Baby Goats in Baskets

We had a fence crisis this summer, and for two days had no good containment for our bucks.  As is entirely predictable, we also then had a spate of baby goats beginning New Years Day.

Now there is a good reason why most people in the Northeast do not plan goat births for January unless they have heated barns - the week the babies were born involved extreme cold - we had -28F here one night, and weeks where we rarely left the single digits.  And to our sorrow, we did lose three babies, but the majority of them (10 so far) survived in our unheated and not very tightly sealed barn, and are doing beautifully.

For the first several nights, however, during the extreme cold, we did bring the newest babies in to warm themselves by our fireplace, to which I attribute our fairly good survival rate, and also the awe-inspiring cuteness.  Three baby goats fit well in a full-sized laundry basket.  Our two toddlers, Zion (18 mos) and Q. (2) were particularly taken with the little ones in baskets and felt the need to announce "Goat! Goat!" more or less non-stop.

Thought you might want to share in the cuteness.  Every year we have a naming theme - this year it is "Movies" - so you see Rosebud (the white one) snuggled up with Lily Von Shtupp and on the left, a sleepy Bogart.