The animals have been keeping me both busy and up at night this last week. Jack has gotten a nasty eye infection again. It isn’t as bad as the one he had a couple of years ago thankfully. I’ve been spraying his eye and putting salve around it to keep the drainage from causing a skin infection like he had last time. The infection had just started to form but I caught it early enough and that part is almost completely gone. His eye is still red and irritated but it too is getting better.
Bobie Jo never gained any weight after calving this year and started to go down hill. She continued to lose weight even though I was feeding her more and more. Last Thursday she only ate about half of her grain and Friday she didn’t eat anything. Definitely not like her. I started reading on the Internet and placed a call into the Vet. From my reading is sounded like Ketosis and when the Vet called me back he confirmed that her symptoms fit. I bought a jug of Propylene Glycol and a drench kit on the way home. 25 ml every six hours starting Friday night. She didn’t eat her grain Friday or Saturday but by Sunday she was starting to get her appetite back. This morning (Monday) she was back to her old self eating like a horse. Now maybe I can get some sleep. She is still not out of the woods yet but now that she is eating again and the calf is off her she should start gaining weight. Thankfully she never stopped eating hay or drinking. We tried to tube her Saturday to make sure she was staying hydrated but that wasn’t a successful process. I got the tube in a couple of times but wasn’t confident enough that I wasn’t in the lungs so we stopped and decided to just watch her to see if she was indeed still drinking. Thankfully she went over to the trough and stuck her head in. She didn’t drink as much as I would have liked but it was enough to keep me from sticking that tube back down her throat.
Weekend before last we were able to finish laying the grass on one side of the yard. I still have a lot of prep work before we can do the other side. It’s looking good so far especially with the flowerbeds Lisa put in this summer.
