I haven't given an update on Chip in awhile, so I thought I'd fill you in. Here are his growth stats:

Birth: 8 lbs.

1 Week: 12.5 lbs.

2 Weeks: 16 lbs.

3 Weeks: 17 lbs.

4 Weeks: 20.5 lbs.

5 Weeks 25.5 lbs.

To help you make sense of this, we like our babies to gain approximately 1/2 lb. per day -- so about 3.5 lbs. per week. Notice what happened between Weeks 2 and 3? I had noticed that Honey, Chip's Momma kept kicking him off when he tried to nurse, so I was expecting a low weigh-in that day. I decided to supplement him with some bottle feedings, but despite my attempts using 3 different nipples, he would not take the bottle. What were we going to do?

We'd been keeping him and his Momma in the small field in the yard so that we could keep an eye on him and enjoy watching him more. But, grass is limited there and his Honey was hogging all the hay. It seemed that his only chance of survival was to move him in to the big field with the rest of the females of our herd -- that way he would have ample food available to him.

I miss having him up closer to the house and seeing him jump around on that big rock, but he's happy in the back field and his Auntie Nutmeg is keeping a close eye on him. As you can see by his weigh-ins, his weight seems to be right back on track!

Oh, and, yes, at the end of this video they knock me down. It's my own fault. I should know better than to go hang out with all of them when I was so sweaty (we'd been working at the new farm). They thought my arms and legs were salt licks!