Happy Birthday, Pop / Introducing Mattie

First and foremost...

Happy Birthday to my Papa in Poland!!!!!
I love you, I love you, I love you!!!


Next...

So what is this animal?

Is it a kangaroo?

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 Her head sure does look like one, right?

But nope, not a kangaroo.

Is it a llama?

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She's got that long neck and big ears like a llama,

but not a llama.

Is it a moose?

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It was obvious, wasn't it.  

She is indeed a moose calf.

Her name is Matilda, named by the Idaho Fish and Game officer's daughter.   We mostly call her Mattie.

This is right when she got here:

She was found under the deck of someone that lives in the mountain valley near us.  She is possibly a twin who was abandoned by her mother, which happens quite often with animals (the cows do it all the time and one of our goats abandoned 2 of her 4).  Mattie was abandoned for at least 4 days when the IFG officer called us to ask if we had any goat milk (he was the same officer that we reported the goat-eating bear to).  We didn't have any goat milk, but we had cow milk; our milk cow, Cookie, had just had her calf that morning.

Asking us for goat milk later turned into asking us if we would like to take care of her.
Heck yes!  What a cool opportunity.

The IFG officer liked the idea of her being here because of our location; we are next to a creek where a lot of wildlife naturally roam.  He is hoping for a "soft release" where she would just wander off into nature when she is a little bigger.  He also liked that we could put her with non-humans: the goats.  It's funny because she does like to be with them, and follows them around a bit.

It has been almost 2 weeks now since Mattie came.  She has grown so much.  She drinks about a gallon of milk a day right now.  Thank goodness Cookie gives us about 3-5 gallons per day, even with her calf (his name is Captain) on her.  

Here is Mattie today (and Cookie and Zoe and me):

We took her out of her pen for this picture and she really didn't like being out.  She got really nervous and edgy.  It will be interesting to see what happens with her.  She was about 30 pounds when she came, at a little less than a week old, and she could get to be 300-400 by the fall.  It is crazy how fast animals grow up.  We think children grow fast.  I mean, they do, but not in comparison to animals.

We'll see what happens.