ACF Maddie - Miniature Toggenburg Doe

Weighing less than two pounds at birth, ACF Blue Mocha Madison's life is one of those you can call a miracle. She was born in March of 2007 along with two bucklings as the first freshening of our original miniature Toggenburg doe, HM Kari. She was the runt to her two five pounds brothers and needed extra care to get started. Too weak to stand to nurse, we resorted to tube feeding the first two days. Her mother was content as we were to keep her with the bucklings and was devoted to her, but she just seemed to have a hard time pulling together the strength she needed to nurse on her own. By the end of the second day, however, she was doing just fine. As this was a case of triplets with a first time doe, we almost hesitated keeping her on mom, but she was a determined little kid and got her fill at the udder.

Maddie never gained the stature of her brothers, but favors the Nigerian in her. At the county fair, she was shown in the 4H miniature dairy goat class and took first place. She repeated this the following year and moved up into two different championship classes.

During the fall of 2008, she was bred to the Nigerian buck we favored for this year, Ben. She surprised us with twins a few days sooner than expected. You can read our post about that experience here as well. We joke that she's a young mom and turns her kids over to her mother, Kari, to tend during the day. But in all actuality, she's doing a great job as a first time mom.