We have been waiting with great anticipation for Luna’s due date as we all love baby goats. Luna must love them too, because she got an early start, with the babies arriving 4 days before we expected to see them.
Early this week I came out for on evening goat walk at the end of a rainy day that had kept the goats confined to the barn. Not expecting babies until the end of the week, I hadn’t been out with the goats all day. I opened up the gate to their yard and invited them to join me. Four enthusiastic goats appeared, but no Luna. I called to her, expecting to see her head pop around the corner of the door, but still no Luna. So I went in to the barn to see what was up. Much to my surprise, I found not one pregnant goat, but one no longer pregnant goat and two adorable kid goats. She did it all with no help from me, with one baby clean and dry, the other fairly well cleaned up but still damp, and both already adept at looking for and finding her teats. I have been present for all of the prior goat deliveries, but I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Animal babies get born all the time out there without our help! After the surprise early start, mom and babies are doing well. The kids are both boys, and will be looking for homes in 2 months, when they wean, so if you happen to be thinking having a couple of pet goats, let me know.
The young chickens are also doing well. The first group of 10, raised by me, are “teenagers” now, and still living in the duck house. They love to spend the day out in the duck house yard, which has plenty of shrubby cover for them to hide under, and true to chicken homing instinct, they all faithfully take themselves back in as it gets dark. Now, their “mama”, ie me, has been trying to teach them that grownup chickens roost at night. That process involved a couple of nights of scooping them up from their pile on the floor, while counting them to make sure that everyone was safely inside, and setting them, one by one, on to the roosting bar. Half of them have mastered it perfectly. The other half insist on roosting on a ledge against the opposite wall, but at least they seem to have the general idea. I haven’t started to let them free range yet, and probably won’t for a bit, but that will be their next major life transition.
And, I am sure you are wondering about the mom hen with her two foster chicks. You will be glad to hear that she is doing an amazing job. She quickly taught the other chickens that the chicks were to be left alone. And considering that she had already been brooding and basically stuck inside for 5 weeks, I was surprised and pleased that she kept them inside the coop for 10 days before venturing out into the yard with them, and even more surprised and pleased when she got them safely back inside for the night, without my having to crawl under the chicken coop to rescue any one. Still, when they are out and about, it is hard not to worry. They are awfully little. But mama hen is an ever attentive, fierce and fearless defender. You always know when they are near, due to the constant cluck, cluck, cluck from mama, and peep, peep, peep from the chicks, like little chicken sonars, that they are constantly bouncing off each other, to report on location and status. A change in the tone of mama’s clucks brings the chicks right back to her side, and an anxious peep from a chick brings mother running. Even I have been corrected a time or two for coming too close, which is pretty impressive, when you consider that I must out weight that hen by a good 20-30 fold! In fact, unlike tiger mother, and helicopter mother, which both have negative connotations, I think we need to introduce the term “Chicken mother” into the American vocabulary, to denote a mother who is attentive, available, and responsive to threat, but also willing to let her kids explore the world and play in the dirt. So, moms, next time someone tells you that you are acting like a “chicken mother”, feel proud!
Hopefully that is all the babies we will have at Green Acres farm this year. I just need to make sure all the animals agree. To that end, I had a long talk with the hen who started acting like she was thinking of going broody this week. Hope she has been listening!