotthissimple/2009/03/30/video-house-getting-crushed/ Okay, I don’t know why but I find this fascinating. This house was down the street from my son’s former house and was the victim of a fire sometime back.

3) Flowers are budding and the daffodils and crocus are up.

4) The annual invasion of the Box Elder bugs has begun along and some kind of gnat hatch. You just can’t have it all. Box Elders bugs don’t do anything around here but annoy people and make me sweep them out of the house.

5) Bazillion ads for peeps, Easter baskets, and cheap toys the retail industry says we must stuff in those baskets or our kid’s and grandkids ethical and moral development will surely suffer.

6) Sunburn – spent time out in the sun this weekend and I got my little old dry face sunburned. I failed to use sunscreen after having used it all winter. Sunscreen is the best stuff to keep moisture in aging skin anytime of year.

7) The sound of lawnmowers.