It was the best of births, it was the worst of births.
Around here, Sunday mornings have a pattern. I go to church, enjoy the peace and quiet, have a little spiritual reflection, and then drive home to Sunday dinner and relax for the rest of the day, maybe even tap a nap. Usually!
This particular Sunday I get home to discover the barn has gone completely feral. I’ve learned that my animals will save their most dramatic nonsense for the one time I leave the property. And for maximum effect? They wait until I’m wearing my nice clothes.
Alice was five years old, which in goat years is old enough to know better but young enough to still cause trouble. She was one of those “I run this place” personalities—sturdy, opinionated, and deeply convinced she was management, not mere staff. Abigail, her three-year-old daughter, was also an experienced mom but much more the “just get the job done” type. The two of them had managed to get themselves pregnant at the same time, which I’m sure was less of a coincidence and more of a family conspiracy.
If they’d been human, I imagine they would’ve sat side by side on the porch in mismatched lawn chairs, sipping sweet tea, and fanning themselves. Then they'd be comparing belly sizes, swapping pregnancy cravings, and making subtle jabs about whose ankles were more swollen. But goats don’t bother with such small talk. They just keep eating everything that isn’t nailed down—and some things that are—while pretending the rest of the herd is beneath them.
Now, when goats are close to birthing, we put them in “jugs”—private pens where they can deliver without the rest of the herd tromping over the newborns in a quest for the most desirable hay flake. In the pasture, they’d find a quiet spot to get down to the business of kidding, but still within shouting distance of the others. A jug is basically the barn’s version of a maternity ward, except with more hay in your hair and less hand sanitizer.
I had the jugs ready—fresh straw, clean water, everything looking like the goat equivalent of a birthing suite. But since neither was due for another five days, I figured we were fine. Plenty of time. Foolish, foolish me.
That Sunday morning, I checked them before leaving for church. No signs. No pawing the straw. No goo. No looking uncomfortable. Just two smug, pregnant goats chewing cud and giving me their usual look of mild contempt. “You girls behave,” I said as I headed to the truck.
Those were my famous last words.
A couple of hours later, I turned into the driveway, thinking about lunch and how nice it had been to spend a few hours without mud, hay, or animal hair clinging to me. That’s when I heard it.
The first scream hit me before the barn even came into view.
If you’ve never heard a goat scream in crisis, let me describe it for you: it’s like a toddler in full meltdown mode, a dying bagpipe, and a crime scene siren had a love child. It’s the kind of sound that makes you think, something terrible is happening, and I am 100% going to have to get involved.
I slammed the brakes, gravel flying, and just sat there for a second thinking, Please let this be something small. Please let this be “I can’t reach the hay.” But no. The second scream confirmed it: this was major.
I ditched all thoughts of keeping my church clothes clean and marched straight to the barn. By the time I flung open the doors, I was braced for anything.
And “anything” is exactly what I got.
Two brand-new goat kids—one still slick and steaming, the other slightly more dry and already on its feet. One was parked next to Abigail, the other was tucked under Alice, who looked smug enough to be posing for the cover of Mother of the Year Monthly.
At first glance, I thought, “Well, isn’t that tidy—they each had one kid.” Which was adorable of me. But logic doesn’t live here.
Nope. Upon further inspection I realized both kids were Abigail’s. What happened was simple: Abigail delivered her first kid, and while she was busy working on the second, Alice—full of hormones for her own impending delivery, and apparently running a black-market adoption service—snatched the first one and claimed it as her own.
She stood over him like a medieval queen guarding her heir, glaring at me with an expression that clearly said, “Touch him and you die.”
The baby, still slightly wet, blinked up at her like, “Eh, you smell like a mom. Close enough.” Never mind that Alice had no milk yet. She was running entirely on maternal delusion and adrenaline.
Meanwhile, Abigail had popped out her second kid and was spinning in circles, clearly thinking, “I swear I had two. Did I miscount? I know I can count to two. . .”
I grabbed the stolen kid—who bleated in protest at being taken from his “mother”—and plopped him in the jug with Abigail and his sticky sister. Abigail gave me the goat equivalent of a high-five: a single, exhausted glare that said, “Finally. Human to the rescue!”
And me? I was now decorated in birth goo, bits of hay, and the smell of barn drama, right down to my shoes.
Alice was furious.
For three days, she paced the barn screaming like she was auditioning for a barnyard opera. She called for her “missing” baby at all hours, shooting me the kind of look that could curdle milk. I half expected her to file a kidnapping report with the barn cats as witnesses.
Then, right on schedule, she had twins of her own and instantly forgot about the whole thing, because apparently goat memory is about as long as a soap bubble’s lifespan.
And me? I threw my church clothes straight into the washer, muttered a few things under my breath that probably weren’t very holy, and reminded myself that some folks get Sunday dinner. I get Sunday goat custody battles.
