Pippin

The last 24 hours have been overshadowed by a tiny male angora/dairy cross day-old goat kid I've named Pippin. We have been trying to keep him alive, and have so far succeeded. He asked to spend the night tonight in the barn with his mommy, so we let him. He has been in a box on the kitchen floor all day with a heating pad on under him, and a towel over him. He watched some TV laying on my tummy. That's when he told me he'd rather lay by his mommy. He looked at me and smacked his lips. They're under a heat lamp in the barn.
I put his mommy, Rasberry in the milking stanchion when I got home from work this morning, and milked out 4 oz of colostrum; strained it and warmed it up in the house, and he ate it hungrily. After that and a shot of vitamins, he was strong enough to be taken out to nurse all by himself. (My husband did that while I slept). But we still have to lay Rasberry down and hold her udder up for him, like the way a puppy eats. He started to find it on his own tonight, finally. He can stand up by himself now too. He's still pretty wobbly, and poodle-sized.

Meanwhile, my hold-out ewe finally lambed. She had twins, both black. One was stillborn, and its head was unnaturally large - probably got lodged in the birth canal too long. That was a girl. The other one is a boy, and he is alive and healthy. They are both very large lambs for being twins - even if they were single they would be oversized. The boy's pretty spunky - will be a beautiful black ram someday. His daddy, Ali Baa Baa is black, and his mom, Hickory is gray. We will have to figure out what to name him.

We laid the dead lamb in the room by the ewe's pen to bury her later. Our male llama is recovering from meningeal worm, and has free reign of the inside of the barn right now, cause with the lambing and kidding, it is the only secure place to keep him that isn't outside. When we went back out later, the dead lamb was covered with hay that had been scattered on the floor near the pen during feeding. It was like someone had scraped the concrete floor clean and put it all on the lamb. It was either the llama, the cocker spaniel or the spayed tom cat. The prints in the dirt look llama-like. I've heard of male llamas killing other llamas and sheep, but ours is a sucker for babies. He is curious and protective. I never would have thought he'd do something like that. We thought it was the dog for sure until we saw the scrape marks.

I have a terrible migraine that won't go away, and the computer light is driving me nuts. I should get some sleep...have to work again tomorrow and superbowl Sunday. I'd trade farming for the super bowl any day (in favor of farming of course!) Work's okay. Sick people, sick animals...what's the difference?