Another Surprise

We had every intention of getting to church on Sunday.  Right before it was time to dress to go, I carried Ralphie, the little bottle kid, out to the stable to play with the other babies while we were away.  I made a quick "just in case" walk around and found a lovely white doe that had just dropped a tiny kid.  The kid's face was cleaned up but the rest was a mess.  It was a chilly morning and the little one was not trying hard to get up so we moved mother and kid to a warm stall with a heat lamp in the corner.

Mother was not very attentive to the doeling so I was anxious about heading to town.  We stayed home and finally had to milk out the mother and give the kid her first feeding from a bottle.  Once that warm colostrum hit her belly, she was up and trying to nurse within the hour.  By the end of the day all was well.

I was still frustrated with how poorly the mother had cleaned up her baby.  The little doeling had a clean white head but still seemed to be covered with the reddish brown dirt from the spot in the pasture where she was born.  I mentioned something to Al who told me that he thought the little kid was brown.  That had never crossed my mind!  I spit on the kid, wiped very hard with my fingers and discovered that it really is a little brown goat.  And we will try again next Sunday to get to church.....