Baby season comes to farms on Long Island

Despite the unseasonably warm winter morphing quietly into spring, the start of the new season still brings pleasant surprises. At farms across Long Island, it's the awe-inspiring first sight of new life.

At the Animal Farm and Petting Zoo in Manorville, a baby emu, born less than two months ago, was the first at the farm to be hatched by its own parents rather than in an incubator, said assistant director John Albach.

The chick hatched from under the warmth of its father's feathers, standing at about 6 inches tall when it emerged. The hatchling has doubled in size and is under the constant watch of its protective parents, who are each about 6 feet tall.

In Hampton Bays, at the Wildlife Rescue Center of the Hamptons, the staff is rehabilitating a baby eastern gray squirrel, which was just a week old and 13 grams when he was brought in.

Executive director Virginia Frati said he was bruised and scratched and may have been picked up and dropped by a hawk. He is being fed a special formula and is slowly gaining weight.

He is kept with other baby squirrels, "like brothers and sisters," and Frati hopes to release him on the grounds of the rescue center in two months.

At a hobby farm on the North Shore, 30 fainting goats -- so named because they tense up and fall over when startled -- have been born since late February, and some are just starting to faint.

Hal Goodale, who has about 60 baby goats on his dairy farm, said the best part is the excitement and attention the babies generate. The goat pen is visible from the road, so people who drive by wander in to see the animals.

"It's a lot of work," he said. "But it's an exciting time when new life is coming in."

Once spring hits, he finds new kids all the time.

"We had a whole big bunch born on St. Patty's Day," he said. "And then it's just been constant."