Sunday, February 27, 2011

Baby Goats

Yes, we have baby goats.  Two little girls came to us when they were 6 days old.  They came from my friend Leslie's amazing farm in Bodega Salmon Creek Ranch.  She has free range New Zealand Kiko goats and Muscovy ducks, and I mean FREE RANGE.  The goats roam the entire ranch with the protection of Anatolian shepherds that protect the goats from coyotes and mountain lions and the ducks from hawks, owls and coyotes.   Guard dogs are so important on a functioning ranch with free range animals.

Spring is baby goat season and Leslie is overwhelmed.  When the mother goats do the work it is managable, but when the mama's refuge their babies, than the humans have to take over and do all of the work.  So Leslie asked if we would like to bottle feed some babies for 7 weeks, and return them to the ranch after they are off the bottle.  In return for this work and effort, she will pay us with goat meat.  


For those of you that may need to bottle feed some goats in the future here is the recipe for goat formula:

1 gallon whole milk
1 12 ounce can evaporated milk
1 cup whole milk buttermilk


Little Imogen turns out to be a goat whisperer :)


Both children are enjoying the babies and Gage likes to feed them.  The goats, now named Marc and Mazy (yes we know they are both girls), follow us around and bring a lot of energy and happiness to our days.




Even Seamus is enjoying the babies.  He is a blue healer/lab mix and the blue healer is coming out.  He tries to herd the baby goats, but also would love to play with them.  They both try to nurse on Seamus's belly and penis, which doesn't seem to bother him a bit.  :)




For the next 6 weeks we truly have an urban homestead.  We now have 1 dog, 1 cat, 4 chickens and 2 baby goats and we are all loving it.  :)


Kisses for Imogen




Mazy



Marc



More soon on these wonderful, crazy, precocious baby goats.

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