MATHEWS — Carrying four plastic baby bottles in the crook of her arm, Sharon Slaughter waits for the morning rush she knows is coming.
It's feeding time at the 2-acre Sunward Farmette in Blakes, time for the daily ritual of four week-old purebred Nubian dairy goats rushing to Slaughter and her 13-year-old son, David, for breakfast.
Topaz, a 5-year-old doe who gave birth to the four, watches her offspring as they make a beeline for the humans.
Although most breeds of goats rarely give birth to four at a time, quadruplets are not rare for the Nubians - just unusual, according to Andrew Stewart of the American Dairy Goat Association. Litters of up to six Nubians are not unheard of.
Yet Nature supplies only two teats for the mother. Slaughter gets milk from Topaz and puts it into bottles to ensure that each kid gets its share.
"A greedy kid is a healthy kid, but it's fairer this way," Slaughter said.
A greedy kid in a litter of this size would probably be taking milk away from one of its siblings, she noted.
Mother goats also sometimes reject one to two members of such a large litter, Slaughter said, adding that hand-feeding also helps the goats become friendlier to their owners.
The Slaughters keep three purebred adult Nubians, two does and a buck. They began raising dairy goats three years ago, in Chesapeake.
Zoning restrictions in Chesapeake kept the 41-year-old Slaughter from going ahead with her plans to raise her own kids with goat kids, hence the move here, she said.
"I grew up on a farm in West Virginia," said Slaughter. She wants her three children to grow up with an appriciation for nature and agricultural things.
Nubians are originally from the Orient. They're larger than most goat breeds and have floppy, bell-shaped ears instead of most goats' perky trianglular ears. The bridges of Nubians' noses bulge up instead of curving down like most goats'.
Their hair is short, fine and glossy and Nubians are known for high-quality, high-butter fat milk.
As she sat on a wooden bench in the center of the goat pasture feeding two of the kids, Slaughter told of how she'd planned to avoid having so much work.
Charmer, the family's other doe, gave birth to twins a day after Topaz had her litter. When the two does came into season last fall, Slaughter purposely bred them weeks apart.
"I planned it so they wouldn't kid at the same time, but nature didn't cooperate."