Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Dairy Babes

Our mini-herd of dairy goats is complete (for now)! They're tucked in their temporary home on one side of the goat yard. And they're absolute adorable!



Provided I can get them up to weight by November, we'll breed then for April babies. They seem sooo small to be considering breeding them this year. But then - they grow so fast. Ringo is a little less than a month older than the smaller ones, but look how much bigger he is!

You've met "Hey Jude" and "Elfie" and "Ringo", the newest additions are "Penny Lane" and "Dear Prudence". The two new girls have already blended in nicely. After just a little bit of a hassle with bottle feeding (we use a different nipple than they were used to), they've settled and are almost up to their ~20 ounces per feeding.

Maddy and I are becoming old pros at handling bottles for 5 goats. The evening feeding is my favorite. We go on into their shed (the door behind them in the photo) with a flashlight. The babies can't decide if they'd rather have the bottle or pounce on this funny stick with a light on the end. The bottles win, of course.

In a month or two, we'll move them and separate the boys and girls into two different areas. I'd like them to get a little bit bigger before we do that, though. Right now they need the body heat of all five tucked in together.

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