We got our first trio of goats about three years ago this spring.  Our own little heard, one little doe and her two weathered brothers.  From the beginning we planned on breeding our little dolly and building a heard of small dairy goats. Visions of gourmet cheese and rosie faced children with milk mustaches from our own animals danced in my head.

Of course we had to wait for little Dolly to grow up.  In the meantime we fed our little goats, played with them, let them eat weeds and graze the orchard. There is almost nothing more amusing than watching baby goats play.

When Miss Dolly was about a year and a half old it was time to breed her, we found a buck and waited for her to come into heat. I was also very, very pregnant and not so great at getting down to the goat pasture to check on her. We made a couple attempts at breeding, but neither she or the buck were interested and I, hugely pregnant, gave up for that season.  It was probably the best, I was very busy that next spring with a new baby of my own.

Instead we purchased two new wee baby goats.  We named them Billy and Daisy.  Billy is our heard buck and Daisy one of our moms.  That also made breeding Dolly much easier, we just let them live together over the winter and let the breeding happen naturally.

Then one warm Sunday morning in April I got a text just as we were settling the family in their seats at church and the opening song started.  The text said “we have babies!” Clearly I had to go check it all out! Really though, I did feel like I needed to go check on our Dolly and make sure everything went well and see if she needed any help and check on the babies.  When I got there she was proudly cleaning her three little kids, she had those babies without any problems, like a veteran mother! Three little baby bucks (I had hoped for a doe, but I guess we will try again next season). Instead of pulling the babies and milking mom right away we allowed her to raise them, I didn’t want to bottle feed babies or sell them so young and I feel they do better if they are with her.  At around eight weeks old we started the weaning process and I learned how to milk a goat.  That has been an adventure and a story for another time.  It has been so fun to have little goats around again.