Bella's Easter Bonnie Surprise

Bonnie is here!! She is so much more beautiful than even her pictures showed. Bella immediately took to her and she has been tongue flapping and licking Bonnie just like she's her own baby. It's very sweet. Bella still follows me around and gives me lots of kisses too. Bonnie's a bit shy around humans, but since Bella shadows me everywhere I go, little Bonnie follows right along. I was laying in the grass taking pictures and she hopped on my back! haha.

Bella is so happy with her goat baby. Now she doesn't have to "play" mommy with me. She has a real kid to look after. She is taking her job very seriously and none of the dogs get within 3 feet of me or Bonnie without getting head butted.

She won't let Bonnie nurse, which is good since I NEED that milk, haha...and Bonnie needs to stay weaned.

First she sees the feet...

...Then the head. "Oh, nooo!"

In other news, Treely's new trainer just came and got her today. She'll be going for 30-60 days of training about an hour away. So, I might not have any Tree mare posts for a while. Hopefully I can go up and take pictures of her pulling a cart (since she won't be doing any of that at my place, I need to at least have proof that she can, haha). She was such a good girl getting on the trailer. She's never been in a step up trailer, so she stopped and sniffed for a while then just decided to pick up her big ol' feet and step up. Good girl! Believe me, that's a definite improvement from the original loading method where at least two people get behind her and PUSH! Needless to say, she's come a long way.

I'm so easy...

...No. Not like that. I got a note at work saying that I have a special delivery coming easter weekend and it made my whole day/week/month. LOOK!!!



She's a little Pygmy doeling. Her name is Bonnie - which goes oh so well with Bella (stuff like that is important when picking out goats). I love her mischievous eyebrow markings. My friend has been helping me search for a buddy for Bella. She found Bonnie for me today. Bonnie will be weaned next week and is going to a new home with, guess what? FRESH MILK!! haha This little one may just be nursing for the next 6 months.

I have been milking Bella. I haven't been able to drink it, though because she was on antibiotics. Hopefully in two weeks if the new doeling doesn't drink it all, I can have my first taste of fresh goats milk. I hope I like it. I'm a milk fanatic(I pay $4/half gallon for Horizons organic whole milk...it tastes better than ice cream), so I think I will.

Bella has been super cuddly since I started milking her. I guess she has all those mommy hormones going and I'm the closest thing to a baby. She licks and nuzzles my forehead when I'm milking her. This coming from a goat who just last week was completely intolerant of having her udder touched. The whole time she was pregnant I thought I was supposed to sort of condition her to having her udder messed with. I would give her grain and then we would wrestle for about two minutes. Then if I actually got my hands on her udder, she would just lay down. haha

Then, all of a sudden, babies come out and her udder fills up and she just about melted into the ground the first time I milked her. She was so relieved.

I understand why people have such close relationships with their milk cow/goats. Bella has really bonded to me this week. So, I hope she's nice to Bonnie. I think she will be glad to have another goat to keep her company when I'm not around. She's very vocal about how lonely she is.