Things have been rather busy—one might even say hectic –for the past few weeks here on the Hunker Down.  One of the momma goats—a Nigerian Dwarf that we call double wide because of the shape she reaches in the later part of her pregnancy (wide as she is long)—gave me quadruplets this go round.  Actually,  she needed old JVC’s help since # 2 down the chute was ass backwards with only one rear leg out and hung up good.  Guess I can check off reaching up into a goat’s birth canal to turn a baby and help it out from my bucket list, eh??.  Wasn’t surprised when one more immediately followed, but when the forth came out, it was more than I was ready for.  Anyway, watched momma and the kids real close for a couple of days, expecting I’d be needing to help her out some more.  She was doing her best to nurse all 4, but I could tell that one ( #4 and the smallest) was having a hard time getting her share of momma’s bounty.  So—after trying to help out by supplementing with bottle formula and not having any success at all since mom and her natural teat was much more preferable even for a hungry baby, we took two of the babies off of her.

Now the fun really began.  I’ve got two hungry babies that had been on their mom for 4 days or so and they don’t want anything to do with that bottle.  I mean, it was a real fight the four times a day we were trying to get some formula down them.  Plus we were getting all sorts of conflicting advice by numerous goat “experts” such as they won’t ever take a bottle after being with their mother that long , don’t use the formula—use a concoction of condensed milk, whole milk and butter milk instead (that proved to be real popular—not) , to just persevere and they’ll finally come around.  Well, that’s what we did, and after about 4 days of battle, one morning one of the kids took to the bottle like it was the most natural thing in the world, and by that evening, the other one had too.  What a blessing that was.  However, mixing formula and feeding 3 times a day now does take up a bit of time, and with them thinking I’m mom now, and following me (under foot actually)everywhere I go in the yard and garden, and hanging out on the porch when I’m in the cabin, I’m not getting much else done around here these days.  But that really doesn’t matter—the important thing is that doublewide’s 4 babies (3 girls -1 little buckling) are all growing and healthy, and I’ve got plenty of entertainment right here in the front yard.

JVC