Whew! The first three weeks of May were a whirlwind of activity and excitement–so busy that I never even caught us up on the photos from the tag end of April! April 30th was a busy day. It was Snowball’s first day in the Wide World, and the day Petunia’s kids ventured out on their first walk.

Tigerlily had to slowly warm up to her new role as “mother”. She had delivered two dead kids in two previous births and didn’t quite know what to do with a live one. I’m not sure how anyone could be afraid of this adorable piece of dandelion fluff, but Tigerlily harbored a few suspicions. She also kept mistaking me for her baby and would sometimes reject Snowball in favor of me when I would interact with the two of them. She did better when I left her alone. She’s the first goat I’ve had to lock up in a separate enclosure with her kid so they could bond in private. Every time other goats’ babies entered the scene, Tigerlily would go into a frenzied confusion and start butting all the kids away, including her own.

“Look out, Tigerlily! Don’t be fooled by the small, innocent appearance. It can probably smell fear!”  

Tigerlily also had a tendency to abandon Snowball for hours on end as if completely forgetting she had a baby of her own to look after. 

Where’d everyone go? 

I didn’t like seeing Snowball abandoned on her own so I put her with TinCup’s triplets. When you already have three kids, what’s one more, right? 

“Wait a minute, who are you?” 

As long as Snowball didn’t try to nurse, TinCup was happy to let her hang out. Looking at them side-by-side, I’m very glad I induced Tigerlily. Though she was almost two days younger, Snowball was significantly larger and thicker than TinCup’s babies. If we had waited for Tigerlily to kid on her own, this little gal would have had a very hard time coming out!

TinCup’s kids quickly adopted their new “sister”. 

Snowball bears a striking resemblance to TinCup’s first kid, Yeti. In fact, Tigerlily took an immediate dislike toward Yeti and even now, almost a month later, Tigerlily will bite his tail or butt him if he comes too close to her. She doesn’t do this to any of the other kids, so I can only think that she resents his resemblance to her own precious Snowball.

Yeti has the cutest swirl of hair on the end of his nose, just like his mama.  

Petunia recovered very well from her scary bout with milk fever and was looking sleek and fat again by the weekend. 

Buster Brown discovered the joys of jumping and balancing on this wobbly log. 

And realized he could use it as a launchpad to get onto Mama’s back! Mama wasn’t too pleased and sauntered off. 

Meanwhile, Cupcake thought she’d try chewing on mama’s beard. Petunia tended to keep that beard tantalizingly out of reach. 

Cupcake discovered her favorite hidey-hole inside the electrical spool. 

Cupcake wasn’t too sure about Brownie’s wobbly log, but she loved these rocks!  

And on the last day of April, Petunia decided that her kids, just shy of one week old, were ready to accompany the big goats on their evening walk. 

April, fare thee well! You’ve blessed us with green grass and bounding babies! (Including the strange radioactive one in front.)