Just when you are tired of cleaning out goat pens and muddy boots something happens that makes you just love having your own little homestead!!! Our does have been kidding and we had triplets the other day. Went up to check on the little family and discovered that the Momma cat (a pregnant homeless kitty that found us a month ago in the barn) had her kitttens in the hay feeder. One of the triplets had climbed in with her and was sleeping with her and the kittens !! Been watching this and noticed that the Momma cat tolerates the little buck climbing in on top of everyone and sleeping. Everyone seems positioned just fine as no one seems to be getting crushed. Now if the buck begins to nurse off of the cat I will surely let you all know !!!! Just shows us that animals are more tolerate of others than humans are of each other and we call them "dumb animals" ??? Reminds me of the Lion and the Lamb. Maybe there is hope for all of us humans after all !! Have a Great Spring !! (it has arrived hasn't it ??)

-- Helena (windyacs/@npacc.net), April 25, 2002

Answers

That would be soooo cute to see. One time, we had several litters of kittens. The mommas just laid around nursing kittens (it didn't matter whose they were). We also had baby chicks too. One of the chicks got to hanging around the kittens and pretty soon we saw a row of kittens nursing on a momma and there was that baby chick nestled right in the middle of them!

-- DEBBIE LONG (DLONG@SIMPLOT.COM), April 25, 2002.

Helena, I have a Buff Orpington hen living in one of the goat barns, with two little chicks fostered onto her that I hatched in the incubator. Found one of the pigmy/cross bucks snuggled up to her in the corner one night when I checked on them. She didn't seem to mind that, either. It is amazing what they do. Every once in a while, we need something like that to keep us going! Jan

-- Jan in Co (Janice12@aol.com), April 25, 2002.

Helena, the risk of toxoplasmosis is greatest in kittens, especially those who are born and raised in the barn, pooping in the hay. Perhaps spaying and neutering her and the kittens if you are going to keep them? Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), April 25, 2002.

Just finished a trying morning of writing political articles when I decided to check the forum....and here was your delightful story! Wish you could take a photo and send it to all of us....but maybe your "word picture" was indeed better because it sure warms my imagination!

-- Suzy in Bama (slgt@yahoo.com), April 25, 2002.

Helena...Sounds like a really cute picture!! My favorite thing to watch is when my kittens play hide 'n seek in the hay with the "kids". After the kids get the hang of it, they actually go peeking in around the bales looking for the kittens...then run like crazy when the kittens jump out at them! So funny!!

-- Marcia (HrMr@webtv.net), April 25, 2002.

Must've been the first year we had goats, I went out to the barn one rainy day to check on the critters, and was suprised to see babybuck leaping straight up and down into the air, on the other side of a four foot plywood gate. How in the world could he be leaping so high? On closer inspection, I saw that the bull had come into the barn and was laying on the other side of that gate, and babybuck was leaping up and down on top of him. lol. The bull didn't even act as if he noticed:)

-- mary (mlg@mlg.com), April 25, 2002.

Hi Helena, Great story, I have two cats that lost their mother at a very young age, At the time I did not have time to take care of them, but I tried to get them to eat, and moved them to a small sheltered dog house in the yard close to my chicken coop. Well a week later, those little kittens moved in with my hens and even ate grain every day. Later when they were just a little older, I had a hen hatch 14 chicks and I was sure those cats(kittens) would play with those chicks (claws out and kill them) they didn't. They slept side by side with those chicks for about a month. It was a sight to see. Then the kittens moved in with my Collie in another pen, My collie adoped those kittens and loved them until the day she died. When ever it stormed or something threated them, they would be safe in my collie's huge dog house. Sometimes sleeping on her back or curled up inside her legs by her tummy. I still have those cats, I have a baby goat that cries when I leave her(bottle fed) that cat goes in and comforts her, follows her around and in general looks out for my baby goats. I love those cats, they are something else, my husband named them Dim and Wit.....And they aren't.

-- Barbara (vozarbi@sensible-net.com), April 25, 2002.