Goat baby boom

日本語

As we already announced on our Japanese blog, Natchan the Queen gave birth to four healthy baby goats on January 19, 2018, or about a week ago.

Natchan and her day-old babies (2018/1/20)

It's three girls and a boy! (2018/1/20)

If Natchan's delivery is already old news, the new news is that five days later, on January 24th, another goat, Momochan, delivered too! She gave birth to a healthy girl.

Momochan and her baby girl (2018/1/25)

Momochan currently doesn't live on our farm. She has a private room in the home of Mrs. Yagishita, our Chief Goat Officer who lives a short walk from the farm. This is because Momochan has an inborn problem with front legs and is easily bullied if kept with other goats. Instead of walking straight, she prefers to walk with her front knees bent. Otherwise she's a healthy, mild tempered, sweet goat, but she's not exactly super-strong and we never expected her to get pregnant. However, now she's a good mum and her leg issue is clearly not a problem in fulfilling here mum duties.

Momochan in her preferred standing position.
(She can stand or walk straight if she wants.)

Moreover, the current situation brought about an additional benefit: the opportunity for "mum sharing". 

"Mum sharing"

Mum sharing means that babies share their mums.
Natchan gave birth to four babies, which is a little too many to support without human assistance. Goats have only two teats, so four babies have to compete who gets most milk.  

That's why Mrs. Yagishita would have to do some bottle feeding to make sure all four babies grow fine.

See the milk bottles?

But Momochan's new mum status created an opportunity for a better solution: We took the smallest of Natchan's four babies to Momochan to see if she would accept her. And Momochan said, okay, why not? She snuffed the new baby's bottom, it smelled good, so she let her suck. 

Momochan's baby girl now has a playmate!

As a result, Natchan is feeding three babies and Momochan is feeding two. 
In the meantime Yagishita san is busy procuring enough food both Natchan and Momochan. This is not easy in winter.

If you are worried that Natchan or the baby might have suffered emotional damage from being separated, I can assure you that this is not the case. Natchan hardly noticed one baby is missing, and the baby was happy to be with her new mum as soon as she was allowed to suck. (It's easy to identify a goat in distress. There was none this time.)

Natchan and three babies (2018/1/27)

We will keep you posted about new developments.