Our little buckling didn’t make it.  Let me backtrack. I think I told you that the kids came earlier than we expected. This doe came to us bred and due ‘sometime in February’.  Since we know does don’t normally come into heat the second the buck gets to the farm we figured mid-month at least. When we went out to feed Thursday morning there they were.

It was 12 degrees that morning and the babies were cold and wet. One of the doeling’s little ears was frosty at the tip already. We dried them off and they looked good. We set up the heat lamp and in the morning (Friday) the little doe was under it. The buck was off in the dark. We got him up but he was lethargic and wobbly so we brought him into the house. It was touch and go til the afternoon. We had been drenching him with electrolytes and he would just barely swallow. Then by afternoon he started to get up and wag his tail and wanted food so we switched to milk again and he was all over that.

We put him back in with mama and he looked like he was holding his own initially. Two hrs later he was down again so we scooped him up and brought him inside. This time he never really roused. I talked to the girls and explained that he wasn’t holding his body temp and that usually was a sign it wasn’t going to end well. Alannah wanted him in with us anyway. She said she was going to cry no matter what and that at least he would die with people who cared.  He did.

I set the clock and got up to drench him in the night. He was still swallowing at 230. At 6 I heard a raspy breath and had a bad feeling.  It was his last.

These things do happen.  We have been really lucky judging by the stories from our breeder friends. I just never did do very well with death, especially when it involves little critters. From the time I was little myself it always gave me that sick feeling inside to see baby birds fallen from the nest. My mother was indulgent and supported me when I fed an injured baby chipmunk for a full week when I was Moira’s age. She let me bring home a bum lamb and a bale of straw and bottle feed him on our basement one spring. Did I mention she was indulgent? <g>  (that one did make it!) That instinct lives on.  We try. And we have to let go when it isn’t meant to be. Still it’s sad.