Showing posts with label goat milk. Show all posts
Showing posts with label goat milk. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Goats in totes


It's official. I have two bottle babies. 
 
I tried everything I could think of, but in the end, Amelia proved to be more stubborn than I. In the first 48 hrs she went from being uninterested, to mildly interested but unwilling to nurse, to hostile.  At hostile, I gave in and pulled her out of the pen. Interestingly, she has taken to sitting up against the panel between the two pens -- where she can see the babies, but doesn't have to interact with them. Not a great mothering strategy. 

I did try to milk her, both to feed the babies and to get the oxytocin flowing, but that was not very successful either. She hated it. Kicked, squirmed, tensed up, you name it. I never got more than about 1/2 a cup from her at a time, which wasn't enough to feed the babies and didn't seem like enough to justify stressing her out either, so I stopped. 







On the upside, I am totally hooked on the possibility of a dairy goat, not that I need any more chores. 

Um, no. 

Not right now. 

But someday maybe...

Once Amelia was out of the picture, I put the babies in with Riversong, Martha and Martha's little one. I won't bring them inside unless I think they're at risk for some reason . 

So far, so good. 

Martha tolerates them.

Riversong is a nice warm body.




And their big brother is thrilled to have them.