Farming frees the spirit, especially for this goat
I was fortunate enough this past weekend to be present when a mother goat gave birth to two babies, and even to assist her some, though truthfully I think she’d have performed just fine without me.
My friend and I had been to the farmers market earlier that day. The 40 or so hens are all laying and that makes for a lot of eggs to sell, hence the farmers market on Saturday mornings in downtown Sylva. We were returning after having unloaded a dozen or so eggs when we decided to stop at the barn to check on a very pregnant goat. We arrived to find one small hoof protruding in a very uncomfortable-looking manner from said goat’s backend.
My friend gave a tug or two but the baby wasn’t having any part of leaving that warm cocoon-like place for a brave and cold new world. I found some antiseptic lube, lathered up, and went fishing inside for the other hoof. Once I found it and had both hooves in my right hand, I grabbed hold of momma goat’s tail with my left hand. Then I gave a good strong tug while my friend hung on to the front of the now vastly unhappy goat. The poor momma was bleating in pain but she did finally manage to give a good hard push, squirting the baby out. Once the baby was on the ground we saw immediately what the problem had been with the birthing. It wasn’t complicated: This was simply a big baby goat, probably eight pounds compared to the usually six or so at birth, and the mother goat isn’t particularly large. The next baby came fairly quickly. It was, if anything, even slightly bigger than her sister.
This is the third nanny to birth here at Haven Hollow Farm this spring. And based on a swelling midsection it looks like another goat, one that we didn’t plan on having kids, is nearing a possible due date, too.
Meanwhile, the billy responsible for all this mayhem and gamboling about of baby goats is lounging his time away in the barnyard. He saunters around lackadaisically until feeding time, when he turns into demon goat and bullies the others and eats all their food. In this case it truly is good to be the king: all pleasure and absolutely no pain.
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The birthing of goats are a rite of spring. It’s something I’ve grown comfortable with these last couple of years and the delight of newborn babies never wanes. What’s also fun each spring is showing off the goat babies to others.
Kelly and Anna, two young friends, came to visit a week or so ago. They were appropriately taken with the baby goats, as anyone should and would be, given that these little tykes are adorably all legs and fuzz.
We admired the babies for a while. Then I noticed the girls kept disappearing inside the main chicken pen. It turns out they were looking for eggs, which because of a wide assortment of hen types, come in a variety of colors: white, blue-green, brown and chocolate brown. Kelly and Anna’s mother later told me that the girls did like the goat babies but they most enjoyed collecting the hen eggs. It’s sort of like a treasure hunt, I suppose, in that you can never be quite sure what color you are going to find next.
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While waiting for Kelly and Anna that day I planted three long rows of potatoes in my garden. This past weekend, in the other sections that are potato free, I applied generous amounts of lime to the soil.
Gardening, like seeing the goat babies being born, is an important part of spring to me. I’ve mentioned previously in this space that I had every intention of not gardening this year. I thought that I wanted to devote more time to other labors. But I realized that I simply can’t imagine going through a year without tending to a garden — at the risk of sounding flaky, gardening, tending animals and other farm chores grounds me. Whatever time farming takes is generally returned to me in terms of a freer spirit and more peaceful mind.
(Quintin Ellison can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)
