On Wednesday night, Addy's goat Nibbles had her triplets! I honestly thought she would only have one, maybe two, because she was not very large around the middle. We were so surprised to find three! She delivered all on her own and the baby boys were black, black with a white spot on his head, and spotted black and white. Adorable. The next morning, the Harts came over to see the cuteness. We were all in agreement that the cutest baby animal on the planet is definitely a baby goat. The kids (the human kids that is) were in and out of the barn a few times throughout that morning. Just after lunch when Addy and Ian went out to the barn, tragedy hit. They found that the latch to Nibbles' pen had been opened and she was out of her stall. The other animals were extremely curious of the baby goats and did the number on them. We found one dead and the other two pretty well mauled but still alive. Ian took charge of all the kids at home while Elise, Addy and I took the two babies to the vet.
We worked on getting them warm and stabilized first and then hydrated. We left the goat kids under the warmer at the vet and went home for about an hour. When Addy and I went back to the vet, I was prepared for the awful news and was prepared to put the little guys down. The vet however was very optimistic. He showed us the x-rays and the black one (Chip) had a dislocated hock and the spotted one (Cookie) had broken his leg in three places. The vet said our best option was to leave the injuries alone and let them heal over time. Our job was to keep the kids warm and fed.
We put them in a box on a heating pad in Addy's room. I quickly learned how to milk a goat so we could feed these babies. We got up every two hours during the night to feed the little guys. They wouldn't take a bottle so we had to force feed with a syringe.
In the morning, they seemed to be okay. After having breakfast, Addy noticed that Chip's breathing was slowing and then it stopped all together. So very sad. We took Cookie back to the vet to see what he thought we should do. He still thought that the little guy might have a chance. After some antibiotics and pain meds, we went back home.
That afternoon I had the idea to take Cookie out to the barn to see if Nibbles remembered him. I knew it was a long shot since he would smell funny but we would give it a try. Addy held him and Nibbles instantly started giving him kisses and Cookie was kissing her back! It was the most adorable thing I have ever seen!
Sorry to make this so long, but it has kind of overtaken our lives! We put a heat lamp out in the stall and left the two goaties together. Since being put with his mom, Cookie seems to be thriving now. Today he was trying to frisk and jump about like goat kids do. He is champ at balancing on his three good legs. He is a fighter and we are just playing the waiting game for now...
This is the only picture we have of all three together.
This is Cookie in a pretty sad state.
So much better now that he is with mom!
Thank you for all your kind texts and phone calls. It has been quite a sad thing to deal with and kind of the tip of the iceberg with the rest of the year behind us. Hopefully from here on out we will have more happy news!
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