A Little Insurance

I'm a day late with this post, but I have a good reason for it.  Wanna see what it is?

On Saturday, I took another trip. 

Over the mountain ( kind of live on the mountain, so it's not as big a deal as it seems):

Past some fields:

And some really nice barns:

Not far at all really, but it was a beautiful drive.  This was the second time I'd made this drive, but this time it was to pick up some "insurance".

This insurance:

Her name is Dulcinea.  We call her Dulci.

Look Ma!  Tiny ears!

She's a Lamancha kid (could you tell?) who's all of two weeks old yesterday.

I didn't want a bottle baby-I didn't need all the work.  But her owner breeds mama for milk, and not for kids, and didn't want to keep her any longer than she had to.  Fair enough, but the transition has been rough on Dulci.  She went from 2 siblings, a brother and a sister, and a mama with a lovely udder to no siblings and a bottle with cow's milk in it.

Not fair.

She's been a good sport about it, finally figuring out the bottle late Saturday night.  She finally drank a really good amount yesterday for the first time.  This morning she did pretty well.  Still, she is a bit stressed, and it's been a little rough going.

She did meet her new sisters, Lilly and Minerva, and they get along ok, but Minerva is the queen and can be too rough.  Lilly has butted her also, but nowhere near as hard. With the rain we've had, no one's been outside, having to stay in the indoor pen.  Dulci doesn't have anywhere to run in the inside pen to get away from Min, so she's got her own pen adjoining the big girls' house.  It makes her sad, because she's lonely.  So she spends way too much time in the house with us so she has someone to talk to.

As you can see, no one is happy about that.

Dulci is here not because I specifically wanted a third goat, but as insurance.  The other two girls, Lilly and Minerva, come from the same herd (not same moms).  I don't know their track record.  They could be amazing milkers, or terrible milkers (either way, they stay, because I am just too in love with the both of them).  Dulci comes from a mama with a proven record.  I met her mom, and her dad (she looks like her dad) and I know her history.  So hopefully, she's a good one.  Also, if anything were to happen to one of my other girls (heaven forbid!), one won't be alone.  In this very short time that the girls have been here, I can see that a lonely goat is a BIG problem. 

In any case, she's here, and we just love her.  Stay tuned for many more stories about the three goat girls!