One Big Happy Family

One of the strangest kiddings I've ever had: Maple and Acorn are mother and daughter and I never separated them. Acorn nursed her mother until she was around eight months old and Maple finally weaned her by herself; letting her nurse that long made one of the best does we've raised on our farm. After Acorn was weaned, I saw no reason to separate her from her mother and she was old enough to breed so we put them in with our red buck. Well, apparently, they got bred pretty close to the same time because they both kidded on the same day. Now for the strange part...they both kidded in the shelter within minutes of each other, I'm assuming. I was at work and it was almost dark when I got home to feed. I didn't see Maple or Acorn and I knew they were both close to kidding so I started looking for them. I found them in the shelter with two kids but had no idea what I was about to discover. Maple, the mother, was cleaning a traditional colored doe and I found a red and white paint beside her who looked like he had just been born, still laying in after birth. I figured he was her kid also and she just hadn't finished cleaning him. Well, Acorn (daughter) saw the other goats eating and she went running towards the feed pans. I shined my light on her and noticed signs of birth under her tail. Since the buck kid was still wet and Maple wasn't really cleaning him, she would lick him occasionally, I thought he must belong to Acorn and she had no idea what to do. Also, if he made a sound, Acorn would come running to check on him, but that was it, she would stand around him, but didn't attempt to clean him.

We moved the entire family to our horse trailer because we had the barn full since my horse was in there. After getting them all in the trailer, Maple started to clean the little buck so I think he must have been laying in enough of her after birth (gross) that he smelled like the doe kid and she kind of adopted him. Acorn still liked the little guy, but she wouldn't clean him. Keith and I stood around and watched them from outside the trailer for a good half hour and Maple continued to clean him so we decided to go eat supper and check on them in a few hours. When I went back out to bottle feed my girls in the barn I checked on the new family and Maple had completely cleaned the buck kid. I rustled him up, which always seems to make them mad, just so I could make sure he nursed. He went straight to Maple and started nursing so I knew everything was going to be okay.

The next day, I found a strange situation, both kids were nursing off both does! I saw the traditional doe kid nursing from Acorn and the buck kid nursing from Maple, then they would switch. And yesterday, the buck kid was nursing from Acorn and after a few minutes she made him stop, so he went to Maple and started nursing from her! I can't separate them now so we booted my poor horse out of his barn stall and put down fresh bedding for the big, happy family. Both kids are doing great and so are both mothers so I can't complain. All I can do is stand back, scratch my head, and thank God they are all okay.