Poddy Goat

One of the backpackers came up the other day and said that there's been a baby goat crying a lot and it is often on it's own. Well I went to investigate and found this little one.

She was trying very hard to find her mother and would suck any nanny that would let her. She's managed to stay alive for about a week now, so she must have been getting something. I couldn't quite work out which one was her mother but the one I thought it was was not friendly enough to catch easily and she showed absolutely no interest in this gorgeous little thing. It would have taken a fair bit of work to get the mother to take her back on, and I had four backpackers that thought it would be wonderful to hand feed a baby goat. Just for those that don't know, a poddy animal is a baby animal that has lost it's mother for some reason and you hand raise. Not exactly sure where the term came from.

Colette the Kid has taken to the bottle really well and considers any human as her mum. Whenever one of us walks outside she is quick to run over and try to get a feed. It's cute now, but I keep warning that it's going to become annoying! She will live in the house yard until she discovers my garden or that she can climb stairs!

It often happens if a goat has triplets, one gets left behind - we did have that trouble earlier and we tried to save one, but she died on us. I don't think she'd ever had a first suck of the colostrum milk. This milk contains all the antibodies that the babies need to get them through the first part of life. This nanny however had only had the two - if it's the one I think it is.

Anyway, Colette will make a very cute pet for a little while and because she's a girl, will grow up to be a nanny herself one day! Even Kim has a soft spot for a baby animal! This is our couch outside by the fire last night. She was very comfortable in the warmth!