First Goat Babies of the Year!

Cookie the goat had her kids yesterday - twins - a doeling and a buckling. Very cute. The black/grey/white one is the buckling, the tan/white one is the doeling. They were just hours old in this picture.

I am so glad that she gets to raise some goat babies!

This goat was purchased with 8 other does in May 2007, at 4 months old. We ear tagged them, and this goat wound up as #7. She was very good at getting on the other side of fences. As a result of this, she ended up being bred earlier than we had anticipated, and kidded in early February of 2008 in very cold and windy temperatures - her kids that year were born dead.

Not wanting #7 to be a complete loss - I started milking her, and we froze the milk to save for other goat kids that might need it, and goat's milk makes some great ice cream!

At first, she resisted milking, because she was not tame, and didn't want anything to do with people. Eventually, she came to realize that it was a good deal to get to stand in the goat worker (like a milking stand) with feed to eat while I milked her and relieved pressure on her udder! She adopted me. She would lick me whenever she got the chance, BAAAA for me anytime I left the goat lot or the barn - calling for me, her "baby kid" to come back!

In March that year we adopted our first Livestock Guardian Dog, Brody. He was just over a year old and had a lot of puppy in him. Our goats were afraid of him, though he was very good with them. I hadn't realized the extent of #7's "claiming" of me until she went out of her way (as scared as she was of Brody) to put herself between me and Brody. If he got too close to me, she would stomp her front feet and snort at him, the way does do when their kids are in danger. She even went so far as to butt Brody away! This is when I started calling her Mommy Goat, and rightly so, as she had claimed me for sure as her kid!

Well, after the weather had warmed up enough for my daughter to come outside with us, I decided I had to change what I called this goat from Mommy Goat to something else - I didn't want my daughter to be confused! Since the goat is black in the front, white in the middle, and black in the back (she looks like an Oreo cookie) she's kept the name Cookie. It suits her.

So, Cookie now has kidded for her second time, and has live babies to raise and lick and feed. She still hasn't forgotten me though - as I was helping her kids find the udder, she alternated between licking her kids and licking me! I know she'll do a great job mothering those kids!