Countryside trip Part 2

So I stayed for  few days and pretended to be a herder and help with the baby animals. (and by helping, I really mean taking countless selfies with baby goats). I had went hoping to see an animal being born, but it was a little late in the birthing season, and most had already been born already.

The kids-

There were I think around 300 new baby goats born this year.  I forgot the actual number they told me, all I know is that there were plenty of them jumping around and yelling out all cute like for the momma goats.  Momma goats are not so great at looking after their kids, so in the morning, when the goats go out, the kids get herded separately so as to not get lost.  Each morning, we took the herds out too the well, and then separated them there.  I would roughly estimate the well to be about a mile from the house.  Well, one morning, we were separating them, and a group of kids got scared and took off running towards the house.  I was the closest to them, so I took off running after them.  Let's just say that they were fast, and I was not.

 Once we all reached the house, the kids calmed down from their frenzy, and I got them running back in the correct direction towards the well.  They were still a little freaked, and were running fast.  About halfway through our running journey, they saw the herd of momma goats going further into the countryside to graze.  The kids then proceeded to run EVEN FASTER towards them.  In a herders perspective, this was a horrible thing...so I took off sprinting to catch them and change their direction, but I was not fast enough.  FC's dad eventually saw what was happening, and raced over with his motorcycle before the two groups combined.  The group of kids went now in the correct direction towards the well, and the momma goats walked out of sight for the day.  As FC's parents had a hearty chuckle, I smiled in shamed, just glad that I was done running.

* Side note, when I got back to BX and told this story to FC, she did not stop laughing for 12 minutes...not just a chuckle laugh either, a literal rolling on the floor laugh.

Goats in the house.

I was outside with Enkhjin and her sister tending to the animals.  When we had finished our task, we went back inside for some warm milk tea.  First to enter the house was Chimee, then me...assuming that Enkhjin was right behind me, I left the door open for her.  She however, did not enter right behind me.  As I sat inside sipping some milk tea, FC's Mom went out to get something from the other room.  What she soon discovered, though, were about 10 goats that had come into the house! Oops.

the kids climb on everything

my favorite lamb...all black with a bit of a white tail.

The well

Animals drink alot of water.  So much of the time was spent down by the well.  If you are wondering what happens if you accidentally drop the stick down the well....well, here are some photos.  

The birth

Where's Enkhjin?  1 point for identifying the goat in labor,
 2 points for finding Enkhjin.

On the last day that I was in the countryside, I was lucky enough to see a birth. As I walked out of the house, I heard the poor goat screaming in pain.  The sheep and goats had to stay in the corral until they were milked a little, So this poor goat in labor was being tramped upon and squished by the others.

There were some real jerk goats who would come up to her and start head butting the soon to be mom.  I like to think that they were other mother goats trying to give advice to the preggo goat, and with their head butts were trying to say encouraging things, like 'dont lay down, get up and walk honey!'  'you can do it!' or 'better out than in!'  but in reality, I think they were just being jerks.

After about an hour, FC's dad, just stuck his hand in, and pulled that kid right out.  I was expecting it to be messy process, but turns out, it was way more messy than I thought.

I thought the goat would lick the grossness off the kid, but that never happened.  Instead, Enkhjin wiped it all off with her hand and smeared it on the momma goat to make her remember the smell of her kid.  Then she rubbed dirt all over the kid to fully clean him off.  

SO FLUFFY.

Overall, it was a great trip, and I had a lot of fun.  Here are some things that I learned:

1.       Goats don’t look after their babies very well, which is why the kids don’t get to go out with their mothers to graze.  Sheep look after their babies quite well, which is why lambs can go out and graze with their mothers.  In other words, don’t pick up a lamb and assume that the mother will not head butt you and knock you over.

2.  If you lay anything on the ground, goats will eat it. 

3. If you have a fake knit flower on your hat, goats will eat it.

4.   If you are wearing clothes, goats will try to eat those too.

5.  Baby goats jump…a lot.

6.  Stars in the countryside, are limitless.