The Mother and Child Reunion

Did not go well.

Well, it did not go poorly, either, but it was not as touching as we had hoped.

We bundled the kids up yesterday in new sheepskin lined fleece coats, and took them out to the barn to see momma. It was 37, and plenty warm for them to be outside. B had to stop up all of the holes that the cats had dug in their efforts to forge a path to China (or outside of the barn). So it was late yesterday when we finally finished. We had hoped that the newly reunited family could spend a cozy evening together. We warmed up the kid house, bought them new coats to go visiting, and were ready for the magic to happen.

When we brought them out, they were very uninterested in their momma. She was interested in them, in a curious sort of way. She seemed curious about their smell and that they were so small. It was not a recognition interest in the least.

I tucked them on their knees under her belly and encouraged them to nurse, which they did. She stood still as long as she was eating, but after that had little patience in letting them nurse. When they lost the teat out of their mouths, they had no idea where to look to find it again. We left them out for sometime, and it did not help. She did eventually do a little head butting of them as they made a little ruckus. I don’t think she was threatened or angry with them, just mildly annoyed.

So, for the warm time being, we will bring them out with us in the afternoons and mornings to get a little drink from momma. We will not continue to milk her, as there seems to be no point in trying to continue feeding them her milk if they are nursing from her most times a day. It is a lot of work, and the milk dries up much faster than if the babies are nursing.

I would not say we have given up, but we have given up on it going smoothly and being instinctive to them. We’ll continue to encourage them, but not make plans that they will definitely get back together as a family anytime soon.

And so it goes.