C section update

Boheme this afternoon chilling in the warm room's corral at the CCNF Arena.

So the bad news with Boheme is that it is now clear that she and her cria will never truly bond in the conventional sense. This is for at least two reasons. First and foremost the trauma of the operation which allowed her daughter, Musette, to come into this world was apparently simply too much. The idea of nursing a cria (particularly when it was her first ever) while still in considerable pain and discomfort from the operation just wasn’t in the cards. The association with the surgery just couldn’t be overcome. It’s not that Boheme utterly rejects her baby, she certainly knows it’s hers but it seems like this time around that is about as far as things are going to progress. Secondly, while Jen tried her very best to get Musette nursing on her mom, the cria frankly was so strong and so smart that she quickly figured out that she could get milk much more efficiently by taking it from a bottle rather than nursing from her recalcitrant dam’s udder while Boheme screeched at her in discomfort. The good news though is that A. Boheme seems to have returned to her normal somewhat flirty self (with us, her humans) and also seems to be healing up nicely so that we foresee — all things being equal — being able to breed her 6 weeks after the operation, and B. that Musette as of 4 days ago had learned how to be almost fully self-sufficient, nursing off of a hanging goat bottle (see photo below). Though not a perfect outcome, we can’t really complain…

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Boheme's little girl, Musette, sucks down a midday snack from her hanging bottle. We make 3 to 4 bottles a day for her and she feeds whenever it suits her!