No kidding: N.S. farmer seeks knitted coats to keep her baby goats warm

Nova Scotia winters can be cruel, especially for newborn animals that arrive before the warmth of spring.

That's why a farmer near Mahone Bay, N.S., is helping her baby goats endure the chilly temperatures by outfitting themin tiny, knitted coats.

Heather Squires, who runs Sweetwood Farm, is asking people to donateknitted and crochetedgoat coats for the roughly 20-40 newborns she's expecting in the coming weeks.

Don't know how to make a sweater fit for a kid? Just check out the many goat-specific patterns available online, said Squires.

"They basically cover their torso and ... there's little openings for their front legs but generally not in the back legs so that they have space to pee and not actually pee on their sweaters or their coats," she said with a chuckle.

The dairyfarm usually welcomes a new cohort of goatsin April or May, but last fall somemale goats made a break for it. They jumped the fence and now about 15 femalesare nearing their due dates.

MothergoatPangaea was the first towelcometriplets earlier this week.

As adults, Toggenburg dairy goats are well suited tothe Nova Scotia winters thanks to their long flowing hair, but it can be very chilly for newborns, said Squires.

"Baby goats when they're first born, of course, they don't really have any sort of fat reserves, so they have a very short period of time to absorb their mother's colostrum," she said.

Squires said the babies'sdad was born on another farm, andlost the tips of his earsdue to frostbite.

"Aside from losing the tips of your ears,they absolutely could not survive in fact for loss of body temperature," she said.

Thankfully, she had three sweaters on hand to keep the triplets toasty.

Knitted nests

Squires isn't the only one who relies oncozy creations to keep her animals warm.

Murdo Messer, co-founder ofthe CobequidWildlife Rehabilitation Centre, uses hand-knitted nests for the baby birds, squirrels,chipmunks and groundhogs that arrive each spring.

"Most of them don't have their eyes open yet, so it's just probably something that feels sheltered, protected and warm," he said, adding that they usually put a heated disk under the nests for optimal coziness.

Messer said there's a dedicated group of knitters who keep the centre well stocked.

It's a good thing, too. The centre is usuallyoverrun with baby animals every spring.

"It's quite hectic because they'relittle things that need to be fed, and they're being fed from dawn to dusk so it can keep us quite busy if we get a lot in," he said.

Squires said the mothergoat doesn't seem put off by her kids's new style.

"The scent is probably the most important thing for a mother goat with respect to its babies so the fact that there's a sweater on the baby is a bit irrelevant," she said.

She isn't worried about the newborns getting tangled in the fabric. In fact, Squires said the sweatersare safer thanrelying on a heat lamp that canpotentially tip over in the hay and cause a fire.

Sweaters can be dropped off at SweetwoodFarm or at the Halifax Forum Farmers' Market.

Squires plans to holdan open house soon so people can see the goats strut around in their handiwork.

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