We were not in the mountains today just enjoying God’s wondrous nature. We were on a mission of serious importance! The entire goat herd was missing and Belle had been seen earlier in the day with the early discharge that would precede kidding. We had wanted to put Belle in the barn to give birth, but she had disappeared during the time it took the children to return to the house with the news. Matthew, Christina, and Simon spent all afternoon searching the entire east side of our hollow for the goats to no avail. It is quite a hike up to the ridge, and after criss-crossing the goat pasture hill and beyond they were pretty wore out!
We had gotten Mama Belle back in the spring of 2007 along with her three 6-week old kids. During the past couple of years we have gradually worked on our goat fencing and facilities until we decided that we would finally be ready to start raising goats from birth. (We still have much we need to do to complete the goat pasture and things we want to do in the goat barn. I guess things will never be “perfect” enough, so may as well trudge ahead!)
We borrowed a buck from a friend in December and kept him all winter long. Apparently he and Belle bred almost immediately, because she was now giving birth just 151 days after she had first met this buck! (150 days is the gestation period for goats, give or take a week.)
After work I hurried home to help look for the goats. They had never disappeared so completely before! I guessed that Belle had set off to deliver her kids in private and the rest of the herd had followed her far away, but at the same time I was prepared for the worse. I hoped the goats were ok, but I also instructed the children to search for signs of an attack from a pack of wild dogs or coyotes and we were prepared to find some seriously injured or killed goats. There are some very steep cliffs up at the ridge, and it could be possible that an ill-timed jump or a slip of the hoof could cause a goat to plummet to its death. We organized a search party of Matthew, Christina, Simon and I, with Lisa and Erica holding down the fort at home.
Christina and Simon trekked once again up the ridge beginning at the house. I started at the goat pasture, following the trails to the ridge top. I sent Matthew to check the neighboring hollow on his four-wheeler, in case they had gone up and over and perhaps gotten lost. All the while we were noticing the beauty around us we were also looking under briars and next to rock cliffs for signs of destruction!
We were connected to each other via two way radios, so Lisa could listen in to our progress as we gave periodic reports. It wasn’t too long before Christina and Simon reached the spot on the ridge above the goat lot where I was, with none of us seeing any sign of the goats. Matthew drove as far as he could on his four-wheeler before he was blocked by fallen trees in the road. Since no one lives over in that hollow, no one had cleaned up anything after our February ice storms and wind storms. Mathew had to backtrack out of there instead of coming on up to the ridge like I had hoped.
We spread out, once again, and started combing the ridge and hillsides “manhunt” style, being just far enough away from each other that we could not hear each other unless we yelled pretty loudly. Simon and I took the lower spot on the opposite side of the ridge, Christina took the top part of the ridge, and Matthew was going up to the North rim to come back toward us.
It wasn’t too long before Simon and I thought we heard strange sounds up in the distance. It sounded like it could be horns butting each other in playful combat! After hearing it a couple more times, Christina broke the radio silence with a euphoric, “I found the goats! At least some of them…” When I asked where she was, it was a bit comical at first, because she couldn’t say for sure. I thought, “Christina found the goats, but now we’ve lost Christina!” A couple minutes later we heard her come over the radio, “Here’s Belle. She’s ok.” And after a few moments of silence she came back on, “And she has kids! They’re adorable!”
I soon ascertained the position of Christina and the goats. Belle was way up under a rock-cliff cave and the other goats were on top and around the giant rock. It was a rather strenuous climb to get up to where they were from the angle I was coming from and Simon quickly outpaced me up the steep hillside.
It is difficult to describe the topography of this spot. There are sheer cliff sides that are impossible to climb, some as much as 20 to 30 feet while others are just 6 or 7 feet. There are several crevices amidst the cliffs and overhanging rock ledges. It is similar to the areas on our side, but we had not been on this land much, since our property line stops at the top of the ridge and this was on the other side. The unfamiliarity lent to the excitement and wonder of the whole situation!
It was also impossible to get any pictures that really do the spot justice, since we couldn’t get back far enough to take in the whole spot in the viewfinder of the camera. But perhaps these shots give some idea of the terrain we were navigating to get to Belle and her kids. This was the rock that Belle was hiding out in:
Here is Christina next to what I am now calling "Goat Rock":
Here is a picture of Belle on guard; probably something like Christina first saw when she rounded the side of the rock:
We did not have our cameras with us on the search and rescue mission, so all of these pictures were taken after Matthew volunteered to go back to the house to get the cameras, a rope, and some sacks to carry the kids in.
