Delilah went out to forage with the other goats this morning and left her babies alone in the shed. Pluto was concerned and went in the pen with me to check on them. He is totally enamored with these kids and spent time gently licking each of them. When one jumped on him, he collapsed onto the ground and rolled over. At one point he had three babies crawling around on his belly. I went inside and left him with them. I wanted to see how he’d act while “unsupervised”. Unbeknownst to Pluto, I had him on the Goatoscope.

I enjoy watching him interact with the kids, but he is definitely still a puppy in training and not to be totally trusted with them. I kept an eye on him in the monitor, and after 10 minutes or so the kids began to annoy him by clambering onto his face. His response was a very light “snap” to push them away. That might be acceptable discipline for puppies, but not for kids! I opened the window, waited for him to do it again, then hollered at him the second he opened his mouth. He jumped like he’d been stung and immediately slunk out of the pen with his tail between his legs. I want him to enjoy the kids, but he must learn that they cannot be treated like puppies. I’ve read that these dogs do not really leave the puppy stage until they are a good two years old. Pluto is not quite a year and I think he’s making very good progress. It looks like he will mature into a very good LGD once he learns a few “do’s” and “don’ts”.

We had a good two feet of heavy, wet snow over the weekend, so the Nubian boys, having only recently come from the much warmer climate in Pueblo West, needed a little extra protection. I found some fleece fabric, doubled it over, and with a few safety pins I managed to make them some little jammies.

Oh, and here is a photo I took of them playing in our kitchen about a week ago. It’s amazing how much they’ve grown in the short time since!

We’ve had so much fun with all these babies! We spent the afternoon yesterday with all five snuggled up on the basement couch with us while we watched a silly movie. We’ve named them and the girl is Oakley, the white boy with spots is Crockett, and the big oreo boy is Boone.

Today was the triplets’ first day in the wide world. I took them out of the shelter to run free in the pen. I put Rambo and Rocky in the pen as well so they could play with their new friends. It was their first day allowed off the back patio unsupervised. Everyone learned about electric fences which always makes me feel bad, but they also learned about jumping on logs and rocks and hiding behind objects. Delilah hates the two Nubians and doesn’t want them near her three perfect darlings. I’m sure she thinks her babies will be contaminated by the long-eared motherless freaks. She kept growling and stamping her feet at Rocky and Rambo, but she never got aggressive enough to worry me. Besides, they were too quick for her and it didn’t take them long to start teasing. She’d chase them around one side of the shed and they’d run from the other side and approach her kids from behind her back. Delilah didn’t know what to do when her kids got separated and she couldn’t guard all of them at once. She kept waddling back and forth between them in a fruitless attempt to keep the Nubians away. It didn’t help when her own kids started toddling away from her to follow bad company. I’m sure it won’t be long before she’s tired enough that she won’t care who her kids play with as long as they stop bothering her!

There’s a line at the milk bar!

We’ve decided to call this feisty little dude “Rocky”. Nubbin isn’t going to adopt these babies, but she’s got no problem standing for them to nurse on the stanchion, and they already take to her udder better than to the bottles they were raised on.

And this tough little fellow is called “Rambo”. I put the boys out in the backyard with Delilah and her new kids this afternoon. The boys love the new arrivals. I can’t wait till we have all five bouncing around like ping-pong balls! I know it’s old hat for some of you, but we’ve never had more than three!

The little brown doe who looks like Jezebel. She weighed almost 7 lbs.

The little white buckling who looks like Tigerlily but with black spots instead of gray ones. He weighed just over 7 lbs.

The naughty fellow who tried to come out backwards and got stuck. He weighed just over 8 lbs.

Cool dude–all he needs is a beer in that hand!

All in a row warming up by the wood stove.

They were covered in so much nasty orange filth that we decided to bring them inside and give them all a bath. They loved soaking up the heat from the stove afterwards.

We had a nice surprise at 4:00 this morning! I rolled over during a very deep sleep and sort of vaguely thought to myself that I should check the goat-o-scope. I almost was too sleepy. The iPad on the nightstand seemed miles away. But my curiosity overcame my drowsiness and I gave the iPad a click. I could see Delilah’s back end in the camera view and it looked like nothing had happened. She was still fat and laying down like she was when we went to bed four hours ago. I began to put the iPad away but then decided that since I already had it out I might as well pan over to her head and see if she was making faces. My heart did a backflip when this happy sight greeted me!

