Yesterday Petal gave birth to her first baby, a baby doeling. It was a quick, easy birthing which we were both very grateful for! I heard Petal yell twice over the baby monitor we had set up, and by the time I got out to the barn - less than 2 minutes later, the baby was half born! The tiny dark shape slid out the rest of the way a second later, and Petal was on to mothering in a heartbeat. As is common with San Clemente Island goats, the mothering instincts were strong - almost too strong! Petal tried to lay down to pass the afterbirth several times, but her baby's fussing kept her jumping back to her feet for the first hour and a half without a break.
When our newest girl first arrived, she looked quite dark in color. We had expected this since both her parents, Borrowed Homestead Petal and Unity College Saffron, are both very dark goats for SCIs. Imagine my surprise then, when she finally dried off and turned out to be the palest goat we have on the homestead! Her buckskin coloring is more of a classic SCI look, but with minimal black markings.
This upset out naming plans. Traditionally, a goat's full name includes the farm it was born at, plus the individual name. Usually, in order to keep years clear, there is some sort of theme to the names. Unity College, for instance, always gives the babies a name that starts with the same letter as the mother and each line has it's own theme including spices, old-fashioned names, etc. Other programs use astrological signs or mythological figures in their naming.
We wanted to stick with the "plant" theme that almost all our goats had come with. We thought we would choose a different type of plant each year, to differentiate birth years. This year, just as a fun start, we thought we would choose carnivorous plants. Our planned name if Petal had a doe was "Sundew" since she was likely to be born with reddish coloring (based on her parents).
Only, that name just didn't fit this little girl at all. So after a night's sleep, some thought and a quick Google search, we did a quick change up.
"Caramel" you see, is not only a delicious sweet enjoyed very much by The Husband here at Saffron and Honey, but also a variety of Coral Bells. Coral Bells are a plant hearty in a wide variety of zones, easy to care for and coming in a bunch of colors and sizes - just like our San Clemente Island goats! Plus, the varieties have some pretty cool names for the rest of our expected babies!
It's a perfect match.
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