First Market Day

We set up earlier than usual at the Hamilton town square.  I have new market neighbors and am one space away from a local shepherd and potter, Kylie Spooner.  The weather was glorious - cool and sunny - and the patrons started coming.  It was Colgate Univ. graduation day and the families were wandering through the market.  I said hi to some market friends I haven't seen since last October and bought some granola, home made butter, jalapeno cheddar dinner rolls and Gouda cheese.  There is a new lunch/dessert crepe vendor.  Three sisters make delicious crepes while you watch.   The mango/brie crepe is fabulous.  Couldn't help but go back for the Nutella/strawberry/whipped cream for dessert.  It takes an hour to set up, and another hour to take down, but it was a very worthwhile and enjoyable market day.  It should be good for another month after which the market will be slow, and the weather very hot, and I will sit in front of a fan and spin.  Rainy Saturdays will give me a day off once in a while so it's not so bad.  After stops at Tractor Supply and Price Chopper it was back to the farm to find big white pregnant mom - the one I found stuck upside down a couple of weeks ago - had given birth to twins.   I think she was thrown by the fact that two came out of her, and me walking in immediately after was not so lucky either.  Mom fled to the back of the pen without licking them off.  I left them alone, hoping she would come around, but when I went back a while later she had not bonded with them.   I built a pen around them, and got them all isolated together.  Got the cords dipped and Nutridrench into the babies, one of each.  Mom was still very nervous, stepping on the babies and was in no shape for me to nurse her out.  Fortunately I had some colostrum from another birth in the fridge and heated it up for the hungry newborns.   I went to bed fearful that I had a set of bottle babies on my hands.  Goats do not accept another goat's babies very easilly.  Goats are notoriously GOOD mothers.  I have only had one bad mother goat in all the year's I've had them, and that was after a horrible birth where I found her screaming in the back of the barn and had to assist with getting the baby out. This morning I found the little white boy in his sweater far from the pen, sound asleep.  Somehow he had crawled out, looking for food and succor no doubt, and given up.  The dark brown doe kid was asleep with her mother, who was not looking as nervous as the day before.  I bottle fed the babies and was relieved to see mom nuzzling the babies a little and checking the rear ends.  Good sign.  Mom's udder is swollen and the teats are low.  I'll nurse her out this morning and give some to the babies.  We'll see how it goes...