And then there were seven

Cinnamon had twins. It wasn’t an easy birth. The first kid poked its tongue at me and retreated back inside. I watched Cinnamon strain for almost an hour before I intervened. I pulled the first kid out, certain it was dead. I had seen nostrils flaring. And then not. The kid finally slipped from Cinnamon onto the ground. A little girl. She coughed, sneezed, breathed. Cinnamon didn’t so much as look at her. I rubbed her down. Chai, I called her. Cinnamon walked across the paddock. Pushed a second kid out. A boy this time. Charlie. Cinnamon walked away from him as well. I rubbed him down. Did my best to get Cinnamon to accept the kids. Lisa, my friend and vet, came out. She pronounced Cinnamon and her twins in good health despite the difficult birth. Together we tried again to get Cinnamon to accept the twins, to let them suck. Tried and tried. Again and again. But to no avail. We milked Cinnamon and managed to get the kids to drink from baby bottles, the colostrum yellow and sticky.

Chai asleep between my legs, with Charlie standing by.

That was a a month ago. The first few days were exhausting. Milking Cinnamon twice a day and feeding the kids every few hours, day and night to begin with. Cinnamon was reluctant to be milked. She was worse than disinterested in this whole birthing, mothering, lactating business. She chased her kids away if they came near her. She bit them. I saw her pick Chai up with her mouth and toss her away. She kicked out as I milked her. Many a litre of milk was spilt. Tears may have been shed over it, despite there being no use in crying over spilt milk. While Cinnamon kicked and I cursed, my Labrador Maisie lapped it up. Literally.

Slowly we have settled into a routine and I have cut the bottle feeds down to twice a day. The middle-of-the-night feeds are already fading in my memory. Chai and Charlie are growing rapidly. They have quadrupled in size already. Cinnamon still refuses to acknowledge they are hers, but has at least stopped being aggressive towards them. She accepts them as a part of the herd; a somewhat annoying part of the herd, but her herd nevertheless.

For their part, Chai and Charlie are full of life. Bouncing around the place. Climbing everything. Bleating for attention. Bleating for bottles of milk. They squeeze through the gaps in the electric netting when I put the herd out to graze. They explore the world at will. If they see a person, they follow them. The difference between them and Sesame’s kids is remarkable. Sesame has doted on her twins, Boo and Berry. I have left them on her, despite the common practice in goat keeping to take the kids away to be bottle fed so the mothers can be milked. It’s been an interesting, if accidental, experiment, having one set of twins on the mother and the other being bottle raised. Chai and Charlie are very much friendlier than Boo and Berry. Much easier to handle, even in these early weeks. Bolder. Much cheekier! More fun. Boo and Berry are bigger and stronger, growing faster, although perhaps that’s just the difference of being sixteen days older. Chai and Charlie are much, much more work for me. They have tied me to the property. Tied me to them. For the first couple of weeks, I couldn’t go out for more than a few hours, always making sure I was back in time to give them their next bottles. That’s eased off now, but they still require a big commitment.

Sesame with her twins, Berry in front, Boo behind.

As far as milk goes, I’m not getting much for myself from either doe. I had thought I would lock the kids away from Sesame overnight and milk her in the mornings, then let the kids back on her during the day. Initially, I waited until I was confident they would get through the night easily. Then Cinnamon had her kids and I didn’t have the energy to work something out with milking Sesame. Besides, milking Cinnamon was so hard in those first weeks I couldn’t face the idea of milking Sesame as well. Once Cinnamon had settled down with being milked (and although it felt like I fought her for ages before this happened, in truth it was less than two weeks), I did lock the kids away from Sesame for a night. I walked away from the shed to the sound of all the goats bleating their distress. The next morning I milked a litre from Sesame and put her back with her kids. Boo and Berry mobbed her, greedily sucking at the milk I had left in her udder. I haven’t done it again. It doesn’t seem worth it. They’ll be weaned soon enough and I can milk Sesame then. For now, I’m milking Cinnamon. I’ve managed to make one batch of Persian feta with four litres of Cinnamon’s milk that was excess to the kids’ needs, and I’ve had a bit of fresh goat milk on my muesli. But the dozens of litres my goats are producing is almost all going into their kids’ bellies. Which is, of course, what it’s made for, even if my intention in getting dairy goats was to make cheese rather than raise kids and increase my herd. Yet somehow I now have seven goats. Ce la vie. At least the kids are super cute and highly entertaining.

See you outside,

Jill