When I got up the cliff, Christina and Simon were admiring two very cute, little goats that were still wet. Belle was in the process of cleaning them off, and she had the beginnings of the after birth material still attached to her backside. (I don’t know how to describe that delicately.) We figured that these kids had to only be perhaps 30 minutes old, since we have read that they dry off quickly. There was a female that was mostly black, and a male that was mostly white. Unfortunately there was also another male that looked just like the black female that was lying to the side, dead.
Here are some pictures of them up in their "birthing room" under Goat Rock.
The boy:
The girl:
A close-up:
Mama Belle knew how to take care of them:
We all enjoyed watching the new kids as we were aware that we had just stumbled upon a miracle of God!
You can see in the above picture a bit of the ledge that this rock crevice was on. We knew that we needed to get them to the barn for their safety. I was afraid that the little goats would hop out to the edge and then fall about 15 feet down and get hurt, or perhaps those wild animals we thought of before would find an easy meal up here, away from our dogs normal patrol route.
The trek carrying the kids down the mountain was full of adventure and adrenaline. For one thing, the sky had clouded up quite a bit and coupled with the wind and thunder, it looked like we could be in for a good storm! We put each kid in a feed sack and hoped that Belle would follow their bleating down the mountain. It turned out that Matthew needed to put a rope around her neck to lead her down the mountain side. For some reason she was more concerned with eating greens than keeping up with her babies. Maybe she knew they were in good hands? Matthew and Belle found their own route off the mountain while Christina, Simon and I did the best we could getting down without shaking or squeezing the kids too hard.
We took turns carrying the kids because of the difficulty of the hike. Christina and Simon had a much easier time than I did! It was difficult finding solid footholds climbing down the hill and I actually fell a few times. Once I caught my leg under a fallen tree and could have broken it had I fallen forward instead of backward! By the time we got down to the goat barn, the sweat was drenching my undershirt. I was glad to get them into a stall in the old barn and that Mama Belle still wanted to take care of them in the stall!
Here they are in the barn stall before we retired for the night:
We took some more pictures the next day. We have been vascillating some concerning names for the kids, but it seems like "Galadriel", named after the elf princess in Lord of the Rings, has stuck for the black girl. We have been calling her "Galaddy" or "Gladdy" for short. It seems the boy will be named after Lord of the Rings’ Tom Bombadil, "Master of wood, water and hill." We have been calling him "Tom" or "Tommy" but we have also been calling him "George" after Curious George.
So this adventure took place last Wednesday, May 13th. We estimate that Tom and Galaddy were born about 4:00 in the afternoon. They are 6 days old today.
A couple final notes:
Lisa milked Belle last night and the evening before! Belle is full Alpine, so she should be a good milk goat. Milking a goat is new for us, and so far we have just taken enough to make Belle more comfortable. For some reason, one side of her utter has been very much engorged compared to the other side. We are considering working out a regular milking schedule, but we definitely do not want to bottle feed the kids. Maybe we will be able to share with the kids. I am pleased with the taste of the milk; there’s not much difference from store bought cow’s milk. Any suggestions on milking a goat would be welcomed!
Our other doe, Little LuLu, seems to be near kidding. We have her in a private barn stall, so there will not likely be such an adventure as we had with Mama Belle’s kidding. This will be LuLu’s first kidding, even though she is over two years old. She is half Alpine (from Belle) and half Boer, so she should be a good milk goat also. The problem with her is that she is not very friendly toward us, and I don’t know if she will let us milk her or not. We are hoping she will be able to deliver without any complications.
It has been exciting to welcome the first goats born at Pure Water Hollow. We didn’t get to witness the birthing first hand, but we were close! We are very thankful for the kids that have joined our homestead and we give God the praise for His creations! Had we not found them in time, this episode could have ended with in a tragic note. Perhaps things are starting to turn around for us at Pure Water Hollow for the better!
There is another sad footnote to the day of May 13th, however. While we were looking for the goats, we noticed one of the Rouen ducks were gone. We later found Champ, our chocolate Lab, with a duck wing in his mouth! We don’t know for sure if he killed the duck, or just finished her off. Either way, it has pretty much sealed his fate. We will try to find a new home for him.
I hate to end this post on a sad note! I am pumped up about our new kids and they are so cute! If you want some cute, friendly little animals at your homestead, all I have to say is, "You’ve got to be kidding!" Ha! Ha!
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2 comments
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karen in MS on May 19, 2009 at 10:30 pm
Wow!! What a day you've had!! You live in a truly beautiful place way up in those mountains. We don't have any mountains in South Mississippi, but I've always loved them.
Good luck with your new baaaaaaaaaabies, lol!!
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sassyfras on May 24, 2009 at 5:34 am
Wow !!! what an adventure, the kids are cute……yours plus the four legged ones….if your lab took the duck could he have taken the chicks ?… .
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