Valentine times four: N. Stonington family celebrates with Nubian goat quadruplets

North Stonington - Valentino and his three sisters haven't yet ventured beyond the wooden shed with heat lamps, hay bale and ready access to their floppy-eared mother and her milk, but thanks to their owners, the Caswell family, the world outside is starting to know about them.

Born just before 7:30 a.m. Sunday - Valentine's Day - the quadruplets haven't even glimpsed their barrel-chested billy goat father, Kirby, who commands a piece of snow-covered ground that adjoins the back of the kids' shed.

For now, they're content to spend their days hopping around the shed, suckling a bit, curling up in interlocking foursomes, taking a few cleaning licks from their mother, Bouquet, or just "Bo," and indulging the people who stop by to marvel.

"We were expecting she'd have two or three," Marc Caswell, who was the first to see the quadruplets Sunday, said Tuesday as his son Hunter scooped up one of the kids for a warm, soft cuddle.

Caswell called several local farmers to ask if they'd ever heard of a nanny goat giving birth to quadruplets, and no one had.

But quadruplet births aren't really all that rare, either, for goats of the Nubian breed like Bo or any other, said Penny Albert, spokeswoman for the American Dairy Goat Association. Still, such events don't happen very often in this part of Connecticut, so Caswell has been eager to share his unusual barnyard news.

The Caswell family moved to the 4-acre property in 2008, and soon after began turning it into a small farm, with laying hens, a dozen or so lion's mane rabbits, Bo and Kirby and future plans for a beef cow and maybe horses.

Caswell said he originally got Kirby as a kind of heavy-duty weed whacker, and the curly horned, bearded billy soon cleared away a hillside choked with briars and brambles.

Next they bought Bo, and, with fond memories of the baby goats he had as a boy, Caswell decided to breed the two. Five months later, Bo gave birth.

So far, Bo's been able to provide enough milk for all four, but the Caswells are ready with bottles if they need to supplement. The family will probably keep one or two of the kids, and try to find good homes for the others, Caswell said.

"We had to help them with the first feeding," he said, explaining that the newborn kids at first had trouble latching on.

"But after that, she's been taking care of them herself. She's a really good mother."