It’s Baby Goat Season
A time of so much learning
Beth Hoffman writes from Whippoorwill Creek Farm, about an hour south of Des Moines. In addition to goats, the farm raises grass-finished beef and offers cooking classes and events. She also wrote Bet the Farm: The Dollars and Sense of Growing Food in America.
Here’s a bold statement: there’s nothing cuter than a baby goat. It’s a fact of life, undeniable, as true as the green grass that grows in springtime.
Goat kidding season for us starts promptly five months from the second we put the buck in with the does. Like clockwork, the babies start arriving a few days before and up to a few weeks after the date. [An interesting side note: we timed this buck and it took him a mere 40 seconds after putting him in with the does to start doing his job.]
Of course, to a farmer, baby goats are far more than just “cute.” They are work: goats have anywhere from 1 to 5 kids at once, meaning that our 18 pregnant goats result in something like 50 goat kids, all within a short window of time.
Like many first-time parents, the first year we went through goat kidding season, we were overattentive in our parenting. We pulled kids as soon as we perceived any trouble with the birthing process and we were sure to get kids on their mother’s milk, often with a lot of wrangling and goat screaming.
Now, four years later, we are much more relaxed for the season. Our 43rd goat kid of the season was just born and we did not pull a single one. Mother Nature has a way of working it all out, without human intervention.
That does not mean all has gone smoothly. There’s a mom with mastitis, and now we are bottle feeding her two kids. John just realized one of them is blind, and we’ll need to contend with that fact (if you happen to need a blind bottle goat, let us know!). And then there was the goat kid who seemed perfectly fine, but we found the next day lying flat out as a goat shouldn’t lie. She passed away peacefully about a day later.
It strikes me that the full circle of life on the farm happens even in the short birthing process. Like so many times in this farming adventure, it makes me truly realize that, how no matter how hard we try, often you can’t make life, or death, any different than it is. Repeatedly, I’ve been challenged in my city-life assumptions, namely that the world was mine to shape. Now, I know that the life of even a little goat will unfold as it will, with or without my intervention.
But the more frequent reminder with baby goats is a sheer joy of life. A goat kid will often stand still one minute and fling itself into the air the next, cocking its head to one side, in what only can be described as astonishment in their own ability to jump and dance. They are so alive, so curious, so goat.
If I believed in feeling blessed, this is when I would proclaim such a state. But in my own way, I will call it a privilege to be a part of their lives to be a witness to their birth, their joy and sometimes, their death.
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Also be sure to check out Rachelle Chase’s brilliant article this week about what Trump really meant when he issued one of his Executive Orders.
And if you happen to be in Urbandale, this looks like a great place to check out!
And paid subscribers—save the date!!! We will be hosting the Weary Ramblers here at the farm for my paid subscribers (don’t worry, you can still subscribe!). Details coming soon.
When I read those first two sentences of your column, there was no way I could not read the rest of it! Loved it! Great perspective on life in it.
Nice way to start my day!