Fresh Today: Baby Goats

We have been expecting the goats to start kidding any day now. Two weeks ago, we were expecting them to start kidding any day. Some of them are HUGE.

Today at least the weather was sunny, though not as warm as some days have been lately. The wind was blowing pretty good, though.

The first hour or so of a baby goat's life is pretty important. They have to learn to do two basic things: stand up and eat. They don't catch on as quick as you might think. The drama unfolds about like this:

Baby goat thrashes his legs around, trying to stand up. He makes it to his knees, then decides it's too much effort, and sinks back to the ground. After a few seconds of contemplation, he tries again, gets halfway up, and falls over sideways. Immediately he tries to surge to his feet, and makes it all the way for one glorious second, at which point north knee and west knee simultaneously fly out in opposite directions and it's back to the drawing board. Another attempt has him taking one wobbly step (and onlookers cheering), and then his front end slowly slides forward, knees stiff, resembling "downward facing dog". Maybe he's given up walking and gone for yoga.

This process repeats itself for awhile. Eventually he staggers over to mama, who licks him encouragingly, maybe even nudges him towards the milk bar with her head. He starts butting at her kneecap, attempting to nurse (Food: Ur doin' it wrong). When he finally does make it back to the appropriate location, he makes an enthusiastic lunge for the udder and falls on his face again.

With two kids, it's double the fun to watch. For awhile we watched them see-saw back and forth. One would get up, and the other would fall down. When that one got up, the other one fell down. Then both managed to get up, stand there all wobbly, and simultaneously fall down again. And eating took them a long time to master. It seems like such a basic instinct, but apparently is harder than learning to walk. However, they seem to have got the hang of things, finally.