Shake is 6 months old today!
Who? Me?
It's hard to believe that it's been that long since I found this tiny, 4-pound, frost-covered girl behind the barn in the dark of early morning. It looked physically impossible, but she was standing -- on those tiny pencil legs.
Izzy fed her brothers but wanted little to do with this runt with a weak hip. So, we bottle-fed her every two hours as she shook in our arms and moved her into the house each night.
We worked with that hip and before long, she was hopping along with the rest of the babies during the days. Spending her days outside allowed her to stay a part of the herd, and when we sold one of her brothers, Momma Izzy decided to allow her to eat again after all -- putting an end to the round-the-clock feeding schedule.
Eating like a big goat next to Momma on the milk stand.
Then, just whenI was ready to declare victory for little Shake, we lost her mother suddenly. Shake refused to go back to the bottle at that point, but she turned out to be tough enough to handle the sudden weaning. We were each other's buddies during that time -- both missing her momma.
Field trip! Shake got the opportunity to entertain several school classes during the spring.
3 goats, 1 feed bowl
She and the other two spring girlies are so big and beautiful now. At this week's weigh-in, Shake was 53 lbs. She's still smaller than the other two (Mrs. Hughes is over 70 lbs. -- at some point I'm going to have to stop holding them to weigh them!), but she's lively and healthy and her coat is nearly impossibly shiny -- which I always think is a good indicator of goat health.
We had some tough moments during this past spring's kidding season. Though we did all we could, we couldn't save all the ones born prematurely or weak. But Shake is here to remind us that all the work we put forth trying to save the weak ones is SO worth it.
There's certainly nothing weak about her now. She is strong and spunky and spoiled.