Nothing says spring like baby animals

The Cynthiana-Harrison County Public Library’s “Kiss a Kid, Love a Lamb” event was the place to be last Thursday morning. Paul Colson brought a trailer full of baby goats and lambs and boxes of chicks and ducklings for children to experience. Colson brought the menagerie to the library free of charge.

The children’s room was crowded. Staff member Anthony Taylor tried to keep up with the number, tallying each child and adult on a dry erase board as they entered. Dozens swarmed the room at almost any given moment.

Near the door, there were always three or four children bent over a tub of chicks and ducklings.

Four kids--the goat kind, not the human kind--and three lambs were penned in the center of the room.

A wall of kids--the human kind, not the goat kind--crowded in to pet them and bottle feed them.

Colson said all of the kids and lambs he brought are bottle babies; most were twins rejected by their mothers. He used to have to feed them every couple of hours. Now they are down to three feedings a day.

The oldest baby goat was only six weeks old. The youngest animal was a tiny mottled lamb that got tuckered out and lay down by the end of the visit.

When the last child had been shooed out and it was time to clean up, Taylor looked at the wet, soiled tarp with dismay and wondered it he needed gloves.

Laughing, Colson responded, “If anything with an animal would kill you, I wouldn’t be almost 70 years old.”

He then recalled that doctors suspect the fungus that attacked his eyes three years ago came from cow manure.

The fungus blinded him for six weeks then moved on to attack his spine. Colson said his doctors think his bout with COVID weakened his immune system. He spent a year recovering in St. Joseph Hospital in Lexington.

While he was down, folks stepped in and took care of his farm.

Offering free petting zoos is Colson’s way of giving back to the community.

Though watching children enjoying his animals is nice, he said his most memorable visit was to Cedar Ridge Health Campus. He enjoyed watching the residents’ reactions; so many of them grew up with animals.