She was cleaning them off and they were both standing and bleating in such a healthy way that I thought about turning over to finish off the night’s sleep and just see them in the morning. But when I panned over to her water bucket I noticed it was empty, so out into the dark I went, flashlight in hand. I’m glad I went out. Not only had she drunk all the water, but the kids had not been able to nurse. One teat had bloody little teeth marks where a kid had tried and failed to get any milk out. The teats were solidly plugged with wax and it took quite a bit of effort before I could get milk out. The kids also were less dry than they’d looked on the camera.

So with Phil’s help I dried the kids off better, helped them nurse, and dunked their umbilical cords. Mama looked comfortable and content between licking her kids and eating hay so I almost went back to bed. But then I remembered to bump her belly just in case there was another. I’m so glad I did! A solid, heavy object bounced back at me! But Delilah did not look like trying to push it out any time soon. I waited around for a long time and nothing happened. Every so often she would lay down and stretch and grunt a little, but she never pushed. I had a quick feel and there was nothing in the birth canal. With baby still completely inside the womb I felt ok leaving it there to see if Delilah would deliver on her own. Phil even suggested that we leave for a while since we might have interrupted her labor (after all, she didn’t want us there in the first place!). So we went back inside and monitored her on the camera for another half hour.

By 6:00 I figured it must have been close to three hours since she’d delivered the first two. It was time to go in and see what was holding things up. I scrubbed up and went in, and there at the edge of the birth canal was, first of all, movement (huge sigh of relief!), but also something I’d never felt before. I thought it was a head with no legs presented. But no, that wasn’t right. There was no mouth and no ears. I reached a little further and felt something pointed and bony like a hoof but not a hoof. Then I felt a crook in it. It was a hind leg and I had hold of the hock. The bony thing I’d thought was a head was a bottom! All the kids I’d delivered before were presented head first, so I was in unfamiliar territory as I broke into the sac and brought the hind legs around one at a time into the birth canal. Once I had both hind legs out Delilah began to push, and with several good pulls I was able to work those pointy little hocks and hips into the outside world. The rest of the kid soon followed and we had one more healthy, wriggling little (or should I say big) brother. Delilah had saved the biggest for last.

I was overjoyed that this last little one made it out alive. I’d been praying he was ok in there. Sometimes it’s hard to know whether or not to intervene, but I asked God to keep him safe. God not only protected the last little one, He made a celebration for his birth.

So now we have two boys and a girl. The girl is the smallest and looks exactly like her aunt Jezebel. The middle-sized boy is white with black spots and looks almost identical to his cousin Tigerlily. The third and largest is a bold black and white boy with white blaze face. I’ll get proper photos later today after we get them cleaned up better. These are our first purebred babies. They are all registered Alpines.

Well, we jumped the gun on kidding season this year! Today we went and bought two purebred Nubian bottle babies to be suitors for our Alpine girls this fall. I’m tired of trucking all over the countryside for a driveway breeding, only to discover that the doe went out of heat on the way to meet her boyfriend. We’ve had some good luck with driveway breedings, but we’ve also had our fair share of repeats and disappointments. This year we’ll have our own bucks! These cute little guys have no idea how important they’ll be come fall. As they say, the buck is half the herd.

The other goats were very interested in the new arrivals. Nubbin was especially enamored with the little brown boy who looks just like the ones she lost two years ago. She mourned for them terribly and I think she still remembers them because as soon as she saw that little guy she went right for him.

I let Nubbin into the enclosure and she gently followed him and kept nosing his bottom. I put her on the stanchion and she did not protest when I taught him to suckle from a real teat instead of a bottle. She was not so sure about the black one and did some kicking when I offered him a teat. But with some persistence I was able to get her to stand and get him to take the teat. I doubt it will happen, but I would love it if Nubbin adopted these two. It would make transition into my herd so much quicker and easier if they had a “mommy” to look after them and show them the ropes. In the meantime, they are cozily ensconced in a doghouse in the patio enclosure.

In other news, Delilah is spending her first night by herself in the kidding shed. I don’t think she’ll pop tonight, but she went through enough changes today that I think it’s time she had a room to herself “just in case”. I think she’s enjoying the privacy, and we get to keep an eye on her through the “goat-o-scope.”

Phil and Finn–such good friends. Or so it seems…

“Oh no! There goes Phil into the abyss!”

“Help me, Finn!”

“Are you kidding me?”

Mission: Accomplished

It seems Finn had an accomplice! Nefarious Nan: Finn’s shadowy overlord plotting from the background!

