Damp-tailed babies

February 12, 2014

We have the first five babies in the loafing barn. They are delicate but robust, tiny long-legged things dancing sideways, already looking around for the other babies, collapsing together against the walls in sleep. We get to know these babies well because there are only a few.

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This baby is three hours old here. You can see her damp tail still curled up over her back. She’s tall and sturdy - a singleton, she got all her mother’s resources.

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This baby is already supremely independent, apart from her love for Roberto. Her mother rejected her - another mother licked her first, and so she smelt wrong to her birth mother, who wouldn’t have anything to do with her. Roberto has bottle-fed her the mother’s colostrum milk. If she stays on the farm, this baby will forever recognize Roberto as her mother-figure

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This just-born baby took ten minutes snuffling her mother to find the colostrum milk

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The babies cuddle together against the barn walls, though the bigger goats will not deliberately trample them