Are You My Mama?

It was a day of big changes.  Tessie got milked.  The routine of getting up on the stand for breakfast is just the start.  The actual milking for the first time is always a challenge.  I've become pretty good at blocking flying feet while keeping a semi-steady stream of milk flowing, but it does take concentration.  Tessie's milk had to be kept separate to save the colostrum for the baby.  She actually did well.  I turned her out to rejoin the herd when we were done.

While Esther, a nonmilker, was having her breakfast, I cleaned out the nursery.  Twenty-Two had had his breakfast directly from the source and was ready for a nap, so making the transfer wasn't difficult for him.  He just lay down and went to sleep.

It's been a while since I've been in the baby routine, and had forgotten how time consuming that is.  It seemed I'd barely gotten back from the barn when it was time to get Twenty-Two's first bottle ready and warmed.  The herd is not used to me coming into the pen during the day, and they came from all corners.  Why are you here?  What are you doing?  What do you have?  Like iron filings to a magnet, they clustered to me and we went in a clump to the barn.  Some babies fight taking milk from a bottle and clamp their little jaws shut like a tightly closed clam.  Twenty-Two was one of the easiest I've ever had.  That doesn't mean, however, that we weren't both sprayed and dripping with milk by the time he'd sucked down a few ounces.  The second bottle in early afternoon went just as well, and he drank over eight ounces.  In the photo, he's not posing, he's peeing, but it got him to stand still long enough to finally get a good shot.  That white slash up the side is a throwback to his great-grandfather, Karma.  The white markings by his eyes are typical of the Swiss Alpine breed.  By bedtime, we were old hands at the routine and he filled his tummy with most of the sixteen-ounce bottle.  That's a lot for such a little guy, but it would help him sleep well on his first night alone.

I've been asked why I take the babies away from their mother so soon.  Bottle-fed kids learn quickly that people mean food and become used to being touched, carried, and handled in general.  It's much better to have a goat come to you than have to chase it down.  Early and constant human contact simplifies milking or hoof trimming later on.  It's more work on my part, and it's hard on the mother for a week or so, but a hand-raised kid is more saleable, if that is the goal, and easier to deal with if it is to stay in the herd.  Twenty-Two will stay isolated for the two months before he is weaned.  He and I are going to become best friends.