Brown: Hard to be a heifer sometimes

When life gives you goat milk…bake a cake with it.

link Audra Brown

And make delicious cheese, and a homemade, vacuum-operated, goat-milking device.

That’s what a certain kid (of the non-goat variety) did and I’ll tell you what, it was pretty tasty. The kid now has one, blue-eyed, well-horned, king-of-the-haybale, fluffy, wool-endowed buck goat and one blue-eyed doe with a very impressive beard. The female is the newest member of the kid’s menagerie and seems to be fitting in quite well. I believe that the new goat is even aware that it is, in fact, a goat. Perhaps, with the goat population increased to two, the other goat will get a better grasp on his species identity. I believe he knows he is a goat, but is unclear as to what that means.

Some animals have much more serious identity issues.

There once was a baby Holstein heifer who was saved and nursed to health from a premature birth and is now four-feet tall and has increased in mass approximately twenty-fold and is now an 800-pound puppy. Having far outgrown the backyard she grew up in, it was time to send her off to meet others of her own kind.

They were not dogs, much to her surprise.

Her only previous encounters with such cows were chasing them out of the yard with the other dogs. Her best friend was a cat who thought it was a cow, and her roommate was a goat who just thought he was better than everyone else. Being trapped in a corral with other heifers of like age was apparently uncomfortable to the point of great amusement for those who got to observe.

The heifer took a page out of the Vulcan-Chihuahua’s book and refused to look at the other heifers or in any way acknowledge their existence. She followed her mother (a human) around until that was not an option. One of her new roomies was not so shy, though, and decided to say hello. This new friend moved towards the heifer’s rear (she was still not looking) and as she approached, the heifer-who-doesn’t-know-it started walking away. It was as comical as it sounds as she continued to increase her pace gradually (and without looking) until she was actually running away to avoid socialization.

It works out and friends get made, but it’s hard to be a heifer if your sisters are all dogs.

Audra Brown likes that goat cheese. Contact her at: [email protected].