As I was driving home with Sweet Pea I got the call that Poppy had been born.  What???  I just finally got 1 goat and now I have 2 all of a sudden?!

The story goes like this... In the fall of 2011 I simply lost all patience with my goatlessness.  I searched high and low and there were no baby goats to be found.  (Obviously, this is before I knew how the kidding season worked!)  Finally, I settled on putting a deposit on 2 spring kids.  I picked out their parents and the waiting began.  And, I kept waiting.  And, waiting.  I began to doubt that these kids would ever be born.  I even assumed that the moms weren't even pregnant!  This is what led me to search out Sweet Pea.

Well, I was wrong!  Holstein (Poppy's dam) was indeed pregnant.  And, she had twins on April 8th of 2012, Easter Sunday.  Luckily only Holstein was pregnant otherwise I would have ended up with 3 baby goats all at once. 

I went and got Poppy on the 18th of April as I was anxious for Sweet Pea to have a friend.  I know she was lonely during the day while I was at work even though she had my dog for company.  She got plenty of attention when I was home though.  She sat on my lap and rarely was without a hand petting her.  I even adopted a method of potty training her.  If I take her to bed with me then I wake up if she stands up or moves around.  I simply laid her back down and cuddled up to her and she was perfectly content.  I took her out first thing in the morning and told her how good she was for pottying outside and this became rather effective.

The car ride to get Poppy was absolutely miserable.  Sweet Pea had gotten into the millet bag that I had for my chickens and inhaled as much as she could before getting caught.  Millet and goats do NOT agree.  She had the most foul smelling diarrhea I had smelled to date.  She felt terrible too.  Needless to say my car got initiated rather quickly!  Poppy did her fair share as well.  She urinated on my beautiful down coat at least twice.

I soon realized that not all baby goats are created equally.  Poppy seemed to have ingested Ritalin or some similar substance.  She was a firecracker for sure!  She rarely walked anywhere.  Instead it was jumping sideways and kicking her back legs out.  And, this little pistol had no idea what potty training was!!

Now, just imagine trying to sleep with 2 little goats in bed with you.  One now has diarrhea and the other doesn't want to lay down.  Clearly there was no bedtime at her previous home.  Maybe one of the problems is that I had one on each side of me.  I think at some point it occurred to me to put them both on the same side so they could cuddle together and this worked out better.

I remember the first time I bottle fed Poppy.  My dad and I almost collapsed from laughing so hard.  I have never seen a tail wag so vigorously in my entire life!  It was almost blurry it was moving so fast.  Now, THIS goat knows how to eat!!  She gulped down an entire bottle in about 27 seconds.  Hmmm, so this is how it's supposed to be.  I like this much better. 

Good thing it only took Sweet Pea a few days to get up to speed.  Then she fought Poppy for the first feeding.  Poppy learned to be very patient and let Sweet Pea go first.  Even when they got big enough to drink 2 bottles each Poppy would take turns.  Sweet Pea got her bottle and then Poppy hers.  Then Sweet Pea got another and so did Poppy.

Poppy is still good at waiting her turn even now.  I'm not saying that she won't try to sneak up on the milking stanchion before her turn but she hops right down when I tell her to.  The spray bottle may have something to do with it too :)