CAUTION! DO NOT STICK FINGERS INTO PEN! BOTTLE PIRANHAS, I mean, BOTTLE BABY GOATS! Once again it’s that time of the year to warn all visitors and customers to not stick their hands, faces, elbows into the bottle baby pens. Like a snake that draws its prey to it by its stare, the bottle baby can draw people to it by their cuteness.

Their big, beautiful, begging eyes, their joyful jumping up and down on their hind legs, their cries of, “There you are! We love you! Do you have a bottle?” Hypnotizes people and draws them against their will. You just want to hug that cute friendly baby goat. Give it a good patting. Tell it what a beautiful baby it is.

When suddenly, out of no where, they latch onto your finger or hands and Crunch! Worse yet is the happy words of, “Look, he’s sucking on my finger. Him’s so cute. OUCH!” And, that’s the men. Women are worse. “Oh, you gorgeous little thing. Look, she’s got half my blouse tail in her mouth. How adorable. Here, honey, let’s get that out of your mouth. Oh No! Look at all the huge holes in my blouse!” Ah yes, someone else learns about bottle babies back teeth. Jaws and teeth strong enough to crack corn. They can do a number on your fingers and clothes.

That’s why you see me walking around the farm with big holes in the bottom of my shirts and band-aids on my fingers. Even I, an experienced Piranha handler, I mean, bottle baby handler gets caught, think of the poor innocent bystander who gets caught up in the cuteness of the bottle baby.

I’ll never forget that time when grandparents, who may be the worse for falling for the bottle baby’s charms, came to visit and sat their two year old grandson in the middle of the bottle baby pen. My jaws were flapping in shocked silence as I thought, “Oh no! They just fed their grandson to my bottle babies!”

I swooped in to save him, convincing the grandparents to get the two year old boy out, and they thought I had lost it. Fortunately, the bottle babies were so surprised by this miniature person, that they just surrounded him and sniffed his hair, not sure where to take the first bite.

I don’t know how many times I have taken cardboard and a black magic marker and tied warnings up and turned around to make another only to discover the first sign had totally disappeared. Not a shred of cardboard in the pen, nowhere. The hay strings were mangled and chewed up and still wet, but no warning sign. Once in a while a few pieces of cardboard are lying in the pen, but usually nothing is there. Erie. The bottle babies just look at me with pleased expressions on their cute little faces. Seeing my expression melt, they start crying for their bottle. They know a soft touch.

Oh, yes, and try tying those warning signs up or feeders or giving them a fresh water bucket or their favorite hay. You feel like you’ve just gone through a bottle baby buzz saw, and thankful you lived to tell about it.

Man! But, you can’t blame them. Those bottle baby are depending upon humans for their survival. No wonder they work their wiles on you, looking so sweet and cute. I’ve had people, after feeding a bottle baby two weeks, ask me when they could wean it! Come on. Man up! Take care of that cute little Piranha, I mean bottle baby. It needs you, depends on you and your fingers and shirt tails and anything else that comes close enough to be gnawed on. Poor little babies.

Seriously, they do grow out of the Piranha stage and become sweet friendly goats. Now, let’s see, where did I put all my cardboard warning signs? They were right here. Oh, my goodness. Did you babies eat those? Don’t look at me with those big adorable eyes. Yes, him’s a cute little thing. OWWWW!