One trait we love about our Spanish goats is that they are vigilant mothers. Our herd queen Michonne is a very protective mother. As an example, this year she only had one kid survive birthing, and she was a tiny beautiful black and white badger face doe. Michonne was so protective of her when she was first born she wouldn’t even let Misty play with the other kids for the first few weeks. She chased anyone who wanted to even get close to her away. As Misty has grown Michonne has let up a little and is now letting her bounce around and play with the other kids, but she still keeps a very close eye on her.
Yesterday we opened up a part of the property that the goats don’t usually have access to so they could eat down the weeds. Also in this area is a tree that was leaning very hard that we had to cut down for safety reasons. When we cut the tree down, we discovered that the inside of the tree was also hollow. We had cleaned up the top branches of the tree but the massive trunk and stump is still there. Misty was playing on the stump and fell inside the hollow in the stump. It was just deep enough that she wasn’t able to get out, and just big enough that as she wiggled around in there trying to get out, she got herself very tightly wedged inside it.
When we went out at night to take care of putting all the animals away, Michonne was standing in the middle of the upper pasture calling for Misty. Calling and calling and obviously somewhat frantic about the fact she wasn’t finding her. By the time we got over to the pasture to see why she was having such a fit, she was in a full blown panic with a frantic screaming call over and over. She ran up to our daughter Jenelle who was the first one out there, and then ran away into the newly opened section over to the tree stump. Our daughter followed Michonne, knowing that something was definitely amiss and found poor little Misty inside the tree stump on her side curled up and stuck, having trouble breathing because of the position she was in. Jenelle was able to get Misty out of the stump and after checking her out and then giving her a big hug and kiss on the nose, she let her down. Misty gathered her wits about her, went to her mom for reassurance and then bounced off and jumped on the tree trunk to run back and forth and on and off it. No worse for wear.
If Michonne had not been such a good mother and insisted that someone come save her baby, we fear that poor little Misty might have eventually succumbed, due to the weird twisted up position she was in. We’re proud of Michonne, but being a good mother is one of the great traits of Spanish goats.
