The Goat Mother

I don't think I am raising an independent goat. He's going to grow up to be needy and demanding. A mother just knows these things.

I have been watching Patch with her kid. Once again I think that the majority of books, although written by goat herders, were not written by people that actually spent long amounts of time with only a few goats, rather than a large herd.

Now Patch is a doting mother. Never more than 5 feet away from Ni. She follows him around constantly, and if for some reason she can no longer she him, she runs around calling for him until he answers her or she finds were he decided to go to sleep. The books tell you that they only spend time together during feeding time. Well. . . definitely not. Then that brings me back to why I ever started this blog in the first place, the books never tell you the entire story.

I do not follow Zombie everywhere. He follows me. He also follows the dogs, which freaks Patch out. Even though Patch wants nothing to do with Zombie, she is wiling o protect him at all costs, to the horror of our dogs. Zombie sleeps with our Staffordshire at night. Poor Buckets, she has no idea what hits her when Patch sees them together. BAM! Horn right in the rear. Zombie also follows my boys around, ears perked, bounding around like a puppy.

Feeding time is fun. I have learned that you do not hold a bottle like you see them doing with lambs on tv. You do not tilt the bottle, this only turns into an argument. You have to push him back, help him line it up. Instead, it is simpler just to hold the bottle upside down, straight up and down, and allow him to freak out, dance a bit and he finds it a lot easier. Hold it where he would naturally find it, rather than how you would hold it to feed a human infant. Breast are different in these two species you know.

During feeding time it is also imperative that you have a frisky kitten around to attack the kid's tail as he happily wags it with the rhythm of the blissful sucking.