The return of Johnny the buck last fall gave me four pregnant does this spring. The expectant mamas: Baraka, Mocha Swirl (Baraka’s kid of last season), Yasmina, and Joey. They were all due around the second week of April; I was headed to Haiti for a six-day film shoot,* planning to return in time for their births.

Being in Haiti after the earthquake was grueling. It was 90+ degrees, crowded, and unsanitary. My crew stayed in a house in the mountains, an hour from Port-au-Prince, but still we had no running water, no electricity some nights. An aftershock awoke us in the middle of one night, vibrating our mattresses and shaking the windows so badly we feared they’d explode. Some mornings it was eight of us piled into a car made for four to face the hour-long trek into the city.

The dawn of our last morning there, from the balcony of a hotel, we witnessed thousands of Haitians crowding four-people-wide in lines that went on for miles. They’d been waiting patiently since midnight to get bedding for the tents that so many of them now called home. How much tragedy can the human spirit endure? We watched for an hour then headed to the airport. In an altered state, exhausted, barely able to process this kind of devastation, we said goodbye to Haiti and boarded our plane back to the US.

The plane arrived late in Miami, so we missed the connecting flight home to New Mexico. I phoned my almost-live-in boyfriend, who was to pick us up at the airport in Albuquerque, to tell him the change of plans. He informed me then that he had decided to go back with his old girlfriend. What!? Already in a vulnerable state, I was now in double shock. Nothing felt real. I found someone else to pick us up, and when at last I reached my empty house, I was heartbroken and depleted.

Yasmina gave birth to a pair of little boys two days later, on April 2nd. I observed the whole process. A second-time mom and now a pro, Yasmina took very good care of her newborns. She licked them clean, cleared their eyes and mouth, and made sure they drank her milk immediately. New life—I should have seen it as a miracle. But given my emotional state, I was not sure this was such a good world to be born into.

Joey & one of her kids    

As I lay in bed near midnight of April 7th, I heard cries from the barn. I threw on some clothes and ran out to find Joey on her side. I placed her head in my lap and tried to comfort her as she cried again every few minutes. She seemed not ready to kid, though, so after a half-hour I returned to my bed and stayed alert. When the cries grew more frequent I dashed back out to the barn. Voila! A kid was born! A boy! He came out all wet, as they do, but Joey was not tending to him, not even getting up. As an anxious grandmother, I cleaned off the baby’s nose and mouth—no kid was going to die this time, not on my watch! A minute later, another kid came out! This one was a little girl. Still Joey was not getting up. Yasmina came over and helped me clean off the second kid. Then Joey popped out a third! Another girl! Joey still lay on her side. She was exhausted. I finally put the babies under her nose and pleaded, “These are yours! You gotta tend to them now!” She started licking them. Whew! Three healthy little kids. Joey, unsuccessful last year, is finally a mother!

Returning from my office the next day, I heard new baby cries emerging from under a chair outside. There stood a little boy almost identical to one of Joey’s kids. I was befuddled. Who are you?? I noticed an umbilical cord hanging out of him—he was newly born. But whose was he? I found Mocha Swirl standing in the pen with afterbirth on the ground. Next to her was a baby girl who had the same tiny LaMancha ears as she. The boy had to be hers also. Yet he had long Nigerian ears—which can happen when you crossbreed. (Mocha Swirl is a “Mini”-Mancha crossbred with Johnny, a Nigerian Dwarf.) I brought the boy to her—“This is yours, dammit!”—but she wanted nothing to do with him. She would not let him nurse. “That is not my kid—not with those ears!” She is a first-time mom, confused and very stubborn.

Mocha Swirl with her small-eared kid    

It seemed logical that she might have rejected him because his ears looked different. Then I wondered, how would Mocha Swirl know what she herself looked like to be able to tell? I have no idea why she accepted the kid that bore semblance to her and rejected the one with the big ears.

Totally abandoned, the little boy wailed. I tried to get one of the other does to take him, but nothing doing. I knew that baby goats need the colostrum from their mothers’ milk within the first few hours of being born; they can die without the antibodies the colostrum provides. I held Mocha Swirl still so her son could nurse. It was a battle of wills—Mocha Swirl weighs about 60 lbs! The baby did get some milk into him for the night, which probably saved his life. The next morning, I feared his mom would kill him (a sad but real possibility), so I took him with me as I headed to the office. Since he is such a fighter and has stripes on his nose and face, I named him “Tiger.”

I also brought with me the colostrum-rich milk I luckily had frozen last year when Joey gave birth to her stillborn. I just needed to buy a baby bottle. With Tiger under my arm, I waltzed into Walgreen’s. I could not leave him in the car alone! “That is the cutest little puppy… Oh my God, is that a baby goat??” I filled the bottle with the milk, and li’l Tiger hungrily drank.

 

He required feeding every 2-3 hours, so Tiger went with me everywhere. To my office, to stores, to restaurants, even to a wine tasting. The various venues say “No Dogs,” but there are no “No Goat” signs, so I just bring him in with me. Better to ask forgiveness than seek permission is my motto. He has become a figure here in Santa Fe. Tourists want to have their picture taken with him. His photo is showing up on Facebook. Everyone falls in love. You don’t get much cuter than a baby goat, and an abandoned one pulls at everyone’s heartstrings.

    Wine taster & Tiger

At night I bring him home to sleep with the herd, which has now grown to four does and ten kids. (Baraka kidded two weeks later with three!) The other kids accept Tiger as a sibling. He curls up with them. But none of the does will feed him. So each morning I call his name and he comes running to me. I open the door. He jumps on the coffee table. I give him his warmed morning bottle of milk. I have become his mom.

———

Tiger Tiger burning bright… I hold you close to my broken heart. While I might have saved your life, li’l Tiger, in truth I think you have also saved mine.