Hindel Kidz 13: The Ugly Goatling
Hindel Kidz 13
The Ugly Goatling
Back in December 2006, Jack’s son, Ryan, told him he had gotten a baby fawn for Jack as a Christmas gift. Of course it wouldn’t be born until sometime in May 2007. When Grace found out, she was on cloud nine. When Sven was growing up, Jack had raised whitetail deer as a hobby. She had always enjoyed hearing Sven talk about his dad’s deer and all the things he got to do like bottle feed. Now she was going to have a chance to do it. This fawn was supposed to be delivered to Jack’s when it was only one or two days old so it would grow up knowing them. They would be able to pet it and walk right up to it without it running away. The last deer Jack had you had to coax it before it would eat out of your hand. And that’s if you were inside the pen. She never let anyone pet her.
The month of May came. So far Jack hadn’t said anything more about the baby fawn. Toward the end of May, he said the guy who had the deer had said so far all his girl deer had baby boys. And Jack wanted a girl. Grace started to think Jack might not get one and she had been looking forward to it so much.
On May 31st when Sven and Grace were over at Patty‘s, she said Elissa had told her there was a new deer up at Grandpa Jack’s. She had gotten to hold it and it had spots. The day before, Elissa and Kristin were supposed to come spend the night at Grandma Patty’s and only Kristin came down. Elissa didn’t want to come until the next morning and now they knew why.
Sven and Grace went up to Jack’s soon after hearing the news. Jack was down at the meat house so they decided to look around and go out and see the goats anyway. They looked around both pens, but didn’t see anything. They thought maybe Elissa meant she had seen the deer out at the other guy’s place. Grace went around to see Nibby and Elmer while Sven got the rest of the goats’ fresh water. When Grace went back into the building, she saw Sven in the birthing pen holding a baby fawn.
“I just found it,“ he said.
The little baby had been lying behind two of the feedbags. Sven handed her to Grace. He said they would come back later and bring the camera so she could get a photo of her holding it and send it to her daddy.
“How old does it look?“ she asked Sven.
“Probably two days old.” And he was exactly right.
When they went back up, Jack was there. He said the other guy wanted to keep the baby for a day to make sure it would eat before he let it go. So the fawn had been born on May 30th. Sven and Grace went out to get some photos. When Grace picked the little one up and was holding her, Grace started to smell something bad. At first, she thought it was deer smell and she wasn’t used to it. When Grace handed the fawn over to Sven, he had a green smear on his hand. Grace looked down and found some more on the front of her shirt. Now she knew what the bad smell had been. The little fawn had gone to the bathroom on her. Oh well, it wouldn’t be the first time or the last time. Sven also took a picture of the fawn at ground level so people could see how tall she was.
At feeding time, Grace sat in the pen with the fawn, but she still tried to talk to Joy hoping Joy wouldn’t get jealous. The little fawn was so tame. She walked right over to Grace and started licking the inside of her leg. Grace thought she was hungry and looking for a place to eat. A little later, Jack came out and handed Grace a bottle of replacement milk. When she opened the fawn’s mouth and slid the bottle in, the fawn didn’t know what to do yet or what the bottle was. Grace was just so enchanted by it. Sven had grown up around all this so it was old stuff to him.
Grace wondered what Jack was going to call the fawn. Sven suggested Legs since that was the majority of her body. Grace also thought about Clarice, after the girl reindeer in Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer or Feline, after the girl deer in Bambi. Jack said he was probably going to call her Lizzie since Elissa was the one who came with Ryan to bring her down. He had asked Elissa what she wanted to call her and she didn’t know. Lizzie was Elissa’s nickname.
The second day, Grace got to bottle feed Lizzie again. This time she started sucking on the bottle right away and downed it within five minutes. Jack had been feeding her around every four hours so Grace figured she was getting used to the bottle. Jack had Charlotte call Bree’s mother to see if she wanted to bring down Bree’s other half sister, Jessica, to see the baby. Unlike Savannah, Jess and Bree have the same mother and that was the half that made them sisters. Charlotte didn’t tell them it was a baby deer so they thought right away it was a baby goat.
When Jess saw Lizzie, she thought she was so cute and asked, “Mommy, can we get a deer?”
The next day, Jack was going to be baby-sitting Savannah. Grace could just see it: Savannah wanting to hold Lizzie and Lizzie kicking out and Savannah dropping her. Sven said he doubted Jack would let Savannah go out to pen by herself and let her hold Lizzie. Savannah would think a deer would be just like a baby goat. She found out about it when she heard Jack telling one of his neighbors. When Savannah went in the pen, she left the door standing wide open. Jack and Sven both yelled at the same time, “Shut the door!”
Jack scolded her and told her the door had to be closed at all times. If Lizzie got out he was going to have Savannah’s hide. Jack was going to let Savannah hold the bottle for the noon feeding. Lizzie didn’t drink any milk from her. She didn’t drink any milk from Jess the other night, either. That night at feeding time, Grace felt a bit of mean gladness because Lizzie took more milk from her than from Savannah.
When Lizzie was five days old, Sven took her out in the back of the first pen after locking the triplets and Ruby out. He wanted to get some better photos of Lizzie standing in the grass. When he started back up to take a photo of her, she ran after him just like a little puppy. When she got brave enough, she started to explore the fence line. Some of the goats came over to check her out. Nibby was looking at her and thinking, “What the heck is that?”
At feeding time, Sven said, “I am going to feed her this time.”
She nibbled at the bottle and got some milk on her nose, but that was it. She didn’t seem interested in eating. Before hand, she had been sucking on any finger of Grace‘s she could find. So Grace thought she must have been hungry.
“I am going to take the bottle back inside unless you want to try,” Sven replied.
Grace took the bottle; opened Lizzie’s mouth and she started sucking like crazy. She had almost the whole bottle gone in just a few minutes.
Grace basically had it made. She could see Lizzie every day or any time she wanted. The one who really got jealous was Ruby. When Jack would go out to feed Lizzie, Ruby would do whatever it took get between them. Now that Lizzie is eating bread and apples, Ruby will try and head butt her out of the way and she will fight for that bottle. She is acting like a spoiled little brat who wants all of her daddy’s attention.
Because Lizzie has never seen another deer and grown up around the goats, she thinks she is a goat. It’s the only life she has ever known.