When I went to fill the girls’ water trough yesterday, this cute little thing flushed out of the hose! It was undoubtedly after the crickets and spiders that also whooshed out of the hose. The hose had lain dormant all winter, and the unsuspecting critters were alarmed to discover their home was also a water park.

It’s a skink, and technically I don’t think they’re supposed to live in this area at this elevation, but what do scientists know? We’ve been seeing them ever since we moved to this house, but this is the first time I’ve ever been able to catch one. I think it was a bit dazed from its unexpected water slide, but the second I put it down near the rocks where we usually see these things, it vanished out of sight in the blink of an eye.

Although it is still sunny, wind struck the house with a blast this morning and it promises to only get stronger as the day goes on. So I’m very thankful that Phil and I were able to take the goats out for a nice walk at Graneros Gorge yesterday. It’s not a long hike, but it’s very scenic and the goats love climbing on all the rocks! They had so much fun racing and leaping that they were all panting heavily within a few minutes.

They also took many opportunities to give us heart failure.

The first thing Finn did was disappear over the precipice.

I peered after him and saw nothing but a 50-foot drop and no ledges. I didn’t hear any despairing cries, so I knew he must not have fallen. I called and heard a baa-aah from somewhere below, so I kept calling and walked away. A few minutes later, Finn’s eager head popped up from an entirely different spot along the cliff. I have no idea how he got over there because it looked like a sheer drop-off to me, but I wasn’t going to hang around longer to find out since I didn’t want him to repeat the performance, nor to lead the less athletic Sputnik astray.

Tigerlily is just like her papa–nimble and fearless of heights.

“If I stand on this rock I can be bigger than Dad!”

Our “angel goat” has grown into a big, sturdy girl. At not quite a year, she’s taller than her mother, and compared side-by-side to Finn at this age, I’m sure she would be substantially bigger than he was. She gets along very well with the boys. They are dominant over her, but they rarely pick on her because she simply won’t take it. If someone butts her she comes back swinging, and the boys respect her for it. She also loves going out. The last few times we hiked with Finn and Sputnik, we had a hard time keeping Tigerlily out of the truck. So now she’s coming with us.

Sputnik blended in well with our surroundings.

Case in point…

Sputnik was not photogenic on this hike. While Finn and Tigerlily ricocheted from rock to rock, leaning over cliffs, peering behind boulders, and otherwise posing for dramatic shots, Sputnik kept his nose to the ground as he scurried greedily from one dry tuft of grass to another. They way he gobbled up dead foliage, you’d think he’d been starved for two weeks! I’m not sure I understand his tastes–this stuff was not exactly haute cuisine!

Phil and the crew with Pike’s Peak in the background.

Heading back toward our own Greenhorn Mountains.

Once we got back to the truck, the goats decided they weren’t leaving. No one would jump into the bed (although Tigerlily thought about it). So we drove off without them. When faced with the prospect of staying there by themselves, Graneros Gorge looked a lot less fun. The goats chased frantically after us until we stopped to invite them in again. Tigerlily jumped right up, but the boys were not quite ready to call it quits. We drove on again until they looked fairly tired and then tried once more. This time Finn loaded up, but Sputnik felt stubborn and I wasn’t going to argue with him. This time we drove off pretty fast, and it didn’t take Sputnik long to start panicking. When I stopped for the final time, Sputnik was coiled and ready to spring before I could even reach the tailgate. I expect it won’t take long for them to figure out it’s much easier to obey the first time!

The day  was so beautiful that even after our hike we could not get enough of the outdoors. So we swung by the grocery store to pick up some hot dogs and marshmallows and we had our first campfire of the season. Cuzco was thrilled. He supervised as Phil shoveled last year’s ash and debris from the fire pit, then he waited next to the rock ring while Phil and I gathered wood and got the food together. He never left that campfire all evening. He stood with his face in the smoke, inhaling the delicious cedar smell with half-closed eyes and rapt expression. He hurried over to the house to wait by the patio gate when he heard Phil tuning his fiddle in the basement. Then as Phil came out playing “Goat in the Rain”, Cuzco stayed glued to Phil’s side all the way back to the campfire. He was mesmerized by the music and his nose never left the bow. After the music, Cuzco stood by Phil’s chair and rested his big, bony old head in Phil’s lap where he stayed for probably 45 minutes as the fire slowly died. None of the other goats particularly like the campfire or the music. This is one activity that Cuzco has all to himself and it brings him back to the days when he was the only one.