Say hello to Captain Tuttle! As you can tell from his small stature, Tuttle is very young, approximately 4 months old. Zoology’s oldest resident is Toogie followed closely by our alpaca, Petal who is a whopping 21 years old. This make Tuttle our youngest resident by a long shot.
Many of our herd animals are decidedly on the older side so not only do we help manage their health conditions but we also need to be aware of our bonded pairs. One such pair are Hawkeye and Klinger, our Nigerian Dwarf goats who have been at Zoology for four years. They just haven’t been able to fit in with our other herd groups despite all efforts. Klinger has a myriad of health problems, one of them terminal. We have had many conversations about where best to try and assimilate Hawkeye when he loses life-long friend, Klinger. No scenarios we thought of seemed to really be a good answer for Hawkeye. This is where Tuttle comes in. We first heard about Tuttle from a former staff member that works at The Buddy Center in Castle Rock. They had taken Tuttle in as he had been found wandering a neighborhood with no apparent owner. The former staff member reached out asking what breed we thought Tuttle was (Nigerian dwarf) but not thinking we would want to take him on. This is when we started realizing that maybe, just maybe Tuttle could become friends with Hawkeye and Klinger and form a new little herd.
With time on our side as Klinger’s health remains steady, we’ve been able to introduce and integrate Tuttle with wonderful results! While he was initially very scared, after slow and careful introductions with Hawkeye and Klinger, the three are now bonded and living together full-time. To our happy surprise, Hawkeye in particular really likes his new brother. Klinger is less thrilled but Tuttle knows his place and everyone is quite peaceful. It is helpful that Tuttle is quite small and does not challenge Klinger in the least. It is quite common for the larger, older goats to push around the smaller newbies but Tuttle is unfazed and knows just where not to be. The three not only graze together but also sleep together in their stall at night. We could not be happier with the new little triad and feel that Tuttle will be just what Hawkeye needs in the future!
